Why is my email sender score low and what can I do about it?

Email marketer from EmailGeeks forum EmailPro responds that a sudden increase in sending volume can negatively impact sender score, especially if you're not gradually warming up your IP address. They advise gradually increasing volume over time.

Email marketer from Mailchimp explains that factors influencing your sender score include sending volume, bounce rates, complaint rates, spam trap hits, and authentication practices. They advise monitoring these metrics to identify areas for improvement.

Email marketer from Customer.io explains that consistent sending habits and predictable sending volume can improve sender score. They advise sending emails on a regular schedule and avoiding sudden spikes in volume.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum user JaneDoe123 shares that a sudden drop in sender score could indicate a spike in spam complaints or a sudden increase in bounces. They advise checking recent campaign performance and investigating any unusual activity.

Email marketer from Reddit user u/EmailNoob responds that sender score can fluctuate due to various factors, including temporary spam complaints or changes in sending volume. They recommend not panicking over minor fluctuations but focusing on consistent best practices.

Email marketer from SendGrid responds that high engagement rates (opens, clicks) positively impact sender score, while low engagement or spam complaints negatively impact it. They advise focusing on building a highly engaged subscriber base.

Email marketer from Litmus answers that email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is essential for improving sender reputation. They recommend implementing these protocols to verify your identity and prevent spoofing.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that Sender Score tracks complaints, spam traps, rejected rate, filtered rate, and unknown users. He also mentions there is a bug with their metrics where “messages filtered” and “messages rejected” are flipped. He suggests opening a ticket with Validity to verify if one of those two metrics is showing you above their thresholds, and suggests asking Marketo if they have the underlying data first as it would helpful.

Email marketer from Validity shares that improving sender reputation involves consistently sending valuable content, maintaining a clean email list, authenticating your email, and monitoring your sending practices. They emphasize the importance of engagement and avoiding spam-like behavior.

Email marketer from HubSpot explains that regularly cleaning your email list by removing inactive or invalid email addresses can improve sender score. They advise using email validation tools and implementing a sunset policy for inactive subscribers.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that cable mailbox providers may be causing the issue. He notes that one of the SenderScore categories is content filtering, so the content filters used by cable MBPs drives that and that blocking there can spike the "Sender Rejected" category in SenderScore.

Email marketer from GlockApps shares that monitoring sender reputation involves tracking IP and domain reputation, bounce rates, spam complaints, and placement in different inboxes (Gmail tabs, etc.). They suggest using tools like GlockApps to automate this monitoring.

Expert from Email Geeks points out high bounce rates to optonline.net and indicates a block. To investigate further, she suggests getting the bounce logs directly from Marketo to understand the rejection reasons.

Expert from Spamresource explains that sender reputation can be impacted by several metrics including complaint rates, spam trap hits, authentication issues and infrastructure problems. They suggest monitoring these metrics to find the cause of a low sender score and implementing changes.

Expert from Spamresource shares that utilizing feedback loops (FBLs) to manage complaints is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation. They explain that FBLs allow you to identify and remove subscribers who are marking your emails as spam, which can lower your complaint rate and improve your sender score.

Expert from Word to the Wise responds that to maintain email list hygiene, you should ensure that people are removed from the list as soon as they are no longer engaging.

Expert from Email Geeks advises to ignore Sender Score as it's not a useful metric and to look at actual delivery stats instead. She explains the page is a tool for Validity to sell their services and designed to make people panic, adding that the volume change probably corresponds with the score change, so it's likely artificial.

Expert from Email Geeks agrees with Tom and says that she no longer uses senderscore for anything as it's not a useful metric. Anything that fluctuates so wildly without any actual real world implication is, at best, a vanity metric.

Expert from Word to the Wise shares that list hygiene is extremely important, and ensuring you are only emailing people who want to receive the email is key, while also that people should be removed as soon as they are no longer engaging.

Documentation from Spamhaus answers that being listed on their blocklists (like the SBL) negatively affects sender score and deliverability. They share that to avoid listing, adhere to best practices, obtain explicit consent from subscribers, and promptly process unsubscribe requests.

Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools shares that IP reputation affects deliverability to Gmail users. A low reputation can lead to emails being marked as spam. Google advises reviewing their guidelines and best practices for bulk email senders to improve reputation.

Documentation from Microsoft explains that sender reputation is based on factors like complaint rates, spam trap hits, and sending infrastructure. Microsoft recommends using their Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) to monitor IP reputation and troubleshoot deliverability issues.