Five Key Strategies to Build a Reliable Email Reputation

What determines whether your emails will be read? There’s one key factor that’s important to consider — email reputation. You should get to know all about it before your next email campaign because it can affect deliverability as well as cybersecurity.

We’ll explore what email reputation is and how you can build it into your operation so your emails manage to end up where you want them to go and not be rejected. Let’s dig into what email reputation is. 

What do We Mean by Email Reputation?

When an email you’ve sent makes its way to a recipient, it has an important gate to get past — the spam filter. What determines whether the email will get safely through to the desired inbox rather than being diverted from its intended route? 

Well, in truth, there are several factors. One of them could be a filter rule put deliberately in place so that a recipient doesn’t, for instance, get bombarded by Derrick’s Donuts every time the business wants them to try a brand new flavor (but they’re on a diet, thanks very much). 

Aside from such filters, email servers must make many decisions about the numerous messages that come in constantly due to cybersecurity concerns and usefulness issues. 

To help improve security, these filters look at the email reputation attached to the sender and use it to determine their decision regarding the fate of that email. 

So, if you’re engaged in sending out emails and you (understandably) want high engagement, you’d better see to it that your email reputation is pretty impressive. But how do you do this? Let’s find out.

Key strategies to build a reliable email reputation 

Email reputation consists of a number of factors. By attending to each, your email reputation will benefit. 

1. Sender authentication

How does an email server decide if an email truly comes from the claimed sender? In a world of burgeoning cybersecurity threats such as phishing scams and ransomware attacks, it’s increasingly important that we’re sure of the source of anything coming our way. 

Sender authentication usually consists of three email metadata varieties:

1. SPF, which stands for Sender Policy Framework, permits the incoming server to determine that an email comes from an authorized source, i.e., a specified IP.
2. DKIM, or Domain Keys Identified Mail, is a procedure that utilizes digital signatures to confirm that no interference happened to the email in transit. 
3. DMARC — Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance — is a set of instructions to tell receiver servers what to do with the email if SPF and DKIM don’t check out. 

It’s possible to figure out how these credentials are coming across by running system checks. For instance, you can use an SPF checker to make sure that the information in your Sender Policy Framework is correct and appropriate to your IP. 

Similarly, a DKIM checker can be used to assess the validity of the digital signature on the emails you’re sending out.  

2. Domain and IP reputations

When an email comes in, the receiving server looks to see what kinds of emails have come from the relevant IP and registered domain in the past. 

How does it do this? It uses a database containing a large amount of information about a list of domains and IP addresses. This information includes the quantity of spam sent from these sources, as well as other key metrics, such as bounce rates, open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates, and security issues. 

If a domain or IP is associated with questionable performance in these areas, then the email stands a high chance of getting filtered out. 

Just like audit trails that tell you all you need to know about a company’s activities and, therefore, its character, these key metric databases will provide a good idea of what we can expect from a given IP or domain.

You can check your domain and IP reputation by using tools such as Mailmeteor or Spamhaus (The latter is a particularly useful non-profit resource that works to improve the usability of the internet). 

3. Complaint Level

If an IP has a high complaint rate, it indicates to a receiving server that recipients tend not to trust its emails. It’s like when you’re looking to buy a product but are unsure about its build quality because you’ve had little or no first-party experience with it. What do you do? You turn to online reviews. 

The thing with these is that the bad reviews are often more influential on your decision to buy (or, more appropriately, not) than the good ones. If others have had bad experiences with a product or service, then you can’t help but put yourself in their shoes and react accordingly. 

It’s just the same with servers looking at complaint levels. If there are lots of negative complaints, it makes sense to downgrade the object of that criticism. 

List Hygiene

As always, you can do something about this. One key determinant of complaints is the number of unsolicited emails sent. If an individual hasn’t signed up for certain emails and is receiving way too many of them, they’re probably going to react negatively to this. 

So, pre-empt this eventuality by checking your contact list to ensure it’s made up of people who have actively bought into what you’re offering. 

You can go further than this by reaching out to inactive subscribers to check that they still want to receive your emails. This has the dual effect of showing your concern for their email happiness, as well as sometimes prompting a re-engagement. 

By carrying out such practices, you can improve your list hygiene, which will result in a drop in complaints. 

You should also assess whatever unsubscribe routine you have in place so that people who want to exit can do so themselves with the minimum amount of fuss. This also lets you check that the system responds quickly.

4. Think about the Filters

Spam filters look out for certain telltale indicators when deciding what qualifies as spam. By bearing these indicators in mind, you can reduce the likelihood of your email getting picked out in this fashion. 

Of course, spam can take many forms, but there are one or two characteristics that can suggest that what we have in front of us is spam. These include too much capitalization, too many images, misleading subject lines, and, perhaps most intriguingly, spam words. 

What are spam words? These are the expressions that are most often used in spam emails. These can include overly solicitous or urgent phrases intended to get the reader to engage immediately. 

There are many spam word examples, including “act now,” “before it’s too late,” and “deal ending soon. " They also include the more innocuous-sounding “Can we have a minute of your time?” and even “call free.” 

You can use a tool such as Mailmeteor to test the language you’re using so that receiving servers are less likely to deny entry to your emails. You can also use agentic AI to remove problematic phrasing. What is agentic AI? This is autonomous artificial intelligence that can deal with complex problem-solving tasks with a degree of independent action. 

At the same time, you can work to improve the overall quality of the content so that spam likelihood declines while usefulness to the reader grows. This will help with complaint levels, too. 

5. Get Personal

Personalization isn’t only hugely popular with recipients. It’s also great for you because it results in higher engagement rates and boosts your email reputation. So, use your customer data to tailor offers and communications to suit their interests. 

As long as you’re not overdoing it (Attentiveness can become a little creepy all too easily.) and acting strictly within the legal framework that governs such activity, you can use personalization highly effectively.

An area that has seen considerable growth in recent years is the use of personalization in subject lines. It’s become quite widespread now, so it’s a little tricky to emerge from the mass of other uses of the reader’s name, all vying for attention. 

But by smartly including a name and subject matter that is interesting to that person, you can stand out from the crowd. An example might be: “Hank, we have new belts to suit those pants you bought.” 

Be aware of the growth of tactics that have led to greater vigilance regarding personalized email. Removing spam words can make a huge difference.

Get that Reputation Shining

So, you have a number of techniques you can use to improve your email reputation, which will consequently benefit your delivery rate. The important things here are twofold. Firstly, a combination of these procedures is used for optimal effect. Secondly, keep returning to the area so that you stay on top of any deterioration before it gets major. 

The latter is very important, as email reputation can change quite quickly if you don’t keep an eye on it. In this way, it’s similar to other kinds of reputation. Sometimes, it’s almost like it has a life of its own. So, stay interested and engaged. That way, your readers will too.