Latest / The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Newsletters, Open Rates, and Subscriber Growth / How Sender Reputation Impacts Email Deliverability
Transcript
- Lucas: So here's something that keeps a lot of email marketers up at night: you craft the perfect subject line, you segment your list like a pro, you hit send — and your open rate tanks. Not because your content was bad, but because your sender reputation took a hit. Luna: Sender reputation — it's that invisible score mailbox providers assign to every domain and IP sending email. And it can make or break a campaign. Lucas: Exactly. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo — they all maintain internal reputations for senders. And if your reputation is poor, your emails either land in spam or get blocked entirely. It's not about what you say; it's about who you are in their eyes. Luna: So how is that reputation calculated? Is it purely based on spam complaints? Lucas: Spam complaints are a big part, but it's more nuanced. Providers look at bounce rates, engagement rates — how many people open, delete without reading, or mark as spam. Also, how many recipients have ever interacted with your emails before. Even the volume of emails you send plays a role. Luna: Right, so a sudden spike in volume from a new IP can be a red flag. Lucas: Exactly. Let me give you a concrete example. A mid-sized ecommerce brand I worked with — let's call them 'ShopBright' — they bought a list of 50,000 contacts from a third party. They thought it would boost their holiday sales. Within a week, their open rate dropped from 22 percent to 7 percent. Luna: Ouch. And that's because those recipients never opted in, so they marked the emails as spam? Luna: Forty-five days of lost revenue and damaged trust. That's the real cost of ignoring sender reputation. Lucas: And it's not just about buying lists. Even organic lists can degrade reputation if you don't manage them properly. For example, if you haven't emailed your subscribers in six months and then blast them with a promo, many will mark it as spam or just delete it — and that hurts your reputation. Luna: So what can marketers do proactively? Besides the obvious — don't buy lists. Lucas: First, use authentication protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These verify that your emails are actually from you and not spoofed. Without them, you're already starting with a lower reputation. Luna: And those are relatively easy to set up through your ESP or domain provider. Lucas: Right. Second, monitor your reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools or Microsoft SNDS. They give you data on spam rates, domain reputation, and IP reputation. If you see a spike in spam complaints, you can act fast. Luna: What about warming up a new IP? I've heard that's crucial. Lucas: Absolutely. If you get a new dedicated IP, you can't just send 100,000 emails on day one. You need to gradually increase volume — start with 500 a day, then 1,000, then 2,000 — while monitoring engagement. It signals to providers that you're a legitimate sender. Luna: And this is something we practice ourselves here at Fexingo. Speaking of which — if these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own work, we'd love for you to support what we do. We deliberately keep this show ad-free because we believe that's the right way to do it. Lucas: Yeah, we think the value should speak for itself. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep the conversation going. Luna: Exactly. So back to reputation — one thing that's often overlooked is the impact of list decay. People change jobs, abandon email addresses. If you don't regularly clean your list, you're sending to dead addresses, which increases bounces and hurts reputation. Lucas: That's a great point. Industry averages suggest lists decay by about 22.5 percent per year. So if you have a 100,000-person list and don't clean it for a year, 22,000 addresses are likely invalid. That's a lot of bounces. Luna: And each bounce — especially hard bounces — sends a signal to providers that you're not a good sender. Lucas: Exactly. So best practice is to remove hard bounces immediately and set up a sunset policy for subscribers who haven't engaged in 6 to 12 months. You can try a re-engagement campaign first, but if they don't click, let them go. Luna: I've also heard that sending frequency consistency matters. If you send daily and then stop for a month, it can hurt reputation. Lucas: Yes, inconsistency can be problematic. Providers like to see a predictable pattern. If you suddenly drop off, they may assume you've been compromised or that your list has gone stale. So try to maintain a consistent cadence — even if it's just a monthly newsletter. Luna: Let's circle back to authentication. How important is DMARC specifically? Lucas: DMARC is critical for domain reputation. It tells providers what to do if an email fails SPF or DKIM — whether to quarantine it or reject it. Without DMARC, spoofers can send emails that look like they're from you, which destroys your reputation. Setting it to p=quarantine or p=reject is the gold standard. Luna: And that's something you can implement gradually by starting with p=none and monitoring reports. Lucas: Exactly. One more thing: even if your reputation is good, you should regularly check your deliverability. Use tools like Mail-Tester or GlockApps to see if your emails are landing in spam. It's a quick sanity check. Luna: So to sum up: sender reputation is built on authentication, list hygiene, engagement, and consistent sending. Ignoring any of those can tank your open rates. Lucas: And it's not a one-time fix. It's an ongoing practice. But the payoff is that your emails actually reach the inbox, which is the whole point. Luna: I think the key takeaway is that reputation is earned, not bought. And it takes time to build and seconds to destroy. Lucas: Well said. Next episode, I want to talk about something related: how to recover from a reputation hit. Spoiler — it involves a lot of patience and a very clean list.