Sender Reputation

1. Definition and Importance of Sender Reputation‍

Sender reputation is a critical factor used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email services to determine if your emails should reach the inbox or be directed to the spam folder. It acts much like a credit score for your email sending practices, reflecting the trustworthiness of your email, domain, and IP address.

2. Levels of Sender Reputation

• Domain Reputation: This is linked to the domain from which the emails are sent. A domain with a history of sending quality, compliant emails builds a good reputation over time.
• IP Reputation: Similar to domain reputation, IP reputation is associated with the specific IP address from which emails are dispatched. Shared IPs can be riskier because your reputation could be influenced by other users’ practices.
• Email Address Reputation: This focuses on the sender's email address itself. Frequent changes in the sender's email or high bounce rates from a specific address can tarnish its reputation.

3. Factors Influencing Sender Reputation

• Email Bounces: Both hard bounces (permanent delivery failures, e.g., due to an invalid email address) and soft bounces (temporary issues, like a full inbox) can affect your reputation. Too many bounces suggest poor list management.
• Spam Complaints: If recipients frequently mark your emails as spam, it significantly harms your sender reputation. Low complaint rates are crucial for maintaining a positive reputation.
• Unsubscribe Rates: High rates may indicate that content is not resonating with your audience or that recipients did not expect to receive your emails, both of which can negatively impact your reputation.

4. Consequences of Poor Sender Reputation

• Deliverability Issues: Poor reputation can lead your emails to be blocked or land in spam folders, drastically reducing their deliverability.
• Recovery Strategies: If your reputation is damaged, reduce sending volume, improve list quality, and gradually rebuild trust by adhering to best sending practices. You can also consider using new domain and email for cold outreach, see below.

5. When to Consider a New Domain and Email for Cold Emailing

‍In certain scenarios, using a separate domain and email address for cold email campaigns is strategic, especially to safeguard the reputation of your main domain. Here’s when you should consider this approach:

• Protecting Main Domain Reputation: Cold emailing can sometimes result in higher bounce rates and spam complaints. To protect the sender reputation of your main domain, it’s advisable to use a new domain for cold outreach efforts.
• High-Volume Campaigns: If you're planning to run large-scale email campaigns, the volume alone can impact your domain’s reputation. A separate domain helps isolate and manage risks associated with such campaigns.
• Segmentation of Email Types: Using different domains for transactional emails, regular communications, and cold emails can help in better managing the responses and expectations from each type of interaction.

Implementing a New Domain for Cold Emailing

‍Before launching cold email campaigns from a new domain, it's crucial to properly warm it up to build its reputation gradually. AI Piping offers a free warm-up service, which is detailed in our article on email warm-up, to help you effectively prepare your new domain and email address for successful outreach. This warm-up process ensures that your emails are more likely to be delivered successfully and reduces the risk of being marked as spam.

For AI Piping clients, understanding and managing sender reputation is crucial. By focusing on each level of sender reputation and employing robust management and monitoring practices, you can ensure higher deliverability and more effective email campaigns.