Do

Understand how your ESP calculates your deliverability rate as the measurement differs among ESPs.

Do

Know that reputation is the key to deliverability.

Do

Monitor your reputation closely.

Do

Monitor feedback loops at Sender Score, MxToolBox.com, and Spamhaus.

Do

Monitor your partners’ reputations.

Do

Remember that any unwanted message is considered spam, even if the recipients opted-in to the list so sending relevant emails will protect your reputation.

Don’t

Use a shared IP address.

Do

Use a dedicated IP address and unique domain alias.

Do

If sending more than 100,000 email messages, use a pool of dedicated IP addresses.

Do

Realize that your reputation is not dependent on each individual message – ISPs look at your entire sending history.

Do

Recognize that your reputation is completely in your control.

Do

Understand that each ISP has a different threshold it must reach before blocking messages – the threshold is determined by monitoring the reputation factors over a period of time.

Do

Know what ISPs look at when determining the sender’s reputation: user complaints; length of time the domain has been operating; volume and size of messages, numbers of bounces, invalid addresses, and emails sent to spam traps; mail server settings; third-party reputation lists including blacklists, blocklists, and accreditation services; and the configuration of emails including heading, links, images, content, authentication, etc.

Do

Know that ISPs look at the email envelopes, which contain the message’s header and the sender’s IP address, host name of sender’s IP address, envelope header From or Return Path address, and reply-to and From addresses.

Do

Know that ISPs also look at the body of the messages, which contain the email text, images, and links to external web sites in either plain text or HTML format.

Do

Keep spam complaints low by sending relevant messages at the right time and by always including an easy opt-out mechanism.

Do

Employ good list management and hygiene techniques.

Do

Honor unsubscribes immediately.

Do

Manage bounces correctly.

Do

Follow list acquisition best practices.

Do

Properly brand your messages.

Do

Configure servers properly.

Do

Set up DNS records correctly.

Do

Use an MTA that allows you to tweak sending rates.

Do

Adhere to the rules set by ISPs as well as your ESP.

Do

Maintain infrastructure isolation and transparency.

Do

Include a friendly reminder in the pre-header or footer.

Do

Authenticate your email messages as it validates your identity and protects your brand, reputation, and deliverability while providing your recipients with a higher level of trust and security.

Do

Check out the DMA’s Email Authentication Help Center and Authentication Checklist.

Do

Check out the ESPC’s free Sender ID testing tool.

Do

Understand how the three different authentication tools work and implement all three.

Do

Know that SPF is an IP-based authentication tool that allows domain name owners to publish which IP addresses are allowed to send email from their domain – it cross-checks the sender’s IP address against the domain name in the From address in the message envelope to validate.

Do

Know that SIDF is another IP-based authentication tool that is similar to SPF, only it validates the identity of the sender by cross-checking the sender’s IP address against the Purported Responsible Address (PRA), which is the visible From address.

Do

Know that DKIM is a cryptographic authentication tool that requires senders to store public keys in their DNS records while providing matching private keys in their outbound email servers so ISPs can match up the keys to confirm the sender’s identity.

Do

Use an accreditation service as an extra line of precaution to protect your identity through third-party verification of your good sending habits.

Don’t

Think you can simply gain accreditation to fix deliverability or reputation issues as you must have a good reputation to begin with and you must maintain a nearly flawless record in order to preserve your status.

Do

Know what the requirements are for accreditation: permission-based list acquisition strategy; published authentication records; complaint levels lower than industry standards; established, high-standing reputation; well-maintained infrastructure, incorporated list maintenance and bounce management; strong security networks; and unsubscribe mechanisms available on all email messages.

Do

Understand that accredited emails bypass some ISP filters and are more likely to be delivered to your recipients’ inboxes.

Do

Check out Return Path’s Sender Score Certified to gain accreditation.

Do

Certify your company as you’ll have tokenized proof of your good reputation.

Do

Know what the qualifications are for certification: proof that you follow email marketing best practices; proof that you only send permission-based emails and not prospecting or unsolicited messages; very low complaint rates; private domain name; established opt-out and privacy policies, at least one year of business history and six months’ history using a private IP address; and company headquartered in United States, United Kingdom, or Canada.

Do

Check out Goodmail’s Certified Email program.

Do

Understand that the recipient is still in control and may choose to have certified emails delivered with images turned off even though most ISPs will automatically deliver certified messages to the inbox with images on.

Do

Ask Listrak’s deliverability experts to analyze your sending procedures and help you implement reputation and deliverability best practices.