7 Tips to Improve Your Sender Reputation

7 Tips to Improve Your
Sender Reputation
Presenters: Carly Brantz and Paul Kincaid-Smith

Tuesday, April 24, 12

Carly Brantz
carly.brantz@sendgrid.com
@carlybrantz

Paul Kincaid-Smith
paul@sendgrid.com
@cyclingup

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“We will be known forever
by the tracks we leave.”
-American Indian Proverb

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What is Email
Reputation?

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Why Should I Care
About Email Reputation?

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Where Does Reputation Fit In?

How Email Appears to Work

Sender’s Outbox Recipient’s Inbox

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How Email Actually Works

Sender’s Outbox Recipient’s Inbox

The Internet

Recipient’s Mail Server
Sender’s Mail Server (MTA) Anti-Spam Filter
(MTA)

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Sender’s Outbox
Reputation Data

Recipient’s
Inbox

Sender’s Mail Server (MTA)
Feedback
Loop

The Internet
Anti-Spam Filter
Recipient’s Mail Server (MTA)

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How Can I Improve My
Sender Reputation?

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#1: Minimize Complaints

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How do recipients complain?

• Mark the message as spam via email client’s “This is
Spam” button

• Email a complaint to abuse@

• Submit complaints to 3rd party spam detection
systems (e.g. SpamCop, Cloudmark Authority)

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Keep spam complaints low by:
1. Sending the right message
2. To the right person
3. At the right time
4. With the right frequency

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#2. Send Relevant Content

“I have a hundred and seventy-three thousand, six hundred and eighty-two unread emails.
You tell me what I have to live for.”

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Manage Expectations
• Send a welcome message
• Make it easy to unsubscribe
• Make sure your emails are clear and branded
• Use past interaction and sales

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#3: Send at a Consistent Volume

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Don’t mail too much... Or too little

• Warm up your IP -- establish trust
• Use the appropriate mail frequency
• Be consistent
• Erratic sending is a red ﬂag
• Transactional emails must be timely
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#4: Keep Bounce Rates Low

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What is a bounce?
1.Hard Bounce
- Knock knock. Go away, don’t try again.
2.Soft Bounce
- Knock knock. Come back later.

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Bounces affect reputation

• Purchased lists often contain many defunct
addresses. When spammers send to those
lists, bounce rates are high
• If your bounce rates are high, you may be
mistaken for a spammer.

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Bounce guidance
• Red ﬂag if bounces over 10%
• Keep bounces low by:
- Regularly removing bounced addresses from your
list

- Find the right sending cadence

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#5: Stay Off Blacklists

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What is a blacklist?
• Receivers use BLs to identify abusive senders
quickly and cheaply
• IP blacklists -- lists of IPs that spam
• Domain blacklists -- lists of domains found in
spam content

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How do I stay off blacklists?
• Don’t send to purchased lists
• Ensure your recipients want the email you
send them
• Use reputable ESP that provides you with
clean IP addresses
• Don’t get exploited by hackers -- system
security is essential

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What do I do if I get blacklisted?

1. Identify the error that led to complaints or
spam traps
2. Reform your sending practices
3. Petition for delisting

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#6: Avoid Spam Traps

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What is a spam trap?
• An email address that doesn’t send mail but
identiﬁes spammers who send it mail
• Two types of spam traps
1. Pristine
2. Dormant

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How do you avoid spam traps?

• Don’t purchase lists
• Ensure permission via conﬁrmed opt-in
• Segment your list by engagement

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#7: Let An Expert Do The Heavy Lifting For You

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Infrastructure Reflects Your Business

• The way you send tells ISPs a lot about you
• Infrastructure issues are easy to fix
• Home grown systems are susceptible to
problems
• Common problems are around
authentication and server configurations

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Why SendGrid?

We make email delivery simple and easy for developers
everywhere.

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What Our Clients Are Saying
“Marrying the SendGrid Platform with SoftLayer's offering in both Infrastructure as a
Service and Cloud Computing really does give the customers the most robust, turnkey
offering available to the market today.”

“Their account management team is responsive and proactive, providing us with the
space we need to focus on strategic plans, rather than day to day email management.”

“We’re now enjoying email delivery rates of 96% and have saved thousands of dollars
in engineering resources.”

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Key Takeaways

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Learn More

• Upcoming Webinar:
- “Tips and Tricks to Stay Out of the Spam Folder”

• SendGrid’s Deliverability Guide
• SendGrid’s Blog
- www.sendgrid.com/blog

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Questions?

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7 Tips to Improve Your Sender Reputation

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