Mind Your Reputation

Sender score (SS) or sender reputation is basically a badge of quality for your email campaigns that covers the campaign’s scope, the audience, and how you interact with users. Based on the sender score, your emails will or will not reach the readers. If your score is low — think of yourself as part of a “black list”, your letters will not get into the desired inboxes. Every mail server IP address has a sender score on a scale from 0 to 100.

Why you should care

Audience reach. As we have mentioned, the sender score affects your reach with the audience. The email services, such as Gmail and Outlook for example, really take SS into consideration. With these providers, SS is based on such parameters as authentication, open rate, the number of emails that went straight to the trash bin, and the number of false email addresses in the database.

Fraud filter. Sender score allows to filter out spam and fraud mail. Low SS shows that people do not trust this sender, and it is better to be cautious. For example, this is the fate of marketers who run branded campaigns when they have no ties with the actual brand, this simply looks suspicious.

Indicates campaign performance. A high sender score means that your emails are attention-grabbing and engaging, hence your ad campaign is successful.

What affects your sender score

How often and how much you send emails

Sending letters in moderation is especially important for newly registered accounts that have a low SS by default (guilty until proven innocent, you see).

Spam mail

This one is pretty obvious — if users think that your emails belong in the spam folder, then your sender reputation will be pretty low. This is a nightmare for any email marketer, and the solution lies in a balanced combination of a good product, a catchy headline, and quality copy.

False email addresses

If you use a database that you did not collect personally or at least buy from a trustworthy source — there is a pretty good chance that you have several emails (called spam traps or honeypots) that were designed to catch marketers who use third-party databases without checking them first. Such emails will get you on a black list.

User interaction

When your letters are opened and read through or if you have many clicks — this is good for your reputation, because your content looks valuable and useful. On the contrary, a letter that went straight to the trash bin or spam folder signals low SS.

Measure your sender score

To assess your sender score and keep it in check, you can use such tools as Mail-Tester or SenderScore. You will need to provide your IP address and some contact information to get the results.

You will receive a summary of data over 30 days with an evaluation of your IP’s trustworthiness from email providers. The reports look somewhat like this. If your total is above 80 — all is good, keep up the good work. If not, scroll further to discover the ways to fix your sender reputation.

How to fix your sender score

1. Carry out an audit of your email database. Delete all invalid addresses, identify spam traps and get rid of them.
2. Monitor the audience’s reaction to your email campaigns. If your letters do not perform well, you will score much higher in spam and bounce rate which, as you know now, drastically harms your sender score and jeopardizes your future campaigns.
3. Choose more DOI offers over SOI. A two-step subscription is loved by brands and advertisers in addition to keeping your sender reputation squeaky clean.
4. Give new IPs time to warm up, don’t start big-scale email campaigns with a fresh IP address. At first, your IP still has a low sender score, because the email providers don’t know whether they can trust you.
5. Work on your subject lines and copy to boost the open rate. Make sure to split-test and find the best options before launching a full-fledged campaign.
6. Invest in relatable and personalized content. Enhance the quality of your copy to make it more attention-grabbing and convincing, also use dynamic tags such as {username} or {location} to give your mails a personal touch.

Conclusion

If you drive email traffic and have not heard about sender score until today — go check your reputation with freely available evaluation tools. Because a low sender score may be the reason for your otherwise well-built campaign’s underwhelming performance. So, mind your reputation and your campaigns will soar.