Tools to Monitor Your Email Sender Reputation Score

Marketers love using email to connect with people because it's popular and usually gets delivered without a hitch. But, there's a catch—how well your emails get delivered depends a lot on your sender's reputation. If it's low, your emails might end up in the spam folder.

So, if email is a primary channel to reach out to customers, it's important to keep an eye on your deliverability rate. If it's dropping or if you want to keep it high, you need to know how to check your email sender reputation.

Let's get started!

Why does email sender reputation matter?

Your email sender reputation plays a crucial role in determining whether your emails will reach the recipients' inboxes. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) rely on this reputation to filter out spam and malicious content.

A high reputation increases the chances of your emails being delivered successfully, whereas a low reputation may cause your emails to be blocked or redirected to the spam folder.

Email reputation aka sender reputation is a credit score that ISP assigns to you based on these metrics:

• Email frequency

• Email sent everyday

• Bounce rate

• Complaint rate

• User engagement

• Blocklists

To learn more about these metrics, read our blog.

Tools to check your email sender reputation score

You can't directly find out your sender reputation score, but you can use third-party tools to check and improve it. Using these tools together can help you maintain and boost your sender reputation.

Other than these tools, there are some tips that you can utilize to check your email sender reputation.

1. Use Email Verification Tools

Several online tools can help you assess your email sender reputation. Here are some of the most popular ones:

1. Sender Score by Validity: This tool provides a score ranging from 0 to 100, reflecting your email sender reputation. A higher score signifies a stronger reputation.

2. MXToolbox: This tool offers various checks, including blacklist status, SMTP diagnostics, and more.

3. Talos Intelligence by Cisco: Provides detailed information about the sender's IP and domain reputation.

Advantus: Manage all your notifications in one place

2. Check blacklists

Blacklists contain IP addresses and domains known for sending spam. Your email deliverability may suffer if you are listed. You can check your status on several major blacklists:

1. Spamhaus: A leading authority in anti-spam and cybersecurity, it checks if your IP or domain is listed in their databases.

2. Barracuda Reputation Block List: The Barracuda Reputation System helps you with both IP address and domain reputation. It identifies IP addresses that are known for sending spam.

3. SORBS: Lists compromised or problematic IP addresses.

3. Check SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Records

Authentication protocols help verify the legitimacy of your emails. Ensure your domain has the following records configured:

1. SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Confirms that your email comes from an authorized server.

2. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Ensures the email's content hasn't been altered during transit.

3. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): Provides instructions on handling emails failing SPF and DKIM checks.

You can use tools like MXToolbox to check your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.

Tips to Maintain a Good Email sender Reputation

You can use the above tools to check your email sender reputation score. But, to maintain this score, follow these tips:

• Send Relevant and Engaging Content: Ensure your emails are valuable and relevant to your recipients to reduce the chances of them being marked as spam.

• Maintain a Clean Email List: Regularly update and clean your email list to remove inactive or invalid addresses.

• Monitor Bounce Rates: High bounce rates can harm your reputation. Monitor and address any issues causing email bounces.

• Respect Unsubscribe Requests: Make it easy for recipients to unsubscribe and quickly honour their requests. Providing a simple and clear unsubscribe option shows respect for your audience and helps maintain a good reputation.

• Authenticate Your Emails: Use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve your email’s legitimacy and deliverability. Authentication helps ISPs verify that your emails are from a trusted source.

• Monitor Feedback Loops: Use feedback loop services from ISPs to monitor complaints and take corrective actions. This allows you to address issues promptly and maintain a positive sender reputation.

• Control Email Frequency: Don't overwhelm your recipients with too many emails. Find a balance that keeps your audience engaged without being intrusive.

• Respect Users' Time Zones: Schedule your emails to be sent at appropriate times for different time zones. Your emails are more likely to be opened and read if you do this.

• Personalise Your Emails: Use personalisation techniques to make your emails more relevant to each recipient. Personalised emails are more likely to be opened and engaged with, which can improve your sender reputation.

• Segment Your Email List: Segment your email list according to user demographics, interests, or behaviour. This raises engagement and lowers spam complaints by enabling you to send each group more pertinent and customised information.

Track email essential metrics with Advnatus

Your email sender reputation should always be high and well-maintained. With the right tools and tips, you can achieve that. However, if you’re having trouble managing your email campaigns, give Advnatus a try.

With Advnatus, you can effortlessly track crucial email metrics and get a clear view of how your campaigns are performing. Take advantage of features like segmentation to target specific groups, automation to streamline your processes, and personalization to make your messages stand out. By optimizing these elements, you can enhance engagement, improve results, and maintain a top-notch sender reputation.

Book a demo with Advantus, today!