How to use IP Reputation for great Email Deliverability
You might be wondering what is IP Reputation at all. Well, IP reputation is a score that measures the trustworthiness of an IP address. Primarily, it is calculated based on its behavior. That is, email-sending patterns, bounce rates, and whether or not its emails have been marked as spam.
Organizations such as internet service providers, reputation services, and security vendors collect specific data and analyze it, to calculate an IP address’ reputation. This will be used by several security tools (like email filters and firewalls) to identify emails that can be potentially harmful or, at least, unwanted by the addressee.
In some ways, IP reputation functions as a credit score. The higher it is, the more likely it is that email service providers (or ESPs, like Google or Yahoo!) will consider that delivering a certain email will be safer for its recipient and, by extension, for its own reputation.
Therefore, a lower IP reputation tends to hinder your email deliverability. Email service providers may determine that your emails need additional scrutiny or, if your IP reputation is really low, to be blocked, without further inquiry.
By contrast, a higher IP reputation usually implies that your emails will pass through the security tools and reach your customers’ inboxes instead of their spam folders. Since your emails must be seen when leading an email campaign or communicating with your customers, IP reputation is crucial for a wide range of email users.
In brief: IP reputation indicates to email service providers if, according to its previous and present activities, an IP addresses potentially malicious traffic, or not. Having a good IP reputation improves your deliverability rate overall. A negative IP reputation, however, elevates your bounce rate, hinders communication with your customer, and can even result in your IP address being blacklisted.
IP reputation blacklist
An IP blacklist is an index of those IP addresses that have been found to send malicious and unwanted content, mainly spam and potentially harmful emails (like phishing attempts). In their crusade against malicious emailing, ESPs reject automatically messages sent from blacklisted IP addresses. At best, they redirect them to spam folders, instead of to a user’s inbox.
Being on a blacklist may cause your delivery rates to plummet since your emails won’t be reaching their destination. Also, in time, it will further damage your reputation as a sender. This might cause that, even after being removed from a blacklist, it will be difficult to achieve a good IP reputation and get your emails delivered.
But IP addresses don’t randomly enter such lists. If you happen to end up on a blacklist, it will probably mean that:
- Your bounce rate is as high as a kite and has been so for a long long time. That can be (and probably is) caused by emailing non-existing or invalid addresses. Trimming my contact lists regularly helped me to avoid it, once upon a time.
- Addresses frequently mark your emails as spam. In other words, unsolicited. Creating engaging content, and always giving the option to unsubscribe from a contact list are useful strategies to prevent this. Verifying your recipients is also a crucial step.
- Your system has been compromised, aka, Houston, we have a problem. It’s unfair, but, sometimes, your IP address can end up on a blacklist as a consequence of being hacked. Being associated with known spam sources can also lead to blacklisting.
You have been cast on a blacklist? The first step is to identify why you are on the list. Then, you will be able to take corrective measures, like improving your system’s security or cleansing your contact list. Once those issues are solved, you may request your removal from a blacklist… Though only if the blacklist provider offers that resource.
What are the things that impact IP Reputation?
I was wondering why my emails weren’t reaching their recipients when I came across IP reputation. That concept helped me not only to understand the logic behind email deliverance but also to upgrade my mailing strategies.
Specifically, knowing which factors are taken into account when calculating IP reputation provided me with guidelines about what are ESPs (not) looking for on an IP address that uses emails as a professional and marketing tool.
So, what are the things you should consider when monitoring your IP reputation? Let’s see:
- Spam complaints: Early on, I noticed that if recipients marked my emails as spam, my IP reputation took a hit. This is like getting negative reviews; it tells email providers that people don’t want to receive my messages.
- Bounce rates: As seen above, rocketman bounce rates, where emails are sent to invalid addresses, signal to providers that I’m not maintaining a clean email list. This is terrible news for my reputation for it indicates the content I’m sending is neither valuable nor useful.
- Engagement: Low engagement rates (few opens, clicks, and replies) suggest my emails might need to be more relevant or exciting to my audience. Otherwise, there is a chance that, eventually, they will end up being marked as spam.
- Volume consistency: Sudden spikes in the number of emails I send can look suspicious, as an indicator of harmful content or spam. Gradual increases are safer and less likely to alarm email providers.
Blacklist status: If my IP ends up on a blacklist because of spammy behavior, it’s like being flagged for lousy credit – tough to recover from. Not impossible, though, as seen in the previous section.
How is IP reputation calculated?
Unfortunately, the algorithms used by reputation services tend to be proprietary and vary between services. Nonetheless, to calculate IP reputation it is common to use all the factors listed above, plus the IP age and track record, as well as the authentication protocols it uses and if its emails hit spam traps.
So, shortly, IP reputation equals to the sum of:
- Complaint rate. The number of recipients that mark your emails as spam.
- Bounce rate. The number of emails that are returned as undeliverable.
- Engagement metrics. How the addresses interact with your emails.
- Sending volume. The volume of emails sent within a certain period.
- Spam trap hits. Whether the emails from an IP reach addresses set up to catch spammers.
- Blacklist status. That is, the IP is listed on a blacklist.
- IP age and history. How long has that IP been sending emails, and its email pattern.
- Authentication Protocols. Whether that IP implements protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prove its legitimacy.
The sum of these factors will give a score between 0 and 100. In most reputation providers IPs with a bad reputation tend to achieve a score of 0-49. IPs with a “normal” reputation will have a score of 50-79. Therefore, your aim should be to achieve a reputation score of 80-100.
Finding your IP reputation in 3, 2, 1
After discovering what IP reputation was, I set off on a quest to discover what my own IP reputation was. “Quest” because finding how to do it proved to be somewhat tricky, though the procedure itself is not.
To discover your IP reputation the first step is identifying which IP addresses send emails on your behalf. In order to do it, check out the record of your Sender Policy Framework. You will find IPs both from your email provider and mailing platforms if you use one.
The second step is analyzing all of your addresses with an IP reputation tool. For more accurate results, choose one that uses real-time data. Some options are Microsoft SNDS, Sender Score, Google Postmaster, and MX Toolbox.
Once the IP reputation tool runs the analysis, you shall receive information about your mailing stats. That is data about your bounce and complaint rate, engagement metrics and other factors. You will also get an IP reputation score for each address, which will rank them as either good, with room for improvement or bad.
How I improved my IP reputation
Once you know your IP reputation and identify what causes it to be bad, good or enhanceable, you can take measures to either improve or maintain it. Here are some simple, actionable steps I take to boost my IP reputation and ensure my emails land in inboxes:
- Clean my email list. Regularly updating and validating my email list to remove invalid addresses has reduced bounce rates and shown email providers that I’m sending to real people. Double opt-in processes helped me to make sure my receipts were willing to receive my emails, avoiding high complaint rates.
- Create engaging content. High engagement rates (opens, clicks) have improved my reputation. Consequently, I’ve focused on making my emails relevant and valuable to my audience. To achieve this, some of the strategies I implement are:some text
- Personalization. I added some personal touches to each email, that spoke to each recipient at a personal level. For example, including their names on the salutation. A strategy I also use is optimizing email content according to their preferences. Audience segmentation is crucial to this for it helps me address specific needs and interests my addresses have.
- Interactive elements. For example, surveys, questions, call to action, and polls. This makes the content more dynamic and enjoyable, optimizing the user experience, and making it more likely that they will open your future emails. Besides, it serves you to collect data about your customer’s interests and needs.
- Valuable content. To maintain and increase the engagement rates, I constantly try to ensure that the content of my emails is valuable to my audience. That does not only encompass information they might find useful, but also discounts, and entertaining stories.
- Gradual scaling. Avoiding sudden spikes in email volume and gradually increasing the number of emails I send over time has helped build trust with email providers. The trick that did it for me was committing to a regular mailing schedule. First, I sent emails monthly. After a few months, I changed to a weekly basis, without having my IP reputation suffer for it.
- Act on complaints and bounces. Nowadays, I use tools like Sender Score and Abstract APIs to keep track of which addresses are invalid or do not want to receive my emails. This enables me to keep a clean contact list of active (or soon-to-be reactivated) customers, positively affecting my IP reputation.
- Monitor your metrics. It has been crucial to monitor bounce rates, spam complaints, and engagement rates. I use these insights to refine my strategies and maintain a high sender reputation. A/B testing it’s also a useful means to optimize my mailing campaigns and make sure my metrics will help me sustain an acceptable IP score. Specially, regarding engagement and spam complaints.
- Authentication protocoles. Implementing authentication protocols, such as DMARC, SPF, and DKIM helps to protect your IP address, assuring your contacts that your emails are legit. While DMARC helps avoid phishing and spoofing cases, DKIM includes a digital signature that ensures the email's authenticity. Finally, SPF verifies the server where the email is sent from is authorized.
Email verification & clean lists
Looking back, the most crucial step I took to improve my IP reputation was keeping a functional contact list. After all, engagement, complaint, and bounce rates are determined by it.
I started using an email verification tool to maintain a clean email list. These tools help ensure I’m sending emails to valid addresses, reducing bounce rates and improving deliverability.
Specifically, Abstract API’s Email Validation tool offers real-time email verification, making keeping my list clean and my reputation intact easier. It also helped me prevent getting caught in fraudulent mailing, enhancing my IP address security.
Furthermore, Abstract has generous free plans so you can make sure it’s the right API for you, and your mailing campaigns, before subscribing.
Don’t let the time go by. Implementing these strategies and using the right tools has significantly improved my email deliverability. Let's ensure our emails land where they should—in the inbox, ready to be opened and engaged with.
