Marketing these days can feel like a madhouse. Texting, messaging, posting, video-ing, Tik-Toking, emailing…the list goes on and on. And as your number of channels increases, so does your chance of malfunction and risk. That’s why when it comes to your email marketing program, you need to make sure you pay attention to your sender score. And we’re here to help.
Read on to make sure you understand how to check your sender score reputation and network rating, recognize things you may accidentally be doing to lower it, and know which steps you can take to improve it today.
What Is a Sender Score?
Your sender score is a simple but critical metric for evaluating your overall reputation as an email sender. This score influences how mailbox providers view your emails as well as whether they send them to recipients’ inboxes or spam folders. The sender score algorithm comes from Return Path, and is a free service. You receive a rating between zero (the lowest) and 100 (the highest).
Your score depends on a number of metrics that relate to your performance as a sender and how your recipients respond to your communications, including:
- Spam complaints
- Presence on industry blacklists
- Number of unknown users that you send emails to
- How frequently people unsubscribe
- Accepted rate (of attempted emails)
- Rejected rate
- IP reputation
- Domain reputation
- Infrastructure
- Spam trap hits
- Sending volume
- And more
It’s important to note that not all mailbox providers use a sender score, but most do. Additionally, those that don’t use this score will typically use similar strategies and metrics to decide what to do with your emails. These often include your IP reputation, the number of emails that usually go to the spam folder, and your email deliverability.
Why Is Your Sender Score Important?
Your sender score helps determine whether your emails will end up in a spam folder or in customers’ inboxes–where you want them. As we mentioned, mail servers typically check your IP addresses, IP reputation, and sender score when choosing what to do with the emails you send to any given customer. The lower your score, the lower your chances of showing up in your customer’s inbox. According to Return Path, when an email isn’t delivered to any given inbox, 83% of the time it’s because of poor sender reputation.
Basically, if you want your customers to see the well-crafted, gorgeous marketing emails you take so much time to make and send, you need to be on top of your sender score.
How to Check Your Sender Score in Three Steps
The process of checking your sender score is straightforward. You don’t have to complete a separate sender score test as the database already has a sender score for everyone. Instead, you just have to go to the relevant website and fill in your information. Best of all, this is a free tool so you don’t have to budget to see your reputation scores.
Step 1: Visit the Website
Start by heading to SenderScore.org. There are many options here that can help you assess your current email program, find the right tools to improve, and learn things like if your contacts are legitimate or whether you’re blacklisted.
Step 2: Select “Let’s Go!”
Once on the website, enter your domain name or IP address in the entry area below “What’s your Sender Score?” and click “Let’s go!”
Step 3: Enter the Required Information
This next step requires some basic contact information. The form asks for your:
- Work email address
- Monthly email send volume
- Country
Step 4: Get Your Score
Select “What’s my score?” at the bottom of the form, and you’ll see your sender score test results in a matter of minutes. You can even see detailed information about your sender reputation and email deliverability.
What Should I Do If I Have a Bad Sender Score?
Don’t worry if you have a bad sender score–you can easily improve it. The score uses a 30-day rolling average so that you can improve your score relatively quickly with a few steps.
But first, what is a bad score? An excellent sender score that doesn’t need improvement is typically above 80. If your score is higher than 70 but less than 80, you might need to make some minor changes. If your score is lower than this, you’ll need to put in more effort to fix your sender score.
Remember that your reputation and sender score go hand-in-hand, and your reputation affects your email marketing and business text messaging efforts.
You should start by looking at the following list of mistakes that can affect your sender reputation and resolve any that apply to you.
Eight Common Mistakes That Hurt Your Sender Score & Reputation
The following are some of the most common mistakes that lead to a lower email sender score. The good news is that many of them are very easy to resolve, helping you boost your sender reputation fast. As we cover the following potential mistakes, we’ll also explain how email senders can correct these issues and increase their reputation scores.
Sending Emails or Texts Too Frequently
Sending emails or text messages too frequently can be a rookie mistake. Simply put, to get the best score, try to stick to a schedule of emailing once per month, once per week, or any other interval. The key here is to be consistent. Luckily, eCommerce marketing automation programs can automate this, so you can send emails and texts at consistent intervals.
Inconsistent Volumes of Emails or Texts
While the frequency of your emails or texts is one concern, your volume consistency is another. Your sender reputation will be better if you maintain a consistent email volume day-to-day. Essentially, you don’t want to send thousands of emails on Monday then just hundreds the next day and no others until the following week. This type of pattern lowers sender scores.
Instead, plan your emails and texts so you send a similar number every day.
Ignoring Opt-Out Rules
Consent and opt-ins are crucial for both email marketing and SMS marketing. If you ignore them, you can face legal issues and drop your sender score.
Remember that under the CAN-SPAM Act, you need to give your customers a method of opting out or unsubscribing. This method must work and be easy for them to use for you to be compliant and maintain a good sender reputation.
Using Purchased Lists
It can be hard to generate your own lists of leads, but you shouldn’t resort to using purchased lists for either email or SMS marketing. Doing so can hurt your sender score. Purchasing lists of addresses means that the recipients haven’t been given the option to opt-in, violating spam and privacy laws. The emails also may not be valid for email lists, leading to issues with hard bounces. You are also more likely to get spam complaints if you use purchased lists.
Instead, put in the work and build your lists with help from our SMS marketing guide.
Frequency
- do send a consistent number of messages each time
- don’t send emails or texts too frequently
- do follow opt-in and opt-out rules
- don’t use purchased lists
- do check hard bounces
- don’t send poor-quality content
- do warm up your IP address
- don’t accidentally get blacklisted
Sending Poor Quality Content
The content that you send can also influence your email sender score. This comes down to the fact that poor quality increases the chances that recipients will complain about your emails or texts and call them spam. Learn about identifying fake text messages, then make sure you don’t trigger any red flags that indicate fake texts or emails as this can also get you flagged by spam filters or lead to complaints.
Not Checking Hard Bounces
When you send an email list, you want to check your hard bounce list. This is when you send emails to addresses that are no longer valid. A single hard bounce is not an issue, but you can create problems if you don’t update your email list and remove them.
That’s because mailbox providers that notice a dead email address consistently getting emails may turn those addresses into spam traps. When they do that, you won’t get a hard bounce notice; instead, you will be reported as a spammer if you send emails to that address. This is why you must check for invalid email addresses.
The solution to this is as simple as monitoring bounces and then taking them off your list.
Your IP Address Isn’t Warm
You may not realize it, but you need to warm up your IP address before starting email marketing. Luckily, this is easy to do correctly. Just start with a smaller email list and slowly expand it over time. For the best results, ensure that your initial small email or text list won’t unsubscribe or label you as spam.
Accidentally Getting Blacklisted
One of the many factors that go into your sender reputation is whether you’re on a blocklist. If you are a legitimate company, then go ahead and confirm that you’re not on a blocklist. If you are on one, go to the website of the blocklist to figure out why and address the problem. Most blacklists will tell you exactly why you were blocked and how to correct it. Just make their suggested changes to your email campaigns to boost your email reputation.
How to Improve Your Sender Score: 3 Tips
Now that you know what not to do, let’s chat about what will help you get to the next level.
Authenticate Your Domain.
Sending communications from a credible, authenticated domain will help your customers see you as a trustworthy authority, and it will help their inboxes see you that way too. People often don’t notice when an email is sent from a credible source, but they do notice the flag when it’s not (especially if they’re using SPF authentication). You should do everything you can to make sure your email messages, (gmail or otherwise), receive validation and are never mistaken for fraud or phishing.
Clean Your Email Lists Regularly.
Make sure you keep your email lists updated and clean, maintaining currency. As a part of this, as we mentioned, never buy contacts. Doing so makes you break privacy and spam laws and hurts your reputation as a business. (Also, most customers hate hearing from companies whose email lists they haven’t opted into.)
Use Double Opt-In Confirmation.
Double insurance? Yes please. Using double opt-in ensures that subscribers really want your emails and goes a long way in increasing the chances that they’ll engage with your communications and decreasing the chances that they’ll unsubscribe.
Take Your Reputation to the Next Level
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