Domain Reputation: The Cornerstone of Your SaaS Email Deliverability

Email deliverability is critical for the success of your SaaS email marketing efforts. Without it, your emails won’t reach their intended recipients, and you won’t be able to generate leads, nurture customers, and build relationships.

Domain reputation is the cornerstone of your deliverability, as it stays with you even after you change email providers. But managing your domain’s reputation can be an overwhelming, time-consuming task.

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of domain reputation management, and how you can maintain it as your SaaS business grows.

What is email domain reputation?

Email domain reputation refers to the assessment of the credibility and trustworthiness of a particular email domain based on its sending behavior and email practices.

This evaluation is performed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email clients, taking into account various factors such as:

• email volume and frequency;
• complaints and bounce rates;
• the presence of spam or malicious content.

Why email domain reputation matters for SaaS products

A high email domain reputation ensures that emails sent from the SaaS product’s domain are more likely to be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. Improving the company’s ability to effectively communicate and build relationships with its audience.

On the other hand, a low email domain reputation may result in emails being marked as spam or blocked. Leading to reduced deliverability rates and a potential loss of opportunities.

The connection between email platform and email domain reputation

The connection between an email platform and an email domain’s reputation is a close one, as the platform used for sending emails can greatly impact the domain’s reputation.

An email platform is a service or technology used to send and manage email communications. It can range from a simple email client like Gmail or Outlook to a more sophisticated email marketing platform that enables businesses to send bulk emails to their subscribers.

There are a few ways that your email platform can influence your email domain reputation. First, your emails are sent from a specific IP address, which can be associated with your email domain reputation. If your email platform is using an IP address with a bad reputation, this can hurt your email domain reputation.

Secondly, email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can help verify the identity of the sender and establish a positive email domain reputation.

A real case that illustrates the connection between email platform and email domain reputation involves the email platform Mailchimp and its impact on email domain reputation.

One popular email marketing platform, Mailchimp, was used by many businesses and individuals to send newsletters, promotional emails, and other marketing materials. However, if Mailchimp users send too many spammy or unwanted emails, it can negatively affect Mailchimp’s email domain reputation.

In 2019, Mailchimp experienced this issue when some of its users sent marketing emails that were marked as spam or unwanted by recipients. As a result, email providers like Gmail started to block emails sent from Mailchimp’s domain. This meant that emails sent through Mailchimp were more likely to end up in the spam folder, making it harder for legitimate emails to reach their intended recipients.

But Mailchimp didn’t just sit back and watch its reputation suffer. They took action by suspending the accounts of users who violated their anti-spam policy and implementing stricter policies to prevent future violations. The company also worked to improve its domain reputation by using best practices for email deliverability. Such as ensuring that emails were properly authenticated and including clear opt-out links.

So, the lesson here is that the reputation of an email platform can have a big impact on the email domain reputation of its users.

How domain reputation follows you as you migrate from one platform to another

Migrating from one email marketing platform to another is a common situation. However, what many don’t realize is that their domain reputation follows them when they make a move.

Domain reputation is a measure of an email sender’s reputation and reliability. It is based on the sender’s past emailing behavior, which is collected and monitored by email service providers. This data is used to determine whether an email is legitimate and trustworthy. When a sender migrates from one platform to another, they keep authenticating their emails with the same domain. As a result, their domain reputation remains the same, impacting their email deliverability.

In other words, if a sender had a bad domain reputation on their previous platform, the same reputation will follow them to the new platform. This can be a major issue for senders who are trying to “start fresh” on their new email platform.

On the flip side, if a sender has a good domain reputation, it’s inherited as well. This can give them an advantage over their competitors, as their emails will likely have higher deliverability rates.

How to check your email domain reputation

To assess the reputation of your email domain, you have two choices:

• Doing it manually.
• Using online resources.

Let’s focus on the manual route for now.

The most credible option is to subscribe to relevant feedback loops (FBLs). This is the tool that most email service providers and ESPs offer. It tracks spam complaints and customer involvement.

To get started with FBLs, here are the steps you should follow:

• First, identify the email providers that are most commonly used by your subscribers. For example, if many of your subscribers use Gmail, you should subscribe to Gmail’s FBL.
• Next, visit the website of each email provider and look for information on how to sign up for their FBL. You may need to provide some basic information about your organization, such as your email address and domain name.
• Once you’ve signed up for the FBL, you’ll start receiving notifications whenever a recipient marks your email as spam or unsubscribes from your mailing list.
• Use the information provided in the FBL notifications to identify any potential issues with your email content or sending practices. For example, if many recipients are marking your emails as spam, you may need to review your email content to ensure that it’s relevant and engaging and that you’re not using spammy language or tactics.
• Take action to address any issues identified through the FBL. It monitors your email domain reputation by regularly reviewing FBL notifications and making necessary adjustments to your email-sending practices.

By using FBLs to monitor your email domain reputation, you can identify and address any issues that may be causing deliverability problems. Also, ensure that your emails are reaching your subscribers’ inboxes.

Another option is to watch your delivery rates. If your emails are no longer reaching inboxes, your domain reputation is likely suffering.

How Mailtrap can maintain email domain reputation

Maintaining a good domain reputation is crucial when it comes to email marketing. It is important to ensure that your emails are not marked as spam, as this can negatively impact your reputation and ultimately affect your deliverability rate.

One effective way to prevent this is by utilizing Mailtrap Email Testing prior to launching your email campaign. This tool allows you to examine and troubleshoot emails in a staging environment, ensuring that any potential issues are caught and resolved before the campaign goes live.

Additionally, the tool offers a detailed analysis of spam content through its color-coded Spam Report and Blacklists Report, which can assist in minimizing spam and preventing spam complaints during production.

By taking these proactive measures, you can maintain a good domain reputation. Ensure that your emails reach their intended audience, leading to higher engagement rates and ultimately better results for your business.

Strategies for improving your email domain reputation

Here are some ways to improve your email domain reputation.

Tools for email domain reputation management

There are several tools available for managing email domain reputation, including email reputation services, feedback loops, email authentication tools, email analytics and testing tools, and email service providers.

These tools provide real-time analysis of an email domain’s reputation and allow for the monitoring of spam complaints. Establish the authenticity of an email domain, provide detailed metrics on email performance, and offer comprehensive solutions for managing email domain reputation.

The choice of tool will depend on the specific needs and goals of the email domain owner. It’s important to carefully evaluate options and select the ones that best meet those needs.

Email Reputation Services

One way to monitor and improve your email domain’s reputation is by using email reputation services. These services analyze your domain’s sending practices in real time, identifying any issues that may affect deliverability and providing actionable insights to help you improve your email campaign’s performance.

Some popular email reputation services include Sender Score, Barracuda Reputation System, and TrustedSource. To use these services, you can follow a simple workflow:

1. Identify the email domain(s) you want to analyze.
2. Choose an email reputation service that meets your needs.
3. Enter the email domain(s) into the service’s platform to generate a report on their reputation.
4. Review the report to identify any issues or potential areas for improvement.
5. Take action to address any issues, such as reducing email volume or removing invalid email addresses from your mailing list.
6. Continue monitoring your email domain’s reputation on a regular basis to ensure continued deliverability and success.

Feedback Loops

Feedback loops are an important tool for improving email deliverability and ensuring that emails reach their intended recipients. Many email providers, such as Gmail, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, offer feedback loops that notify email domain owners of spam complaints.

Here’s how it works: If a recipient marks an email as spam, the feedback loop will send a notification to the email sender. The notification will include information about why the email was marked as spam, such as issues with the email content, subject line, or sending frequency.

By receiving this feedback, the email sender can identify any issues with their email-sending practices and make necessary changes to improve their email deliverability. This can involve adjusting email content, subject lines, or sending frequency to better align with recipients’ preferences and reduce the likelihood of future spam complaints.

Email Authentication Tools

Email authentication tools, such as DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, are technical standards designed to provide email authentication and security.

DMARC is a method that allows email senders to specify which authentication techniques (SPF, DKIM) they employ and how mail servers should handle messages that fail authentication checks. It also provides feedback on email delivery and helps identify potential domain abuse by unauthorized senders.

SPF aims to prevent email spoofing by defining which mail servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of a particular domain. This helps reduce the chances of emails being marked as spam or blocked by receiving mail servers.

DKIM is another email authentication method that adds a digital signature to outgoing emails, which is then verified by the receiving mail server. This ensures that the email was sent by the domain it claims to be from and has not been tampered with during transit.

By implementing these tools, email administrators can help ensure that their emails are delivered securely and that their domain reputation is not compromised by malicious actors.

Email Analytics and Testing Tools

These tools can give you in-depth metrics on email performance and help you detect problems with deliverability and inbox placement. Let’s take a look at some examples of email analytics and testing tools you can use:

Google Analytics — A free web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. You can use Google Analytics to monitor the performance of your email marketing campaigns by keeping an eye on open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.

Mailtrap — A development and testing tool for email delivery. It creates a safe and secure environment for email testing and helps developers and testers avoid sending emails to real users while they are still developing. With Mailtrap, developers can preview and debug the HTML and text content of emails, test how emails are displayed on different devices and email clients, and inspect message headers to make sure they are formatted correctly. Mailtrap also includes features such as email forwarding, inbound email logging, and the ability to send and receive emails from multiple addresses. All of these features make it an extremely useful tool for testing and improving email delivery, ensuring that emails are delivered properly and effectively to users.

Litmus — A complete email design and testing platform that helps email marketers create effective and engaging emails. It offers a variety of tools, such as a drag-and-drop email builder, email previews for over 90 email clients, and real-time email analytics.

Email on Acid — Another email design and testing platform that provides tools for creating, testing, and optimizing emails. It also offers a drag-and-drop email builder, email previews, and real-time email analytics. Moreover, it includes a spam filter testing tool to guarantee that your emails will be delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes.

By integrating these email analytics and testing tools into your workflow. You can boost the efficiency of your email marketing campaigns and ensure that your emails are reaching your subscribers’ inboxes.

Practical tips on maintaining your domain reputation

You’ve learned how to assess the status of your domain reputation, so the next step is to contemplate what to do if it’s perceived to be not good. It’s not possible to merely put a trust symbol on the website to persuade these services that you’re reputable.

To improve email domain reputation, it is possible to take some steps. Although it may be difficult to start from a disadvantageous position, it is achievable.

Make Your Subject Lines Clean and Concise

Examine the language you employ in the subject lines of your emails carefully. Words like “deal” and “buy now” are definite signs of spam for email service providers. Should they make it through the filters, email users are likely to flag you as spam.

Be certain to cleanse your lists of inactive recipients consistently.

Periodically, it is necessary to go through your email lists and delete any addresses that have had no interaction for a certain amount of time. These are likely spam traps, and it would be wise to not continuously fall into them.

Only contact those who have actively agreed to receive emails from you.

Ensure that your subscribers are opting-in to receive your emails. This will certify that all the individuals you are sending out to our high-quality leads are interested in hearing from you. Additionally, this should prevent any possibility of you inadvertently sending unsolicited emails and being trapped in a pristine spam trap.

Authenticating your domain and email when using an email system such as MailChimp is beneficial, as it enables the platform to send out your emails while representing you.

This means never using your primary domain for cold outreach emails. This can ruin your domain reputation because cold outreach emails typically have high spam and complaint rates.

Heat your area of expertise

Internet Service Providers generally do not welcome new entrants with open arms. Without any prior reputation to consider, ISPs are more skeptical and careful with fresh domains and IP addresses.

It is essential to gradually increase the number of emails sent by warming up your IPs and domains, i.e., sending a few emails at first.

Analysis of reviews

If your emails haven’t been opened in a while, it’s a good idea to stop sending them to that person. Unsubscribing them is the best way to prevent a potential spam complaint and to avoid getting caught in the spam filter.

When it comes to bounce rates, it is a good practice to eliminate any addresses that generate a hard bounce. If you are utilizing a well-known ESP or mailing program, the procedure may be automated for you.

Ultimately, the result will be a compilation of subscribers that are more inclined to open and interact with your emails.

To wrap up

Domain reputation management is essential for the success of any SaaS business, as it affects the deliverability of their emails to potential customers.

Maintaining a high email domain reputation involves adhering to best practices in email list management, content, frequency, authentication, and reputation monitoring. Your company can greatly benefit from email marketing. However, if your domain reputation is poor, and it results in a decrease in your email deliverability rate, you will not be able to enjoy these advantages.