Email Marketing by the Numbers: How to Use the World’s Greatest Marketing Tool to Take Any Organization to the Next Level

Chapter 13 Review

• With respect to email, reputation is the general opinion of the ISPs, the anti-spam community, and subscribers toward a sender’s IP address, sending domain, or both. The “opinion” is a reputation score created by an ISP (or third-party reputation provider). If the sender’s “score” falls within the ISPs thresholds, a sender’s messages will be delivered to the inbox.

• Most email systems that send email over the Internet use SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, to send messages from one server to another. Unfortunately, SMTP was created without checks in place to ensure that the sender is authentic. That’s why spammers exploit this weakness by spoofing legitimate emails (known as phishing).

• Due to spam problems that affect their bottom line, ISPs have moved away from individual filters (such as content or image filters) and now you use a holistic sender’s reputation, composed of factors such as legal compliance, spam reports, spamtraps, sender authentication, and technical components.

• To ensure maximum list hygiene, which can help prevent delivery issues, you should always receive explicit permission to mail, practice double opt-in confirmations, and consider a routine reengagement campaign that gives subscribers a chance to decline future mailings.

• Now that you understand the deliverability equation, recommended next steps to developing a solid email reputation for your company include conducting a deliverability audit, identifying which deliverability factors are ...