Overview

Domain reputation refers to a domain's health as perceived by mailbox providers (MBPs). When a domain maintains a high reputation, MBPs usually deliver emails to recipients' inboxes, assuming they are relevant and valuable. Conversely, if a domain has a low or bad reputation, MBPs may redirect emails to recipients' spam folders or even block them.
A variety of factors influence the domain's reputation. These include:

• Engagement and conversion rates
• Spam complaint rates
• Spam trap rates
• Unsubscribe rates
• Bounce rates

Adhering to the email best practices, such as setting up authentication, managing opt-in/consent, and sending personalized content, is an effective way to build a positive reputation. This can increase your email marketing program's return on investment (ROI). However, diverging from these guidelines can lead to negative consequences. The following section details the effects of not maintaining a stable domain reputation at high or medium.

Low or Bad Domain Reputation

Low Domain Reputation

This indicates that Gmail has identified this sender as frequently sending a significant amount of spam. Emails from domains or IPs with low reputations typically land in the spam folder.

Bad Domain Reputation

This indicates that Gmail has identified that this sender consistently sends a high amount of spam. Emails from domains or IPs with a bad reputation will always land in the spam folder or get rejected, which means they are soft-bounced.

Impact of Low or Bad Domain Reputation

If your domain reputation is low or bad, your emails fail to reach Gmail recipients' inboxes. Consequently, these emails will not achieve the intended objectives of your email campaigns, resulting in ineffective email communication with no conversions.
Thus, it is crucial to prevent your reputation from becoming low or bad. If it does occur, immediately halt operations, address all the issues, comply with industry best practices, and then resume and increase the volume of your operations.

Reasons for the Drop in Domain Reputation

The following email-sending behaviors often lead to a bad or low reputation. The drop in domain reputation can be gradual or abrupt.

• Ineffective warm-up plan: The reputation of all new senders must be built through warm-up and ramp-up over time. An ineffective warm-up plan can lead to reduced engagement, higher bounce and complaint rates, increased spam filtering, and even blacklisting—all of which contribute to a drop in domain reputation.
• Targeting unengaged users from a new domain: This results in rate limitations to emails from new domains or senders and doesn't accommodate high volumes from a new domain or IP.
  Sending emails in fixed patterns without accounting for delivery, engagement metrics, and spam complaints: When these factors are ignored, Gmail directs your emails to spam to protect those users.
• Creating sudden spikes in email volume instead of a gradual increase: Sudden volume surges almost always result in a drop in reputation, as they raise suspicions and questions. It is not advisable to suddenly increase the volume of emails sent without a proper ramp-up process. Moreover, you must determine where this sudden increase in the number of email users came from and whether they provided their consent to receive emails. It is crucial to ascertain the timing of the last email sent to these users and ensure that their prior consent is still valid. Neglecting these considerations can have detrimental effects on domain reputation.
• A gap in sending patterns followed by a surge in email volume or irregular high-volume campaigns: After 2 weeks of inactivity, IPs and domains tend to cool off and gradually lose their reputation and ramped-up state. To mitigate this, you must follow the period of inactivity with a smaller send to the most engaged users and gradually increase the volume over time. Furthermore, in cases of extended periods of inactivity, such as 6 months or more, it is crucial to reaffirm the content and manage expectations to maintain a positive reputation.
• Failing to suppress inactive users: It is essential to consider the signals received from end recipients, especially if they are not engaging with your emails. In such cases, adjustments in sending behavior, including frequency, segmentation, and content relevance, are necessary. Continuing to send emails to inactive users without adapting the approach can be counterproductive.
• Sending emails to purchased lists or users who did not explicitly sign up to receive emails: This violates the basic rules of list management and data privacy. Building a genuinely interested and engaged subscriber base through permission-based opt-in methods is recommended for better deliverability and a positive sender reputation.

Resolve Domain Reputation Issues

As a marketer, you must adhere to the following guidelines to enhance the visibility of your email campaigns, especially if your domain reputation is not high:

When Domain Reputation Drops to Medium 

This drop indicates you can improve the domain reputation. Perform the following to resolve this:

• Pause all one-time email campaigns from the affected domain for 3 days and then:
  • Utilize this period to find out the reason for the reputation drop and plan accordingly to resolve it.
  • Continue sending event-triggered campaigns, unless you encounter problems related to the performance or delivery of such campaigns.
• Add a frequency capping (FC) of one email to a user in 1 day.
• Ensure to send at least one campaign per week. While sending it, follow the points below:
  • Do not target customers who have not engaged in the past 6 months.
  • Use a Request Per Minute (RPM) of 1000.
• Create event-triggered or life-cycle campaign use cases. While creating them, use content personalization and reduce one-time campaigns.

When the domain reputation improves to high, revise the sending criteria for the unengaged cohorts as listed below:

• For the cohorts of customers who have not engaged in the last 45 days:
  • Send targeted content.
  • Conduct surveys to analyze the lack of engagement.
  • Reduce the frequency of sending emails.
• For the cohorts of customers who have not engaged in the last 9 months:
  • Suppress the customers permanently.

When Domain Reputation Drops to Low

This drop indicates that your sending behavior is already suspicious. Perform the following to resolve this:

• Pause all one-time email campaigns from the affected domain for 10 days and then:
  • Utilize this period to find out the reason for the reputation drop and plan accordingly to resolve it.
  • Continue sending event-triggered campaigns as before, unless there’s an issue with event-triggered campaigns.
  • Continue sending event-triggered campaigns unless you encounter problems related to the performance or delivery of such campaigns.
• Add a frequency capping (FC) of 1 email to a user in 3 days or less.
• Send a maximum of two to three email campaigns weekly and at least one email per week to your most engaged users. While sending them, follow the points below:
  Note: The most engaged customers are customers who have opened an email at least two times in the last 30 days AND have opened an app/site at least two times in the last 30 days.
  • Do not target customers who have not engaged in the past 6 months.
  • Use RPM of 1000.

When the domain reputation improves to medium, revise the sending criteria for the less engaged cohorts as listed below:

• Expand the audience criteria to include other openers and app/site openers.
• Increase the send frequency if required.
• Create event-triggered or life-cycle campaign use cases. While creating them, use content personalization and reduce one-time campaigns.

When Domain Reputation Drops to Bad 

This drop indicates that Gmail has already flagged you as a bad sender, and all your emails, if delivered at all, will likely go to spam. Perform the following to resolve this:

• Pause all email campaigns (one-time, event-triggered, flows, business events) from the affected domain for 20 days and then:
• Utilize this period to find out the reason for the reputation drop and plan accordingly to resolve it.
• Add a frequency capping (FC) of one email to a user in 7 days.
• If there are any issues concerning the quality of your audience or if reputation issues persist for more than 6 months, send a confirmation email to reaffirm consent.
• Send a maximum of two email campaigns weekly and at least one email per week to your most engaged users.
  Note: The most engaged customers are customers who have opened an email at least five times in the last 30 days AND have opened an app/site at least five times in the last 30 days.
• Use RPM of 1000.
• Do not target customers who have not engaged in the past 6 months.

When the domain reputation improves from bad to low, revise the sending criteria for the less engaged cohorts as listed below:

• Expand the audience criteria to include other openers of the last 30 days.
• Increase the send frequency from two to three campaigns per week if required.
• Resume event-triggered campaigns. Create event-based triggered or life-cycle campaign use cases. While creating them, use content personalization and reduce one-time campaigns.