If managing your domain reputation sounds complicated, you’re not alone. Recent changes to Yahoo’s and Google’s authentication rules have forced all email senders to take a more active role in the path to the inbox. 

In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa untangle some of the mysteries around domain reputation and why it’s so important. They highlight how trends in open rates, complaint rates, and bounce rates are not just metrics but invaluable insights that contribute to a healthy email list. They also discuss some highly practical best practices for ensuring your emails reach the inbox. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• 01:37 - How domain reputation is like a credit score.
• 08:30 - The importance of domain reputation in email deliverability.
• 14:35 - Monitoring domain reputation and how it’s calculated.
• 21:27 - The technical side of email deliverability and domain reputation.
• 24:55 - Navigating complaint rates and subscriber behavior.
• 27:02 - Maintaining a healthy email list.
• 31:55 - Why segmented audiences lead to higher engagement rates.
• 35:35 - What to do if you have a low sender reputation.

Key Takeaways

• Domain reputation is like your credit score — it's pivotal for the health of your email marketing and can impact your success when moving between email service providers.
• Monitor your metrics — stay ahead of the curve by keeping an eye on open rates, complaint rates, and bounce rates. And remember, a dip in open rates by ten points is a definite red flag!
• Subscriber engagement is paramount — keep your email list clean, segment your audience for targeted content, and employ double opt-ins to shield against list bombing.

Quotes

“One of the biggest influences of sender reputation is your audience and subscribers and subscriber behavior. Opening, clicking through your emails, spending time on the email, reading through it, all of these things have a really positive impact on your domain reputation.” ~ Melissa Lambert

“Your subscribers have the power over your reputation. For the most part, they're voting with their actions on whether your domain reputation goes up or down.” ~ Alyssa Dulin

Links

• Deliverability Defined S05E03: A Guide to Google Postmaster Tools
• Google Postmaster Tools
• ConvertKit
• ConvertKit Creator Network
• Subscribe to the weekly Deliverability Dispatch Newsletter!
• Subscribe to the monthly Deliverability Defined newsletter!
• Google
• Yahoo
• Microsoft
• Gmail

Connect with our hosts

• Alyssa Dulin
• Melissa Lambert

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• Deliverability Defined Website

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