You’ve done the hard work of building an email subscriber list and crafting your first marketing email. You hit the send button, anticipating a flurry of activity once your email reaches your audience. However, the results aren’t what you expect. Your open rates are low and hardly anyone is following your call to action.
Maybe you need to rethink your content strategy. But it’s also possible that your email campaign is having a delivery issue.
Internet service providers (ISPs) use several types of scores and rankings to evaluate businesses and distinguish credible organizations from less trustworthy ones. If your domain and IP reputation are low, your messages may go to the recipient’s spam box rather than their inbox. By strengthening your IP reputation, you’ll find it easier to reach your digital email marketing goals.
What is IP reputation?
Domain and IP reputation are two of the most important elements of ensuring email deliverability. Though they share some similarities, there are also some important distinctions between the two.
Your domain reputation refers to the strength of your email domain based on email sending patterns and recipient interactions. An email domain might be the root name of your website, such as @yourbusiness.com.
IP reputation measures the authority of the IP address used to send an email by evaluating both sender and recipient behavior. Highly authoritative IP addresses have solid IP reputations, which means their emails get delivered more reliably.
Importance of IP reputation in email marketing
Why is IP reputation so critical to email marketing? For a few reasons:
- Enhanced email deliverability: With a solid IP reputation, ISPs don’t flag your messages as spam. Your message goes to the recipient every time.
- Improved customer engagement: When clients receive your messages, they can act on them. That means more opens, click-throughs, and conversions.
- Proactive issue identification: Knowing your IP reputation email score can alert you to issues before they become major problems.
- Long-term marketing success: The better your IP reputation, the easier it is to reach your future campaign objectives.
What factors affect IP reputation?
Lower IP reputation scores may occur for several reasons. Sending emails too frequently, a history of malware attacks, or “zombie” IP address data attached to an older, non-operational company can all negatively impact your IP reputation.
Organizations strive to increase IP reputation scores to improve email deliverability and the overall effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns.
Adopt good IP reputation habits from the get-go
There are several things you can do to protect your IP reputation before you start email marketing.
Assess your ESP’s sender standards
If you send marketing emails via an email service provider (ESP), you probably share an IP address with numerous companies. That means your IP reputation rests not only on your own credibility but also on the ESP’s clients.
Usually, that’s a good thing. The ESP’s clients may have established years or even decades of sending marketing emails, and your reputation can build upon theirs.
However, some ESPs may set higher standards for joining their service than others. To ensure you’re going with a high-performing ESP, review their terms of service (TOS) and onboarding requirements. If they ask a lot about your business and put effort into attracting high-quality customers, you can feel comfortable that they care about your IP reputation.
Understand the role of email infrastructure in IP reputation
Several elements make up email infrastructure, including IP addresses, sending domains, mail agents and servers, and authentication protocols. Each aspect helps ISPs detect whether a message is legit or spam. If your email infrastructure isn’t up to snuff, you risk damaging your sender’s reputation, which hurts deliverability rates.
While you can’t control many of the aspects of email infrastructure, what you can do is demonstrate authenticity in your emailing habits. When you first begin email marketing, pay attention to the frequency and the amount of emails you send. Start small and work up to greater frequency and more extensive campaigns as your reputation improves.
Finding your primary email IP
If you’re curious about your IP reputation email score, you can manually check it by identifying your primary IP address and using third-party tools.
Start by pulling up a few of your most recently sent emails. While the process varies across different ESPs, you should be able to find IP address details in the message headers section. For instance, in Gmail, you’d simply navigate to the message, click on the three dots next to the reply ← symbol, and select “Show Original.” That allows you to see the message headers and the SPF authentication results. Next to the results is your sender’s IP address.
Most ESPs share IP addresses among multiple senders, so it’s a good idea to check several messages to see the most frequent IP address. You may find it ranges between several numbers. For instance, maybe one message has an IP address of 103.12.122.100.155, and another is 103.12.122.100.160. Your ESP may assign you IP addresses that fall directly within the range.
Tools to check IP reputation
Once you identify the IP you use to send emails, you can check your reputation using one of these third-party tools.
1. SenderScore.org
SenderScore is a free tool that’s useful for evaluating your IP reputation email score. To try it out, provide your IP address and set up an account. There’s no fee for the service, and it provides you with an immediate score. A score of 80 or above is excellent, while fair scores range from 70 to 80. Anything below 70 is considered poor and risky.
2. TrustedSource
TrustedSource is a reputational database that allows you to check IP addresses, domains, URLs, and email reputation. You may need to create an account to access all of its features. Aside from its email resources, you can use it to track and validate your website’s categorization within the system databases, which helps signal your site’s credibility.
3. BarracudaCentral
BarracudaCentral allows you to instantly check your IP reputation email score without signing up for an account. Enter the IP address or domain you wish to check, and you’ll receive your rating. A poor score indicates potential spam activity.
4. MxToolbox
MxToolbox provides several different tools to assess your domain and email authority. Its Email Health Report assesses your main sender address or domain name and retrieves data highlighting any problematic issues, such as blacklist (also known as blocklist) or domain name system (DNS) concerns. You can also use MxToolbox to analyze email headers and perform a DNS lookup. Most tools are free, but you can sign up for a paid plan to monitor your IP reputation over the long term.
5. Google Postmaster Tools
If Gmail is your ESP, it’s only logical to sign up for Google Postmaster Tools. The service provides free resources that notify you of Gmail delivery errors, spam issues, and feedback loops. You can use the reports to monitor your IP reputation email score as you further your marketing efforts. Only high-volume senders are eligible for the program.
6. Talos
Talos Intelligence tracks email and domain threats worldwide. Run by Cisco, Talos is a powerful tool that can alert you to reputational threats on your website or email address. There’s no need to set up an account for the service. You can check your reputation using your IP address, URL, or domain name.
7. MailTester
MailTester is a super simple tool that evaluates the spamminess of your messages. To use it, send your marketing message to the designated email address on the site, then wait for your rating. MailTester rates each message on a scale of one to 10, with a 10 being a perfect score. If your score isn’t perfect, you’ll get a report showing what’s holding you back. Every user gets up to three tests daily, but you can purchase extra tests if needed.
8. IPVoid
IPVoid is your go-to source for everything reputational, including email IP reputation lookup, blacklist checks, and other records. IPVoid gives you all the details you need. However, it’s solely an informational tool. It can’t tell you why your scores are low or provide advice to fix them.
9. SendForensics
If you want more than basic information about your IP reputation email score, SendForensics is the place to go. It offers a comprehensive, 360-degree view of email performance and sender reputation data, including deliverability scores, complaint rates, domain and IP quality, and bounce rates. However, SendForensics isn’t free, unlike some of the other tools on this list. It’s best for companies that frequently send marketing messages and need extra support.
How can I improve my email IP address reputation?
There are several steps you can take to improve email IP reputation.
Use a reputable email service provider
If you’re sending marketing emails, there’s no better way to protect your email address than using a trustworthy email service provider. While you can rely on free services like Yahoo or Gmail, you’ll find it easier to establish credibility by using a dedicated email marketing platform and service provider like Constant Contact.
Constant Contact’s email delivery rate is 97% — one of the highest in the industry. Very few emails end up in the spam box when you use our services. That means you won’t need to invest time monitoring IP addresses and using third-party tools to track down poor email performance. Plus, our software includes email analytics to evaluate open and delivery rates.
Implement authentication protocols
Authentication protocols tell ISPs you are who you say you are. Think of them as your digital passport or driver’s license for email. The three primary protocols used in email are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
To authenticate your email address, use the instructions provided by your email service provider. Every ESP uses different means for authentication, but it should be a relatively simple process — or even automatic — especially if you’re using a dedicated domain and email marketing software like Constant Contact.
Use double opt-in
Whenever a new client signs up for your mailing list, it’s good practice to send a welcome email and ask them to confirm their subscription. Doing so does several things. One, it tells you they want to receive your messages. If they open your email, it shows they received the message. And, if they click on a link or reply to your message, it boosts engagement rates. All three factors can improve your IP reputation.
Monitor your sending volume
You may be pretty excited to start sending email marketing messages, especially as your mailing list grows. However, sending messages too often may harm your IP reputation. Instead, start small and go for quality over quantity. You might stick with sending marketing emails once or twice weekly, then slowly increase the frequency as your IP reputation solidifies.
Keep an eye on bounce rates
Bounce rates mean your message didn’t reach the recipient’s inbox. There are two types of bounces: hard and soft. A hard bounce means the email address isn’t valid. Soft bounces indicate a short-term deliverability issue, like an ESP outage.
It’s a good idea to immediately remove your hard bounces from your email list to avoid being penalized by ISPs.
Frequently Asked Questions
IP reputation can be complex. Here are a few other questions readers commonly ask about IP reputation.
Are paid email domain reputation checker tools better than free alternatives?
Not necessarily. For a business that doesn’t send a high volume of marketing messages, there’s not much reason to invest in pricey tools. However, larger enterprises may benefit from the security features and ongoing monitoring a paid service provides.
How do I know if Gmail blacklisted my domain?
IPVoid and MXToolbox offer a blacklist check you can use to find out if Gmail blacklisted your domain.
Can IP be traced through email?
Yes, you can check a sender’s IP through the header information in an email.
A healthy IP reputation score is critical to ongoing marketing success
No matter how creative, compelling, or exciting your email marketing messages are, your audience won’t see them if you don’t have a good IP reputation.
To keep yours strong, use a solid email service provider like Constant Contact and incorporate authentication protocols before sending marketing messages. It’s also good practice to ask subscribers to confirm they want to receive your messages after signing up. To learn more about protecting your email reputation, check out “Is Your Email Sender Reputation at Risk?“
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