FAQ about Email Deliverability

Can I use my Gmail address to send my marketing campaigns?

It's always recommended to use an authenticated domain associated with your brand’s identity. Sending bulk emails using a public domain like Gmail or Yahoo might lead to deliverability issues and lower ROI.

Can I use multiple domains for sending promotional campaigns?

It’s always recommended to be consistent with your sending practice. Changing your sender details frequently might lead to deliverability issues. You can keep a secondary domain to use in case of a blacklist event or for running different marketing programs. 

Can I use the same domain for sending promotional and transactional emails?

We recommend using separate domains for promotional and transactional emails so that any complaints or bounces from your promotional campaigns do not affect the reputation of the transactional domain.

Why are DNS records important? 

DNS records (SPF, DKIM) are the authentication records that authorize Insider to send emails using your sender domain. Authentication records allow mailbox providers to validate the authenticity of the mail. Without valid authentication records, a mailbox provider might treat your mail as spam.

I don’t have access to the DNS server. Can I start my marketing campaigns without Authentication records?

You should start your email program only after your DNS records have been published globally. If you don’t have access to your DNS server, you will need to connect with your network administrator to get it done.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a dedicated IP?

Dedicated IPs are always a better option than Shared IPs. With dedicated IP addresses, you are solely responsible for the reputation of your IP address, so no other sender can impact your marketing campaign. 

However, with dedicated IP addresses, you have to carefully warm up your IP address for the projected traffic and be consistent with the sending practice. 

How many IPs will I get to use for sending with Insider?

The number of IPs assigned to a client depends on the maximum volume projected for the day. Our deliverability expert evaluates your daily send volume during onboarding to prepare your infrastructure. 

What’s the difference between an ISP, MBP, and ESP?

An internet service provider (ISP) is a company that provides internet-related services. Internet service provider companies might also offer free or paid mailbox services. Companies that provide mailbox services are called MBP. ISP and MBP companies that provide bulk email sending services are called email service providers.

What is IP warming, and why is it important?

IP warming is the process of gradually increasing a sender's email volume by sending emails to positively engaged recipients to build a good reputation. 

When you start using a new email service provider, you are using the new infrastructure. Bulk emails from a new source are not easily trusted by mailbox providers and are treated as spam. Therefore, it is advised to start with a small number and gradually increase it to build a reputation with the mailbox provider.

How much time does it take to warm up an IP? 

The warm-up period depends on the daily message volume you project to send after the warm-up plan ends. We recommend users start with a small number, say, 500 emails per day, and gradually increase the number day by day until you’ve reached your max daily volume. Depending on the volume, it might take 15-30 days to complete the warmup.

What if I don’t follow a warm-up plan?

Mailbox providers might suspect your emails are spam. Your marketing emails might land in the spam folder, or mailbox providers might outright reject them. If not rectified in time, it might damage the reputation of the sending IP, domain, or both.

Once damaged, it takes longer to rebuild the reputation of an IP address or domain. 

How should I get started with a reputation warm-up?

Properly warming up the IP address is a critical step in building email-sending reputation and improving deliverability. During the warm-up phase, the more consistent you are with the volume, frequency, complaint, and bounce levels, the faster you will establish a positive sending reputation. If you send infrequently, i.e., anything less than once a week, it will take more time to build a positive sender reputation.

Some vital parameters to check before starting the warm-up process:
1. Make sure that your technical configurations are in place:
a. SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
b. DKIM (Domain Key Identifier Message)
c. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance)
d. FBL configuration (Yahoo, Hotmail & others)
2. Filter your best and most active contacts using segmentation. Don’t start the IP warming process with older lists. The reason is that high delivery rates and, hence, strong engagement with your initial campaigns will help build the IP’s reputation.
3. It is mandatory to incorporate the physical address of the company and a clear disclaimer stating why this email has been sent to the user. It proves the sender's authenticity to users/ISPs.

A proper, visible unsubscribe link is mandatory in every email, as it gives users the freedom to opt out of your newsletters. Placing an unsubscribe link in the mailer reduces the risk of spam complaints.

Do I have to stick rigidly to the IP warming plan, even if it is going well?

It’s advisable to be consistent with volume and frequency. A sudden increase or decrease in volume might adversely affect the infrastructure's reputation. 

Why are my emails going into the ‘Promotions’ tab in Gmail?

Gmail has an algorithm that evaluates several parameters, such as content, keywords used in the email, engagement, and the reputation of the sending infrastructure, to decide whether an email should land in the inbox or the promotional folder. 

How can I check whether my campaigns are underperforming? 

You can evaluate a campaign’s performance by checking the open rate, click rate, and conversion from the campaign. You can connect with our deliverability experts if you notice any significant dips in performance or a sudden rise in bounce rate, spam rate, or unsubscribe rate. 

What does list hygiene mean?

Email hygiene refers to removing inactive (i.e., cold) email subscribers from your future email marketing campaigns and keeping your remaining list warm with healthy email-sending habits.

How should I ensure my list’s health?

The first step to ensure list hygiene is to work with a list of email subscribers who want your messages. It’s easier to drive conversions and engagement with clients who are excited to be in your ecosystem.

Follow the steps below to maintain a healthy list: 

• If you are migrating from other vendors to Insider, you should migrate the suppression data. 
• Do not use a subscriber list older than 6 months. 
• Send email campaigns to active subscribers only. Inactive email addresses turn into spam traps. Sending emails to spam traps ruins the reputation of the sending IP address or domain. 
• If you are using multiple platforms to manage your marketing campaigns, sync your suppression across all platforms.
• Run reactivation campaigns for inactive subscribers. 
• Scrub role-based email addresses from your mailing list. 
• Add email address validation on lead capture forms to avoid typos. 
• Use double opt-in for validating email addresses.  

My bounce rate has increased. What should I do?

Please check if you have recently added a new subscriber to your list or if you have used an old subscriber’s list in your recent campaign. Check if your sender domain or sender’s IP is blacklisted. 

Ask your account manager to investigate the reason for the bounce and suggest further action. 

How long should I wait before assessing the effectiveness of my marketing campaign?

 Ideally, you should wait 24 hours to assess your campaign's effectiveness. 

Can I use the same reply address in multiple accounts?

 You can use the same reply address; however, because it can negatively affect your deliverability, best practices suggest separating your marketing email address from your transactional one, depending on your current use case.

Can I send transactional and marketing emails from the same IP?

As a best practice, we recommend separating your marketing and transactional emails. In general, transactional messages have higher engagement and, thus, better deliverability. If you do not separate marketing from your transactional emails, it might negatively impact their deliverability as well.  

We have Gmail postmaster tools set up, and they don't show any feedback loops or spam issues. What’s the issue?

Ensure that you are monitoring not just your domain but also all its subdomains and authentication domains (separately), such as SPF and DKIM. The feedback loop is non-traditional and requires coordination with your ESP. Keep in mind that Postmaster Tools will only show reputation data if the domain in question is regularly sending >1,000 emails in a campaign.  

We have been experiencing deliverability issues to Gmail addresses, which account for 46% of our entire list. Can you help us identify the issue and resolve it?

Gmail ISP filters measure the sender’s reputation, which is based heavily on user engagement with the emails you send. Remove users who have not engaged with your emails in the last 90 days (opened, clicked, scrolled, moved to a folder, etc.). All of these are important to Gmail, as they want to ensure that the mail that lands in their recipients’ inboxes is the mail they want to receive. Make sure you have a confirmed opt-in process and that your recipients have explicitly requested emails from you. Remove recipients who have hard-bounced, and use good opt-in practices to keep your bounce rate under 4%. There is also the risk of “reputation contamination” from other mailings, so the issue must be examined holistically. 

 Why are my email response rates dropping?

 Multiple factors contribute to the inbox deliverability of your email. You can check the following to see what's wrong with your marketing campaign. 

• Check if you use an authenticated domain. You can use MXToolbox to check domain authentication. 
• Check if your sender domain or IP address is not blacklisted. You can also use the MxToolbox to check it.
• Use the Google Postmaster tool to check your reputation at Google.
• Check the Hotmail SNDS report to verify your reputation at MSN and the Hotmail network. 
• Perform a seed list to check your inbox placement.

We have been put on a blacklist. Why did it happen?

Domain or IP gets blacklisted if there are too many spam complaints, or if the email appears to share the hallmarks of unsolicited promotion.

What should we do to be removed from the blacklist?

Check the organization that blacklisted your domain. Take a look at the organization’s blacklisting policy. 

Pause your marketing campaign from the blacklisted Domain/IP and place a delisting request.

How do I improve my deliverability?

Many different factors positively impact deliverability. They include (but are not limited to):

• Sending cadence
• List segmentation based on relevancy, engagement, etc.
• Whether you’re sending from a shared or dedicated IP, your IP and domain reputation
• Sending infrastructure
• Type of content
• Bounces
• Email authentication and more.

We were recently targeted by a spoofing attack, and our domain reputation has tanked as a result. Getting into inboxes (not spam) is vital to our business, so we’re looking for the fastest path to rebuilding our reputation.

DMARC is one of the latest developments in email authentication and is widely recognized by ISPs. Ensuring a proper DMARC policy is in place is vital to the security of your brand and your users' experience. DMARC cannot exist without SPF and DKIM, and both must be in place for DMARC to protect you and your users from phishing or spoofing attacks. DMARC also allows you to see all email sources that use your organization’s domain. This can help identify sources of abuse as well as configuration and authentication issues from legitimate sources. 

Will a high bounce rate affect my email reputation?

A hard bounce rate of 2% or higher is widely considered abusive, and most ISPs strongly frown on even a 2% rate. It is recommended to remove users who have hard-bounced or soft-bounced multiple times to keep your bounce rate at or below 2%.

Will my deliverability change if I change my from-domain?

Yes. Sending from any new domain or IP address will affect your deliverability, as it doesn’t have a reputation with ISPs. We recommend using a domain warming plan to let ISPs know you're sending emails from a new domain, rather than sending immediate email blasts that can mimic spam-like behavior.

What steps can I take to reduce the number of abuse complaints I receive?

There are multiple steps involved in this. Firstly, you can evaluate how often you send emails to your lists. List fatigue is common when a sender emails unengaged recipients more than 2x a week. Reduce your communication to one or two emails a week. Secondly, remove any users who have not engaged with your emails in the last 90 days. This eliminates the most common reasons for user frustration: repetition and loss of interest. Lastly, process your unsubscribes as soon as possible. CAN-SPAM Law requires all unsubscribe requests to be processed within 10 business days, but users expect them to be processed immediately, and there is rarely any reason they shouldn't happen straight away.

I switched email service providers (ESPs). Why did my open rate decrease?

It happens when the sender domain and the infrastructure used to send marketing campaigns don’t have a history of sending bulk campaigns. You need to build a reputation with the ISP by following the warmup plan. Refer to our IP warmup guide for best practices. 

Will changing my IP address fix my deliverability issues?

Switching IP addresses can be a quick fix, but it won’t work as a long-term solution. You need to follow email marketing best practices and maintain good list hygiene to fix the root cause of low deliverability. 

Will the Architect emails count toward the warm-up quota?

No, the emails you send through your Architect journeys are not counted in the Email product's warm-up quota.

Why is the email content fully blocked in Outlook?

This issue is caused by changes in Outlook or an organization's firewall policy. Outlook's security updates and firewall changes sometimes result in email content being blocked. Specifically, Outlook's new security features might prevent content from loading and display a warning. However, some users do not see this warning, and the content is fully blocked instead. 

The error message you might encounter will be displayed as follows:  

"Some content in this message has been blocked because the sender isn't in your Safe Senders list. [Trust content from riskreport@user-training.com] | [Show blocked content]"

This is an issue controlled by Outlook itself, and ESPs (Email Service Providers) cannot control it, as it relates to the email service provider's firewall policies. Outlook offers an option to show blocked content, but if this option doesn't appear, the content will be entirely blocked.

To resolve this, you can add the sender or domain to the "Safe Senders" list in Outlook. You can follow these steps:

1. Open an email with blocked content.
2. Right-click on the blocked item.
3. Select the “Add Sender to Safe Senders List” or “Add the Domain @domain to Safe Senders List.”

This solution may vary slightly by Outlook version, but in general, Outlook users can follow these steps to unblock the content.

I can’t find an email in my inbox, even though it says it was delivered. What might be the issue, and what steps can I take to locate it?

You can check the possible reasons behind the issue and apply the following solutions:

• Gmail Tabs and Folders: If you're using Gmail, the email might be in one of the categorized tabs (e.g., Promotions, Updates, or Social). Check these tabs, as Gmail often automatically sorts incoming messages based on their content.
  • Solution: Search for the email using keywords or the sender's address in Gmail's search bar to quickly locate it.
• Spam or Junk Folder: Delivered emails can sometimes end up in the spam or junk folder, especially if the sender’s reputation is questionable or their email formatting triggered spam filters.
  • Solution: Open your spam folder and search for the email. If you find it there, mark it as "Not Spam" to ensure future emails from the sender go to your primary inbox.
• Custom Filters and Rules: You or your email service might have set up filters that redirect emails to specific folders.
  • Solution: Review your email account's filter settings to see whether any rules are routing emails from this sender to a specific folder or label.
• Sender Reputations or Authentication: Emails with improper authentication (missing SPF, DKIM, or DMARC) or from domains with low reputation can experience deliverability issues, including being placed in less visible folders.
  • Solution: Contact the sender to ensure they follow email authentication best practices. Additionally, ask them to verify their domain reputation.
• Email Delays or Delivery Processing: Occasionally, delivery systems can delay emails or misplace them due to server issues.
  • Solution: Wait a little longer if the email is expected soon, or ask the sender to resend the message.
• Check Blocklists or Blacklists: Verify that you haven’t inadvertently blocked the sender's email address.
  • Solution: Navigate to your email's blocklist settings and remove the sender from the list if needed.
• If you are using a private domain, make sure to check your security program. Each security program can use different mechanisms to identify certain emails based on defined rules/policies, which can block those emails from being delivered to your inbox.