How do I check my email deliverability?

Use tools like Mail Tester (free), GlockApps, or Litmus to test deliverability. Monitor bounce rates and spam complaints in your email platform. Check your domain on blacklists using MXToolbox. Google Postmaster Tools provides Gmail-specific delivery data. Aim for inbox placement above 95%.

What is DMARC and do I need it?

DMARC is an email authentication policy that tells receiving servers how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks. Yes, you need it. Google and Yahoo now require DMARC for bulk email senders. It protects your domain from spoofing and improves deliverability. Start with a monitoring-only policy and progress to enforcement.

How do I improve my sender reputation?

Send consistently (avoid large volume spikes), maintain low spam complaint rates (below 0.1%), remove bounced addresses promptly, engage subscribers with relevant content, authenticate your domain, and segment lists to improve engagement rates. Reputation builds slowly but can be damaged quickly by poor practices.

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Email Deliverability

Also known as:inbox placementemail delivery ratesending reputation

The ability of marketing emails to successfully reach recipients inboxes rather than being filtered to spam, bounced, or blocked by email service providers.

In-Depth Explanation

Email deliverability measures the success rate of emails reaching their intended recipients' inboxes. It is influenced by sender reputation, email authentication, content quality, list hygiene, and recipient engagement patterns.

Deliverability factors:

Sender reputation: IP and domain reputation scores based on sending history
Authentication: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records proving sender identity
Content quality: Subject lines, body content, HTML quality, image-to-text ratio
List hygiene: Removing invalid, inactive, and bounced addresses
Engagement: Open rates, click rates, and spam complaint rates
Infrastructure: Sending IP, dedicated vs. shared IPs, warm-up processes

Email authentication protocols:

SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Specifies which servers can send email for your domain
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Cryptographic signature proving email authenticity
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication): Policy for handling unauthenticated emails

Deliverability metrics:

Inbox placement rate: Percentage reaching the inbox (not spam)
Bounce rate: Hard bounces (invalid addresses) and soft bounces (temporary issues)
Spam complaint rate: Recipients marking emails as spam (keep below 0.1%)
Unsubscribe rate: Rate of opt-outs (keep below 0.5%)
Blacklist status: Whether your IP/domain is on spam blacklists

Deliverability best practices:

Authenticate all sending domains (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
Warm up new sending domains gradually
Maintain list hygiene (remove bounces, inactive contacts)
Use double opt-in for new subscribers
Monitor sender reputation regularly
Avoid spam trigger words and deceptive subject lines
Include clear unsubscribe mechanisms

Business Context

Poor deliverability means marketing emails never reach customers, wasting campaign effort and budget. Improving deliverability from 80% to 95% effectively increases your email audience by 19% without adding a single new subscriber.

How Clever Ops Uses This

Clever Ops audits and improves email deliverability for Australian businesses by implementing proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), cleaning email lists, optimising sending practices, and monitoring reputation. We ensure marketing emails reach the inbox where they can drive engagement and revenue.

Example Use Case

"A company discovers 30% of their emails are going to spam. After implementing DMARC, cleaning their list of inactive subscribers, and warming up a dedicated IP, inbox placement improves to 97%, increasing email revenue by 45%."