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Protect your sender reputation

Sender reputation is how inbox providers decide whether your Broadcasts reach the inbox, land in spam, or get blocked. It is built over time from how subscribers engage with your mail and how many complaints and bounces you generate. This guide shows how to watch those signals and act before they hurt delivery.

Before you begin​

  • Admin access to your account's reporting and suppression settings.
  • Authentication in place (SPF, DKIM, and a DMARC policy) for your sending domain.
  • A recent Broadcast or two with delivery and engagement data to review.
  • Agreement on what "healthy" looks like for your program (baseline open, click, complaint, and bounce rates).

Steps​

  1. Review engagement per Broadcast. After each send, open the report and check opens, clicks, bounces, complaints (spam reports), and unsubscribes. Compare against your baseline.
  2. Watch complaints and bounces closely. Complaint rates above roughly 0.1% and rising hard bounces are early warning signs. Investigate spikes right away (confirm the exact thresholds and report location in your account).
  3. Keep your list clean. Let hard bounces and complaints flow to the suppression list automatically, and periodically remove chronically unengaged subscribers.
  4. Warm up new domains and volume gradually. When you start on a new sending domain or greatly increase volume, ramp up over days rather than sending everything at once.
  5. Segment by engagement. Prioritize subscribers who open and click; slow or pause sending to long-inactive ones.
  6. Fix content that triggers complaints. Make the sender name recognizable, keep a clear unsubscribe link, and avoid misleading subject lines.

Result​

Your complaint and bounce rates stay low, engagement holds steady or improves, and a larger share of each Broadcast reaches the inbox. Sustained trends matter more than any single send.

Canonical terms: Author, Edition, Folder (Project Folder), Broadcast. See the Glossary.