IP strategy
It is important to form a well-structured IP strategy to help establish a positive reputation. The number of IPs and setup varies depending on your business model and marketing goals. Work with an expert to develop a clear strategy to start off right. Consider these things that are important to note:
- Too many IPs can trigger reputation issues as it is a common tactic of spammers to snowshoe, which is a tactic used by spammers where traffic is spread across many IPs to maximize the delivery of spam mail. Even though you’re not a spammer, you might look like one if you use too many IPs, especially if those IPs haven’t had any prior traffic.
- Too few IPs can cause throughput issues and potentially trigger reputation issues. Throughput varies by ISP. How much and how quickly an ISP is willing to accept is typically based on their infrastructure and sending reputation thresholds.
- Separating traffic for messaging types is key. It is important to, at a bare minimum, separate marketing and transactional mail on separate IP pools.
- Depending on your mail strategy, it may also be advisable to separate different products or marketing streams on different IP pools if your reputation is drastically different. Some marketers also segment by region. Separating the IP for traffic with a lower reputation will not fix the reputation issue, but it will prevent issues with your “good” reputation email deliveries. After all, you don’t want to sacrifice your good audience for a riskier one.
Feedback loops
Behind the scenes, Adobe platforms are processing data regarding bounces, complaints, unsubscribes, and more. The setup of these feedback loops is an important aspect to deliverability. Complaints can damage a reputation, so you should email addresses that register complaints from your target audience. It’s important to note that Gmail doesn’t provide this data back. List unsubscribe headers and engagement filtering are especially important for Gmail subscribers, who now comprise the majority of subscriber databases.
Authentication
Authentication is the process that ISPs use to validate the identity of a sender. The two most common authentication protocols are Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). These are not visible to the end user but do help ISPs filter email from verified senders. Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is gaining popularity, although its policies aren’t yet incorporated by all ISPs in their reputation systems.
SPF
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an authentication method that allows the owner of a domain to specify which mail servers they use to send mail from that domain.
DKIM
Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an authentication method that is used to detect forged sender addresses (commonly called spoofing). If DKIM is enabled, it allows the receiver to confirm if the sender is authorized to send mail from that domain.