The aggregate trust score ISPs assign to your domain and IP — the master signal driving inbox placement.
⚡ Monitored by EmailExacto IntelligenceSender reputation is the composite trustworthiness score ISPs assign to an email sender based on observed sending behaviour. It's derived from your sending IP reputation, domain reputation, authentication compliance, engagement metrics, and complaint history. Think of it as a credit score for email — built slowly through consistent responsible sending, damaged quickly by complaints, bounces, or blacklisting.
Each major provider maintains its own model. Google evaluates domain reputation separately from IP reputation (visible via Postmaster Tools). Microsoft uses SNDS. Yahoo evaluates complaint feedback loop data.
Key signals: complaint rate (spam button clicks / delivered), bounce rate, spam trap hits, engagement (opens, clicks, moves from spam to inbox), and authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC alignment).
Sender reputation is the primary driver of inbox vs. spam placement. Strong reputation means consistent inbox delivery. Poor reputation means bulk filtering or blocking. A single bad campaign — high complaints, invalid addresses — can burn through built-up goodwill quickly, and recovery takes weeks of clean sending.
EmailExacto's deliverability score aggregates key reputation signals into a single daily number with trend tracking.
✓Keep complaint rates below 0.1% at Gmail and Yahoo.
✓Honor unsubscribes immediately and maintain a persistent suppression list.
✓Remove hard bounces within 24 hours.
✓Never purchase email lists — they contain spam traps.
✓Warm up new sending infrastructure before sending to your full list.
✓Monitor Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS for direct ISP feedback.
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