Understanding Your Email Sender Status

There are four categories for email sender status with Lead Gen & CRM: Healthy, At Risk, Unhealthy, and Limited.

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Acceptable Email Rates

In general, Lead Gen & CRM expects senders to have email statistics within acceptable thresholds, as defined by Internet service providers (ISPs). Spam complaint, bounce, and unsubscribe rates need to be within an acceptable range. Depending on the ISP, anything above the acceptable rate will have consequences.

It is important to understand that Lead Gen & CRM's email statistic thresholds are based on industry standards. Other email service provider platforms (ESPs), such as Hubspot, MailChimp, and SendGrid all follow the same guidelines.

Acceptable rates for sent emails are as follows:

• Spam Complaint: Should not exceed 0.08%
• Bounce: Should be below 1%
• Unsubscribe: Should be below 1%

Sender Status Categories

There are four different sender status categories. Each category is tied to email statistics.
 

Accessing Email Sender Status

You can access your email sender status information at any time. To view your status, do the following:

1. Click Email in the left toolbar.
2. In the upper left corner, click    Options > Email Sender Status.
   
   

The email sender status page will look like this:

The overall email sender status is displayed in the modal window. This information is displayed in a table that displays the statistics for:

• Opens - Emails that are clicked on and opened
• Hard bounces -  Emails that are rejected by the recipient ISP and are marked as permanently undeliverable. 
• Spam complaints - Direct complaints that Lead Gen & CRM receives through ISP feedback loops
• Spam traps - Emails sent to a spam trap address, which are email addresses used by networks such as ISPs and blocklists to determine if senders are following poor list collection or maintenance practices

Review this data for the last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, and 90 days. For all statuses, the parameters are as follows:

• Good: Top 75% of all sends
• At Risk: Bottom 25% of all sends
• Poor: Bottom 15% of all sends

Limitation

In order to protect Lead Gen & CRM's sender reputation, Lead Gen & CRM's system is designed to assign the appropriate email sender status and restrictions based on the results of emails that have been sent. If an account continues to have poor email statistics, the email sender status will eventually be set to Limited.

The consequences of limitation are:

• A manual review by Lead Gen & CRM for email jobs.
• Immediate relegation to limited action groups.
• Poor reputation with the ISPs that dictate what mail will and will not be delivered.
• Account deactivation if there are continued poor sends while limited.

The Limited status is not the end of your reputation and sending ability. There are many ways to improve email results. Adhere to the following:

• Add permission reminders.
• Practice list management.
• Remove role-based addresses. 
• Remove disposable domains.
• Remove invalid addresses before sending to the list for the first time.
• Implement double opt-in processes.
• Never use purchased, rented, or scraped mailing lists. 

In addition, ensure that your emails are engaging. Engaging content is what recipients enjoy most. Make sure the email content is relevant and is sent at the frequency your contacts signed up for. Adjusting the content based on their engagement is key to keeping them engaged.

Once Lead Gen & CRM sees that sent mail has better results, the Limited sender status will be removed. However, the length of time it takes for status removal depends on the amount of mail sent, as well as the results. Removal of the Limited status could take one send, or it could be a few sends. 
 

Lists for Unhealthy and Limited Sender Statuses

All senders have their lists analyzed on import. Senders with the Unhealthy and Limited statuses are subject to additional scrutiny, and their lists are also checked when scheduling new action groups to lists.

When scheduling new action groups to a list, Lead Gen & CRM analyzes your mailing lists on import for any quality concerns. Lead Gen & CRM's list analyzer will check the list and prevent import or setup if the list scores poorly when compared to Lead Gen & CRM's database of known bad addresses. 

Checking lists may better reveal where imported contacts would land in regard to initial engagement scores. Refer to Understanding List Import Failures for more information on why lists are rejected from importing for quality concerns. Contact policy@constantcontact.com for import assistance.
 

Manual Review

Senders with the Unhealthy and Limited statuses, as well as those senders that attempt to send email jobs at a much higher volume than usual, are subject to a manual review of their email jobs. 

All email jobs, once scheduled, will go through manual review. Manual review takes place Monday through Friday, from 9am to 5pm Eastern Time. Be aware that this excludes weekends, as well as federal and observed United States holidays. Lead Gen & CRM recommends scheduling email jobs in advance to help prevent a delay in sending.

The typical manual review process is as follows:

1. A limited sender schedules an email for the future.
2. That job, once scheduled, immediately lands in the manual review queue for review.
3. The job will be reviewed by Lead Gen & CRM.
4. If approved, the job will send as scheduled.
5. If unapproved, the job will not be sent. Additionally, your agency will be contacted to explain the concern and provide recommendations to get the email job sent as soon as possible.

Questions?