Check Your Email Address Reputation

Messages that don’t get seen, don’t get replies.

Which means if you’re sending cold email then deliverability is your number one job.

OK, that makes sense. But how do you know if you’re doing a good job, or not?

If you aren’t getting replies is it because no one liked your email? Or was it a deliverability issue? Maybe both?

In this article we’ll break down ways to check your email address reputation.

Because, as the philosopher G.I. Joe once said, “knowing is half the battle.”

When you can check your email reputation issues, you can take action on them.

Let’s get started!

Start with Email Reputation Diagnostics

If you want to check your email address reputation it’s a good idea to start with some basic email diagnostics.

There’s a very good chance you’ll find a problem before you do any placement tests.

After the basic checks have been done then we’ll move on to email placement testing.

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Check Your Email Delivery Basics

The first thing you want to check is whether your basic setup is correct.

Things like SPF records, DKIM, DMARC, etc are easy to mess up (we’ve all done it). One wrong DNS record and your email account is toast.

To check your email architecture is correct visit Mail Tester.

They’ll give you an email address to send your message to. And then give you an evaluation of your copy and your account set up.

They’ll tell you whether your account is properly authenticated.

And any glaring issues you might have with your email copy.

For a more nuanced look at your email architecture, try the Email Health Report by MX Toolbox.

They’ll give you a more detailed report than Mail Tester and you may get a few suggestions to improve.

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Check If Your Email Domain is Blacklisted

Next, you want to check whether your email domain is blacklisted.

Once again it’s MX Toolbox to the rescue. Navigate to the email blacklists checker and pop your domain into the tool.

This will tell you whether you’re on a spam list, or not.

If you are, don’t panic. You’ll probably be removed in a week or so. Stop sending from that domain and restart a slow warming process.

Check Your Email IP Reputation

Sometimes being on a blacklist isn’t your fault. Someone on your shared server messed up and YOU’RE paying the price.

It’s not fair, but it is what it is.

Some shared servers rotate IPs so it’s a short term issue. But if you’re on a fixed IP then a bad actor on your IP can cause a lot of problems.

Start by finding your IP address. Enter your email domain and NSLookup will tell you the IP your domain is on.

Then drop by Data443 to check your email IP reputation. The tool will tell you if your IP is perceived as high risk.

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Verify Your SpamAssassin Score

It’s a good idea to verify your SpamAssassin score. Here are the steps for Google (but you can do the same thing in Outlook and other email clients.

Send a test outreach email to your Google email and open the message.
Open the 3 dots menu on the upper right side of the email.
Select “Show Original”.
When the original message opens click the “Copy To Clipboard” button.
Next, visit Postmark’s Spam Check.
Paste in your email content (full header & content) and you’ll get your spam score.

Isolate & Test Your Email Variables

In the next section we’ll look at email placement testing solutions. Before we do, give some thought to your testing methodology.

Here’s the problem. Every outbound message contains 3 possible points of failure – the email address, the copy, and the signature.

If you test them all simultaneously then it’s hard to isolate the problem.

Email Address Test: send a message that’s completely benign, “Hey, let’s get coffee next week.” Be sure to remove your email signature to test the email address in isolation. If your messages go to spam then you know the problem is your email address.

Email Signature Test: You’re probably using the same signature across multiple email sending accounts. This can make your signature a point of failure for your outreach. Repeat the same benign copy test. But this time include your signature. If messages go to spam then you know the problem is your email address. You’ll need to use spintax to make it variable. Or create a different email signature for each of your sending accounts.

Email Copy Test: do another test with no signature, but use your normal outreach email copy. If your message bounces then there’s a good chance the ESPs have blacklisted that message. Incorporate more spintax into your copy. Or just retire it and start fresh.

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Email Placement Testing

Once you’ve eliminated structural problems and blacklists as a factor it’s time to do some inbox placement tests.

This is where you send emails to actual email addresses to see whether they go to the primary inbox or to spam.

Here are some tools to help you do exactly that.

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Bouncer

As part of its email testing suite Bouncer offers users a placement test subscription. Placement testing starts at as little as $25/m (at time of writing) so it’s affordable for everyone.

MailReach

MailReach has a free inbox placement test you can use to get a sense of where your messages are landing.

One thing that’s nice about their test is you can control whether to include your regular signature, and outreach copy.

This makes it easy to test different variables.

I also like that you can choose to test professional email addresses or personal email addresses.

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GlockApps

A well known free tool for email inbox placement checking is GlockApps. It checks where you land across a wider range of inbox types. And also shows your SpamAssassin score and DNS performance.

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Inboxy

Inboxy also has a free test to see whether your emails go to the primary inbox or spam.

This test requires a blank email so it’s particularly good for testing your email address alone.

That’s How To Check Your Email Address Reputation

So there you have it. These are the easiest, most effective ways to check your email reputation without dropping a bundle on expensive tools. If you discover your email address has a weak reputation stop using it right away. Warm it until your reputation is restored. And work on changing the copy and you email signature, if appropriate.