3 Key Factors Affecting IP Reputation

Jennifer Rozario

In a recent blog, I discussed  the importance of IP (Internet Protocol standard) reputation and its impact on a mailer’s deliverability, as well as the potential impact on an advertiser’s brand. I may be imposing my own experience on you here, but from what I’ve seen, every mailer has the extremely unpleasant experience of having their IPs hard blocked and, for all intents and purposes, rendered useless.  Not only is this an inconvenience when IPs and entire ranges get blocked, it can often be catastrophic in terms of loss of revenue.  It can be crippling.

While there is no magic formula or strategy that can guarantee this won’t happen to an email marketer, there are key factors that affect an IPs reputation and deliverability.  Knowing, addressing, and implementing them into your mailing strategy will ensure that you are using every tool at your disposal.

1. User Engagement

  • Check your user engagement on a daily basis. Monitor data and Re-engage or remove inactives as necessary.
  • Remove any old addresses if they have no engagement from over a year.
  • Create a different segment for opens and clicks.
  • Create different segments for unengaged users and try to reactivate engagement by giving some offers.
  • Try to add 10% of older data to that engagement list to get more opens or clicks if you prefer to use legacy data.
  • Mail your users consistently (at least once a week).
  • Work with someone who can provide you with guidance and the right offers for your data.

2. Quality Data

  • How old is your data?  It may have been responsive at one point, and the user may have double opted in…two years ago.  When an ISP sees that there is no activity i.e. no clicks, no complaints, it is considered unresponsive and most likely too old.  They would rather see complaints as opposed to no activity.
  • ISPs want to see new, fresh data, generally under a very specific time range.
  • Is it Opt-in, Double Opt-in?
  • Where did you acquire your data?  A question that an ISP will inevitably ask when you approach them with a delivery issue.

3. Complaints

  • Ensure that you remove every complaint immediately.
  • Each ISP has an acceptable complaint threshold before you start getting blocked.  Discuss with your consultant or account manager the number of complaints allowed before you start receiving the temporary error codes that will inhibit or block deliverability.
  • What type of list do you have?  Are you being strategic in the offers you send to the list, offers that are targeted to your data?  Sending the wrong type of offers to your data, or bombarding it several times daily, or even weekly will increase complaints and ultimately affect your ability to scale or inbox.

Building and maintaining your IP reputation is imperative.  Achieving high user engagement, acquiring good data, and keeping complaints under the ISPs threshold will ultimately help maintain IP reputation and facilitate higher inbox rates. Understanding the key factors that influence that reputation and working with a knowledgeable consultant or network that can help you choose the right offers for your data is instrumental in increasing volume and deliverability. So, what do you say, are you ready to start working with Madrivo to learn more about IP reputation?

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