Deliverability and reputation services
If you're worried about whether and why your email isn't always landing in front of the recipient, then these services may be able to help identify the problem and suggest solutions.
Related categories:
- Email marketing services (selection guidance)
- ESPs, consultants and software
- Email certification and accreditation programs
- Email design testing services and tools
As spam increased, so did anti-spam measures employed by those guarding our inboxes. A side effect is that many legitimate emails get caught up in the crossfire and are filtered out or blocked inadvertently. And a logical result of that is the appearance of services designed to help you get as much of your email delivered as possible.
Each service typically offers one or more of the following features:
- Monitoring of prominent email address providers to see if your emails arrive safely
- Monitoring of blacklists to see if you're on any
- Content checkers which test your email to see if your content triggers spam filters
- Deliverability audits which examine your email practices and sender reputation to determine where there may be problems
- Deliverability consulting, proposing solutions to problems identified in an audit
Services
[Note that if you use an outsourced list host, they may include deliverability services in their wider offering. The following companies are, however, specialists in the field.]
Delivery Watch
Automated, self-service deliverability diagnosis service featuring inbox monitoring at major ISPs around the world, spam tests, and monitoring tools for blacklists, authentication compliance (SPF only) and server configurations.
Pivotal Veracity
Pivotal Veracity offer a suite of deliverability tools, including a deliverability tracker, reputation monitor, content checker, and audit and advice services.
EmailReach
A delivery auditing and resolution service. The company monitors inboxes and blacklists -- and evaluates your content in the context of the major anti-spam filters -- to assess your likely deliverability problems. Then they suggest ways to resolve these problems.
EmailAdvisor
A deliverability monitoring service, EmailAdvisor reports on the real-time delivery status of your emails at over 40 popular ISPs. Other features include blacklist monitoring and a content check against various spam filtering programs.
Mail Monitor
Deliverability tracking using seed addresses at the top four consumer ISPs, plus spam score analysis based on the SpamAssassin filter.
Accucast Deliverability Services
Accucast also has a range of deliverability services. These include an assessment of those aspects of your email marketing that impact on your deliverability, coupled with advice on how to deal with any identified problems and help when dealing with ISPs and whitelists. Other services include deliverability monitoring and a content check against a database of common spam filters.
Return Path
Delivery assurance service, which helps you understand and manage your sender reputation (which plays a key role in determining how ISPs view your email). Their various services include inbox and blacklist monitoring, reputation monitoring, deliverability optimization services and specialized consulting. Also covers international markets.
Word to the Wise
Not a standardized service offer, but individual consulting on "deliverability, reputation repair, mail filtering issues or the technical details of sending bulk email," with solutions then tailored to particular deliverability needs. Can also help with setting up services to track delivery and manage whitelists, ISP relations and feedback loops.
Feedback Loop Reports Service
SuretyMail offers an aggregated feedback loop monitoring service that takes your FBL reports and turns them into a daily report on complaints, which includes an analysis on the impact of subject lines.
See also the article categories for more information on deliverability and reputation.