Every sender has its own reputation that it creates by itself (independently of Alida) by sending emails. The concept of reputation is similar to a credit score – if a person has a strong credit score, it will be easier for them to purchase a house or a car. If they have a poor credit score, they may struggle to get these loans. Similarly, domains with strong Sender Reputation should be able to deliver mail to the Inbox frequently. However, domains with poor reputation may consistently see their messages go into the Junk/Spam/Bulk folder or get blocked.
The main challenge for domains is to deliver straight to the Inbox (by having great message content and a strong reputation). This allows your readers to have the opportunity to see the message and interact with it to decide if they want to take your survey or not.
Details
There are several key elements in building Sender Reputation.
Age of Domain
If your domain is brand new, it could intermittently encounter bulking or blocking issues with ISPs. This is because new setups do not have any reputation – this is something you have to build by mailing consistently. Older communities that have been sending out emails for quite a while have a better reputation; therefore these communities can send a higher volume of emails. Conversely, newer communities may take a bit of time to build reputation so should not be sending out too many emails at once.
- It generally takes 30-60 days to build reputation. After that time, messages should frequently go into the Inbox depending on your mailing practices.
This applies to all survey companies and Email Service Provides (ESP) as building reputation is a universal rule.
Good List
It is always a good idea to import a list that has been double opted-in. An old or poor list will result in hitting Invalid Email Addresses, Spam Trap addresses, and getting high Abuse Complaints, thereby impacting Sender Reputation negatively. This will have a direct impact on response rates.
Frequency
ISPs begin to reset reputation if they do not see any messages from a client after 30 consecutive days of non-mailing history.
If you leave long gaps between messages to your members (ie. 5-6 months), these users may lose interest in your messages. Some of these users could end up marking your message as spam. This would also negatively impact your response rates.
On the other hand, if you are mailing too frequently (i.e. every day) without seeing much activity among your members, it may not be a good idea to send so much mail. This could encourage users to mark your messages as spam (abuse complaint). Please see the more information section below for details.
When handling a specific deployment, it is important to start with a lower number of invitations - 10% of the total deployment - and gradually move onto a higher number. This is an important practice that will prevent your community from being black-listed.
If you are unsure about the safe number of emails that may be sent out by your community at once, feel free to contact Technical Support and we will provide you with case-specific guidance and suggestions.
More Information
Please click on the Knowledge Base link below for more information: