Know your Quick Message Reputation Score

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Making sure that the emails you send arrive in their intended inboxes is challenging. And it becomes more difficult as internet service providers (ISP) try to stop bad or unwanted emails from getting through. That's a good thing, but it can also be a challenge to ensure your Quick Message emails arrive in your members' inboxes.

What is a Reputation Score?

Your reputation score reflects the last 30 days of activity using Quick Message and is updated daily. It goes up for every delivered email and down for each email that bounces or when a recipient marks the email as spam.

The reputation score does not reflect how many emails arrived in inboxes.

Reputation above 80%: Nice! This percentage indicates a good sending reputation, and there are no issues at this time.

Reputation between 70% and 80%: This is considered a poor reputation score and you should consider taking action to identify and fix problems with your email sending practices.

Reputation below 70%: Accounts with a reputation below 70% may be subject to immediate suspension or termination.

Examples of how your reputation will be scored:

Within 30 days - If you sent 800 emails and get 20 bounces and 7 spam reports, your score will drop to 55%.

Within 30 days - If you sent 50 emails and get one spam report, your score will drop below 50%. 

If you have 30 days with no bounces and no spam reports, your score will be 100%

Why is it important?

Your Reputation Score affects our overall reputation and ability to provide the Quick Message feature to all customers. If your score goes low, you can not only risk being suspended, you actually may affect our sending ability as a whole. This is a big deal!

Reputation scores are indicators that each email service provider uses to decide if you are a good or bad sender. If an Internet Service Provider (ISP - such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and many, many others) sees you as a good sender—they will allow your emails to be delivered—which is what we want!

If an ISP perceives you as a bad sender (too many bounces and/or too many emails marked as spam) in a 30-day window, they can choose to block your emails and not allow them to be delivered. This is NOT what you want.

It won't happen all at once, so if you see a low Reputation Score on your dashboard, you may hear that some members are not getting emails while others are. Each ISP is different—some may block you and others will allow the emails to go through.

What happens if my Reputation Score goes too low?

If your score goes too low, our ISP will put your account under review and we will contact you to address the issues regarding your Reputation Score.

If you are not able to improve your score, we may suspend or revoke your ability to use the service. See more information under our Terms of Use policy.

How can I keep my Reputation Score high?

You can increase the Reputation Score by removing invalid email addresses from your directory before sending a Quick Message. You'll want to check with your members periodically to ensure you have a valid email address in the directory. We recommend at least twice a year. Typos can also cause unwanted bounces.
Also, be sure you are only sending to members who opt-in to receive your emails to help prevent spam reports. Ask your members if they want to receive various types of emails from you. For members who do not want to get emails you send thru Quick Message but still want their email in the directory, you can change a setting on their Individual directory details so they are not included in the list.
Consider using Groups to narrow your email lists. By creating a group, you can ensure only the people who need to see the email will see it. This will also reduce the risk of someone who doesn't need the email choosing to mark it as spam. Learn more about creating Groups.

Steer clear of spam filters.

Besides reputation, email providers filter out emails that look like Spam. Here are some tips to help you stay out of the spam trap.

Send relevant emails

The core of any successful email program is a commitment to sending relevant, interesting content to your recipients. This means being intentional about your sending practices and not sending for the sake of sending. Aimless sending can cause your engagement to suffer, and that’s the last thing we want. The emails you send should resonate with your recipients, otherwise, you risk getting ignored—or worse, sent to spam.

The next time you draft an email, consider the following before hitting send:

Am I sharing new, urgent, or relevant information with my recipients?
Have I shared an update about this topic recently? Is it too soon to send another update?
Do all of my subscribers need to know this information? Should I update a specific segment of my list instead?
Would I find this email valuable as a recipient?

Check your email against spam word lists

Using certain words will send your emails to junk or spam folders or cause the email to be stopped by ISP spam filters.

You can check your email text against spam words to help keep your emails from the spam traps. The information at the links below provides great guides to help you minimize the spam-worthy wording that is most likely to be seen as spam.

The Ultimate List of 394 Email Spam Trigger Words to Avoid in 2021

188 Spam Words to Avoid: How to Stay Out of Spam Email Filters

Subject lines matter

Don't duplicate subject lines for emails - each email you send should have a unique subject line.
The shorter the subject line, the better. Brevity is important to ensuring that your subjects don’t get cut off and that recipients are drawn in.
Avoid language that sounds spammy or clickbait-y that will most certainly get sent to spam folders.
Use emojis sparingly. It can be tempting to use emojis in subject lines, but they can alienate some recipient groups. Use them sparingly and with purpose.

If your reputation score is high, and you don't believe you are hitting spam filters but your emails are still not reaching your members' inboxes, please review this help document for more information.

Troubleshooting for Quick Message emails