Email Blacklist: how to avoid it

Finding out that your domain or IP address is subject to Email Blacklist is not good news.

All of this has a huge impact on deliverability, that is, the ability to deliver emails ( click here if you want to learn more about how to increase the delivery rate of your newsletters ), and getting out of it requires time and energy.

It is well known that sending an email campaign is not to be underestimated and since this channel represents a successful channel for conversions for many businesses, it is essential to have a basic understanding of what a blacklist is.

If your current email marketing strategy is simply based on sending out campaigns without paying much attention to sending practices, you could be undermining your ability to utilize this tool.

Summary:

• What is Email Blacklist?

• Blacklist providers

• How to Check if Your Domain is Blacklisted

• How to get out of the blacklist

• How to avoid blacklist

• Conclusions

What is email blacklist?

Thanks to these lists, email providers have the ability to block emails sent from addresses included in these lists.

An example : if you send an email to Mario Rossi from your domain info@acaso.it with IP address 122.122.122, Mario's mail servers will scan your data. If info@acaso.it or your IP address are present in these lists, your email will end up in spam or rejected completely.

What are the main blacklist providers?

There are several blacklist providers, however the most popular are:

• Spamhaus : an international organization that helps most Internet Service Providers track and block spam and malware.

• Spamcop - Spam reporting service that allows recipients of commercial emails to report IP addresses

• Barracuda: Enables businesses to manage email security with protection from threats, spam, viruses and spooling.

Major email service providers use these lists, so it is a good idea to check that your domain is not listed on any of them.

How to Check if Your Domain is Blacklisted

The first symptom of blacklisted emails is definitely a sharp drop in the opening rate. However, this data is not a certainty: the best way is to perform a regular check of the lists.

There are monitoring tools that can help you do this without having to do it manually.

Here are some:

• Debouncer : Email blacklist monitoring service.

Very simple and intuitive, just enter your IP or domain in the search bar

• MxToolBox :

like the previous one, it allows verification by entering your domain.

How to get out of a blacklist?

What to do if your domain is blacklisted? Don't panic!

If you are not a spammer, it can be solved. This is definitely a sign to review your email marketing strategy.

First try to understand the cause, then proceed with the deletion request from the database owners.

How to avoid being blacklisted?

It is important, even if you do not send spam content, to keep in mind some factors:

1. Spammers are the most active senders (it is estimated that 85% of all emails sent are spam), so to avoid being one of them it is better not to suddenly start sending large volumes of emails

2. Do not use purchased or rented email lists.

3. Clean up your contact list: Sending emails to invalid addresses leads to a high bounce rate, which is a major warning sign.

4. Unsubscribe link : the lack of this possibility, that is, the possibility to unsubscribe from the newsletter, in addition to not complying with the laws for the GDPR, could increase the rate of "spam" complaints from users. People may not remember having subscribed, this link allows them to easily unsubscribe instead of pushing them to report.

5. High sending frequency : Try not to send more than one email per week and make sure your content is unique and interesting, avoiding words like "free", "promotion", capital letters, the color red and numerous exclamation points in the subject line.

Conclusions

Following the newsletter sending guidelines will keep you off email blacklists, make sure your domain is configured correctly, and consistently work to keep your bounce rate and spam complaint rate low.

If your domain ends up on a blacklist, find the cause and fix it!