I saw this question posted to the Email Marketer’s Club today and I could not help myself, I just had to answer it here.

Q: Whats the best way to build reputation on new IPs?

A: The best way to build reputation, or to repair a reputation, on an IP address is to send small amounts of email to the ISP your working to build reputation at. These numbers have varied across the ISPs but you can be safe by starting with a few thousand message a day (<5,ooo) after a couple of days or a week you should double this and then double again after another week. To build a proper reputation on an IP address between 50 and 100 thousand messages need to be sent and monitored by an ISP, approximately 3 business weeks mailing daily ISPs measure the following;

  1. Number of unknown users attempted
  2. Number of spam/junk reports from recipients
  3. Number of spam trap or long inactive (12+ months disabled) accounts that are being attempted
  4. Number of concurrent connections attempted from one mail server.

Key items to note:

  • Send relevant and permission based emails
  • Send only to live addresses, remove invalid account immediately
  • Monitor ISP feedback loops for high levels of user complaints
  • Frequent mailings (daily) in smaller batches than less frequent and larger campaigns
  • Authenticate your messages with SPF/Sender ID and DK(IM)

Do you have a question for EmailKarma? Email them to contact or leave a comment.