Discover Email Deliverability Best Practices for US Senders

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Discover Email Deliverability Best Practices for US Senders

Discover Email Deliverability Best Practices for US Senders

Lead Generation
# February 4, 2026
# 469 Views

Each day, hundreds of billions of emails are sent, and close to half of them are spammed. The job of inbox providers such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo is to filter out unwanted emails while delivering desired ones to the inbox.

As a marketer, it means that your campaigns—especially in email marketing—have to be genuine, legitimate, and meet the ever-changing criteria. Deliverability is more than just being sent; it’s whether your email actually ends up in the inbox or the spam folder.

At the center of deliverability is your sender reputation, which is your trust score based on your past sending practices. A good reputation gets your emails into the inbox and gives you more chances of converting. A bad reputation gets your emails into the spam folder, blocked, or even blacklisted.

Sender Reputation

Inbox services rate senders in a manner similar to a credit agency rating borrowers. The better your sending reputation, the better your chances of your emails reaching the inbox. Reputation is much more difficult to fix once it’s been harmed than it is to maintain. The following are the most important elements that will affect your sender’s reputation.

Spam Complaints: Spam or Junk button clicks by recipients.
Hard Bounces: Sending to addresses that are invalid or no longer in use.
Spam Traps: Addresses used to catch senders using low-quality or non-permissioned data.
Engagement: Low open and click rates.
Content Blocks: Trigger words, blacklisted links, or low-quality link reputation.
Sending Patterns: Sudden bursts or irregular sending patterns.
Authentication: Missing or improperly configured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Third-Party Blacklists: Listings with services such as Spamhaus.

There is no central place to check your reputation, and each inbox service keeps its own records. They also won’t share complaints or trap information with you.

Three Pillars of Good Deliverability

Your sender’s reputation and deliverability are a result of three interrelated pillars, which need to be addressed simultaneously.

Lead Generation

To ensure email deliverability, you need to implement double opt-ins as part of your Lead Generation strategy.

Get Explicit Permission

Permission needs to be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous. Do not use pre-checked boxes or imply consent from events or purchases.

Avoid Purchased or Shared Lists

They tend to have spam traps and unengaged addresses.

Implement Double Opt-In

Verify the identity and intent of your subscribers before adding them to your list.

Set Expectations

Clearly communicate the type of content you’ll send, the frequency, and the domain or brand it will come from.

Limit Role-Based Addresses

Emails such as info, sales, etc., tend to be shared with accounts that are more likely to be marked as spam.

Sending Practices

Even if you have the best list, sending habits that play into penalties.

Authenticate Your Emails: Currently, Gmail and Yahoo have a policy that, as of February 2024, bulk senders are required to have an SPF, DKIM, and DMARC record in place to avoid having their emails blocked.
Meet Subscriber Expectations: Here, consistency is very important. Make significant changes to your emails, but do inform them and ask for further opt-ins.
Segment Your List: Send targeted and relevant messages to increase engagement.
Write Honest Subject Lines: No deceptive or spammy content allowed.
One-Click Unsubscribe: That falls under the realm of the major inbox providers.
Stay Compliant: Ensured compliance by applying CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR, and state laws.
Design for Deliverability: Minimize extreme text/image ratios, spam keywords, and ensure it is mobile-friendly.

List Maintenance

A clean and engaged list is a must to maintain your reputation as well as generate maximum returns on investment.

Shorten the Engagement Window: Consider re-engaging or unsubscribing people after 90 days of non-engagement (either no opens or clicks) rather than the existing six-month timeframe.
Remove Hard Bounces Immediately: It is imperative that you avoid the use of invalid email addresses since
Validate Regularly: Remove spam traps and old emails.
Don’t Revive Dormant Lists: Permission expires, and if it’s been more than half a year since you sent an email to the members, they are considered new and require reconfirmation.

Troubleshooting Deliverability Issues

In case emails are not being received directly in the inbox, then it is likely to fall under any of these three categories.

Not Sent: Suppressed emails, automation issues, and campaign timing problems.
Not Delivered: Bounced emails due to reputation, invalid email, authentication, and technical problems.
Delivered but Filtered: Emails marked as spam due to content, engagement, and/or filters.

Deliverability Checklist

This means checking, before pressing send, that

We have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configured and working properly.
All recipients have documented, explicit consent.
The information is relevant, mobile-friendly, and clear of spam.
Inactive receivers are segmented or deleted after 90 days.
Unsubscribe is one click and visible.
The sending volume is consistent with your historic patterns.
There are healthy levels of engagement.

Conclusion

The ever-changing landscape of email deliverability is impacted by various guidelines from inbox providers, technical best practices, and lastly, individuals’ behavior. The key to staying in the inbox is to ensure that people only receive emails from those who want to hear from them, deliver emails that people expect, maintain a clean list, and lastly, maintain compliance and authentication.