Glossary Deliverability
What is sender reputation in email?
Sender reputation is the trust that mailbox providers such as Gmail and Outlook place in a sending domain or mailbox, based on its history of bounces, spam complaints, authentication and engagement.
Providers track reputation for your domain and, separately, for the servers that send your mail. New domains and mailboxes start with little history, which is why they need a gentle warm-up.
Google shows domain reputation to verified senders in Postmaster Tools. Most providers do not publish a score, so senders infer it from inbox placement and bounce and complaint rates.
Why it matters
- Reputation decides whether your next email lands in the inbox or in spam.
- Every send counts: sending to bad addresses or uninterested people steadily lowers it.
- It is tied to your domain, so cold email from your main domain affects your everyday mail too.
How Reach Crew handles it
Every email Reach Crew sends leaves your own mailbox, so no other customer's sending can affect your reputation. Checker only lets an address through after two checks, and a mailbox is paused automatically when more than 3% of its emails bounce (after 50 sends), on three early bounces, or on any spam complaint.
Related terms
- Email deliverability. Email deliverability is the share of the emails you send that land in the recipient's inbox, rather than in...
- Bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails that come back as undeliverable, usually because the address does...
- Spam complaint. A spam complaint is recorded when a recipient clicks "Report spam" (or similar) on your email, and the spam...
- Email warm-up. Email warm-up is the practice of starting a new or quiet mailbox at a small number of emails a day and raising...
- Guide: Email warm-up and sending limits for a new mailbox