Sender reputation
Sender reputation is the trust score mailbox providers assign to your sending domain and IP based on how recipients react to your mail — opens, replies, spam complaints, bounces and spam-trap hits. A high reputation lands you in the inbox; a low one routes you to spam or blocks you.
How it works
Providers track engagement and complaint signals per sending identity over time. Sudden volume spikes, high bounce rates or complaints erode the score; steady positive engagement rebuilds it slowly.
Why it matters
Reputation is the foundation under every other email metric. You can write the perfect message, but a damaged sending reputation means most recipients never see it.
How Autocloz handles it
Autocloz protects reputation with mailbox warmup, adaptive daily caps, mailbox rotation, list verification and bounce/complaint monitoring — so volume scales only as fast as reputation allows.
FAQ
How do I recover a damaged sender reputation?
Pause aggressive sending, clean your list, fix authentication, re-warm the mailbox/domain with low-volume engaged sends, and ramp gradually. Recovery takes weeks, not days.
Related terms
Mailbox warmup is the practice of gradually increasing a new email account's sending volume while generating positive engagement (opens, replies, moving mail out of spam) so mailbox providers build trust in the sender before real campaigns ramp up.
Inbox placement rate (IPR) is the percentage of delivered emails that actually land in the primary inbox rather than the spam/junk folder or a tab like Promotions. Unlike 'delivered' (which only means accepted by the server), IPR measures whether a human is likely to see the message.
Domain reputation is the trust score mailbox providers assign to your sending domain based on its authentication, sending history, engagement and complaint signals. Unlike IP reputation, it follows the domain wherever it sends, which is why it has become the dominant reputation signal as senders share pooled IPs.
IP warmup is the process of gradually increasing sending volume from a new or dormant dedicated IP address while maintaining high engagement, so mailbox providers build trust in that IP before it sends full volume. Sending large volume from a cold IP triggers throttling or spam-foldering because providers have no history to trust.