Signs it is time to revisit email deliverability

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. A few signals that email deliverability is due some attention.

Security is a maintenance habit rather than a purchase, which is why it drifts. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Authentication records decide whether mail reaches the inbox
• Sending from a shared address hurts your reputation

How we handle it

Monitor bounces before a campaign, not after. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

What this looks like day to day

The realistic threat for most small businesses is automated and opportunistic, not targeted. Three things worth confirming about email deliverability before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Sending from a shared address hurts your reputation — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.