Sender Reputation Triage (QA)
A checklist with 7 steps: Pull bounce and complaint rates per sending domain for the trailing 14 days.
By InnovaAI ResearchPublished
What are the steps?
Sender Reputation Triage (QA)
- 01
Pull bounce and complaint rates per sending domain for the trailing 14 days
Segment by domain rather than by campaign. A single warmed domain can mask a second domain that is already above a 2% hard-bounce threshold and dragging the whole client account down.
- 02
Separate hard bounces from soft bounces before deciding on any pause
Hard bounces signal list decay and require suppression; soft bounces often reflect transient mailbox issues. Treating both the same leads agencies to pause healthy sequences and lose a week of pipeline.
- 03
Check whether reply rates fell before or after the last copy or cadence change
Line up the change date against the metric curve. If reply rate dropped within 72 hours of a new sequence step, the copy or send volume is the likely cause, not the domain.
- 04
Verify SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records still resolve for every sending subdomain
DNS edits by a client's IT team or a domain migration can silently break authentication. Re-check records after any infrastructure change, not only at onboarding.
- 05
Confirm suppression lists sync across every connected tool in the stack
When a client runs sequences in more than one platform, unsubscribes captured in one system must propagate to the others. A missed sync is a compliance exposure, not just a deliverability one.
- 06
Cap daily send volume per mailbox and document the ceiling in the client runbook
Volume ceilings should reflect mailbox age and domain history. Record the number so a new operator does not raise it during a push for pipeline.
- 07
Escalate to the client with a written remediation plan when two or more thresholds breach
State the metric, the threshold, the suspected cause, and the corrective action with a review date. Written escalation protects the retainer relationship when results dip.