What should I check before sending a marketing email?

Before every send, check: (1) Authentication — SPF, DKIM, DMARC are all passing. (2) Sender reputation — Google Postmaster domain reputation is High or Medium. (3) List hygiene — you're only sending to subscribers who engaged in the past 90 days. (4) Content — no spam trigger words, working unsubscribe link, correct text-to-image ratio. (5) Test — run a seed list test to confirm inbox placement before the live send.

How often should I clean my email list?

Remove hard bounces immediately after every send (most ESPs do this automatically). Suppress soft bounces after 3 consecutive failures. Run re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers every 3–6 months. Sunset (remove) subscribers who haven't opened in 12 months. Before major sending events like Black Friday, do a thorough list audit.

What is a pre-send seed list test?

A seed list test sends your email to test addresses at major ISPs before your real campaign goes out. It shows exactly where your email lands — inbox, spam, or promotions — at Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and Apple Mail. This catches deliverability problems before they affect your reputation. InboxEagle returns results in under 5 minutes.

What spam trigger words should I avoid in email?

High-risk phrases include: FREE, Act Now, Guaranteed, No risk, Click here, This is not spam, Earn money, Make money fast, Special promotion, Limited time offer in subject lines (when combined with excessive punctuation and capitalization). Context matters — one use of 'free' in a legitimate email is unlikely to trigger filters alone, but combined with other signals it increases risk.

How do I check if my IP or domain is on a blocklist?

Use a blocklist checking tool like InboxEagle's free Email Blacklist Checker at inboxeagle.com/tools/email-blacklist-checker. It checks your domain and IP against major blocklists including Spamhaus, Barracuda, SURBL, and others. Check before major sends and whenever you notice a sudden drop in delivery rates.

What should I check before sending a marketing email?

Before every send, check: (1) Authentication — SPF, DKIM, DMARC are all passing. (2) Sender reputation — Google Postmaster domain reputation is High or Medium. (3) List hygiene — you're only sending to subscribers who engaged in the past 90 days. (4) Content — no spam trigger words, working unsubscribe link, correct text-to-image ratio. (5) Test — run a seed list test to confirm inbox placement before the live send.

How often should I clean my email list?

Remove hard bounces immediately after every send (most ESPs do this automatically). Suppress soft bounces after 3 consecutive failures. Run re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers every 3–6 months. Sunset (remove) subscribers who haven't opened in 12 months. Before major sending events like Black Friday, do a thorough list audit.

What is a pre-send seed list test?

A seed list test sends your email to test addresses at major ISPs before your real campaign goes out. It shows exactly where your email lands — inbox, spam, or promotions — at Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and Apple Mail. This catches deliverability problems before they affect your reputation. InboxEagle returns results in under 5 minutes.

What spam trigger words should I avoid in email?

High-risk phrases include: FREE, Act Now, Guaranteed, No risk, Click here, This is not spam, Earn money, Make money fast, Special promotion, Limited time offer in subject lines (when combined with excessive punctuation and capitalization). Context matters — one use of 'free' in a legitimate email is unlikely to trigger filters alone, but combined with other signals it increases risk.

How do I check if my IP or domain is on a blocklist?

Use a blocklist checking tool like InboxEagle's free Email Blacklist Checker at inboxeagle.com/tools/email-blacklist-checker. It checks your domain and IP against major blocklists including Spamhaus, Barracuda, SURBL, and others. Check before major sends and whenever you notice a sudden drop in delivery rates.

Email Deliverability Checklist 2025: 30 Things to Check Before Every Send

This 30-point checklist covers every deliverability factor you need to verify before sending a marketing email campaign. Work through it section by section — authentication problems alone cause 40%+ of inbox placement failures, and most take under 30 minutes to fix once identified.

Why This Checklist Matters

21% of legitimate emails never reach the inbox — based on cross-industry delivery data

40%+ of placement failures caused by authentication issues

30 min to fix most authentication problems once found

5 min to run a seed list test and confirm inbox placement

Section 1: Authentication (Do Once, Check Monthly)

Authentication is the foundation. If any of these fail, fix them before worrying about anything else.

SPF record is published at your root domain (v=spf1 ... ~all)
SPF record includes all sending services (your ESP, transactional email provider, CRM)
SPF lookup count is under 10 (use an SPF lookup tool to verify)
DKIM is enabled in your ESP and CNAME/TXT records are published in DNS
DKIM selector is active (verify with a DKIM lookup tool)
DMARC record is published at _dmarc.yourdomain.com
DMARC has an rua= tag pointing to a monitored email address for aggregate reports
DMARC policy is at least p=none (target p=quarantine or p=reject when ready)
BIMI record is published if you want your logo to appear in Gmail (requires DMARC at p=quarantine or p=reject)

Section 2: Sender Reputation (Check Before Every Major Send)

Google Postmaster domain reputation is High or Medium (check postmaster.google.com)
Google Postmaster spam rate is below 0.10%
Authentication compliance is 100% in Google Postmaster
Yahoo Sender Hub complaint rate is below 0.30%
Your sending IP is not listed on major blocklists (use InboxEagle’s Blacklist Checker)
No delivery errors in your ESP logs from the previous 7 days

Section 3: List Hygiene (Do Before Every Send)

Hard bounces have been removed (automatic in most ESPs)
Soft bounces after 3+ failures have been suppressed
You are not sending to purchased or rented lists
Inactive subscribers (12+ months) have been sunset or excluded from this send
Re-engagement segments have been separated from active segments
For this send, the list is segmented by engagement (engaged in last 90 days minimum)

Section 4: Content (Check Before Every Send)

Subject line doesn’t use excessive punctuation (!!!, ???) or ALL CAPS
No high-risk spam trigger phrases in subject or preheader
Unsubscribe link is present and working (test it manually)
Physical mailing address is in the footer (required by CAN-SPAM / CASL)
Text-to-image ratio is acceptable (not an image-only email)
All links work and use your own domain (no URL shorteners)
Plain text version is included (your ESP should generate this automatically)
Email renders correctly across Gmail, Outlook, and mobile (use an email preview tool)

Section 5: Pre-Send Testing (Do Before Every Major Campaign)

Run a seed list test to confirm inbox placement across ISPs (InboxEagle returns results in 5 minutes)
Send a test email to yourself at Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo addresses
Check spam score in your ESP’s testing tools if available
Verify all links are tracking correctly without redirect loops

Section 6: Monitoring During Send

Real-time alerts are configured in Google Postmaster and InboxEagle
Someone is actively monitoring deliverability metrics during the first 2 hours of a large send
You have a pause plan — know in advance at what threshold you’ll stop the campaign

Run this checklist before every major send and resolve issues before they cost you inbox placement. For automated monitoring that checks most of these signals in real time, InboxEagle handles the continuous monitoring — you get alerts before problems damage your reputation.

Free tools: DMARC Record Generator · SPF Builder · Blacklist Checker · Deliverability Checker