How does an email blacklist affect your business
Blacklisting can have a negative effect on an email marketing campaign. It can cut off your access to new leads generated through surveys, activity on your website, and the lists of qualified leads offered by marketing service providers.
Perhaps even worse, blacklisting can deny you access to loyal, long-time customers who value and crave the content you offer. Should this happen, you could lose your most valued customers. Depending on the platform that blacklists you, it could cost you a significant percentage of your regular revenue.
How it works is that your deliverability rate will begin to drop. Depending on which lists you're on, deliverability rates can be reduced by different degrees. If the drop is small, you might not even notice. If it's major, with frequent delivery failures, you might be blocked by a big player like Google. If Google blacklists you, that is a significant problem, and you need to get off that list ASAP.
If you start getting many emails returned, that's a sign of a possible blacklisting. If it's happening a lot, that could mean you're on a major list, and it's time to investigate.
How to find out if your email is blacklisted
It can be tough to know for sure if you've been blacklisted. If you want to know the answer to "Is my email blacklisted?", sometimes Google will notify you. However, the email client doesn't always deliver a notification. If you notice a steep drop-off in responses and traffic, that might be the only sign you get.
You can check if Google has blacklisted you by making a Google account and viewing the Security Issues Report. There, you'll see a list of URLs that Google has been alerted to. If you find your site on the list, the first step is to clean your site of malware and let Google know you have fixed the problem.
If you learn Google isn't blocking you, you'll need to go down the list of databases to check email blacklist sites for your mail server IP address or domain name. The most common email blacklist checker sites are:
- GradeMyEmail Blacklist Checker
- MXToolbox's Blacklist Check
- Barracuda IP Blacklist Checker
- Whatismyip Email Blocklist Checker
- DNSBL Blocklist Check
- MultiRBL/DNSBLs Blacklist Lookup Tool
- Spamhaus IP Blocklist Checker
- IPVoid Blacklist Checker
- DNSChecker IP Blocklist Checker
- SpamCop
If you find you're on one of these lists, they'll have a protocol for removal. This usually consists of getting a report of the problems or suspected issues, clearing them up, notifying the database managers, and waiting. Most of the time, you can get removed easily, except in the case of SenderScore.
Getting your email removed from a blacklist database
Every platform and email blacklist has a protocol for getting removed from the list. Going back to our list of the big 8, you'll notice that it's pretty easy to get off most of them. SpamCop is odd because you can't do much other than wait. Sites are removed from SpamCop automatically after a period of time.
SenderScore, however, is quite challenging. A bit like changing your credit score, getting off the SenderScore email blacklist takes consistent effort.
If you get blacklisted by SenderScore, you'll need to address every problem that their report claims led to your low trust score. If this is the case, clean your site and network of malware, and consider cleaning your email list. When you have done these things, contact the web admin of SenderScore. They may not immediately take you off the list, and if they detect lingering problems with your site, you might stay on it.
To delist from SenderScore, your trust rating has to improve, which may take a while.
