Gmail users account for more than 73% of all email recipients, so it is extremely important to take care of deliverability with recipients using this particular mailbox.
Google Postmaster Tools is a free tool that allows shippers to address deliverability issues. The tool provides essential insights into important metrics that can identify problematic deliverability areas.
It allows email senders to evaluate their marketing effectiveness in Gmail and identify issues that may be affecting deliverability. Once connected to a domain, the Postmaster application collects email activity data and converts it into information for domain owners.
Remember that the Postmaster Tool was created by Gmail, so it only applies to users using Gmail.
To use Postmaster Tools, you must have a Google account. If you don't have a Google account, create one.
Configure the domain
Log into Postmaster Tools.
In the bottom right corner, click Add.
Enter your authentication domain.
Hint: you can add a DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) or SPF (Sender Policy Framework) domain.
4. Click Next.
5. Confirm domain ownership:
To prove that the domain belongs to you, click Verify.
Tip: it may take some time before the domain ownership confirmation status changes to "Verified". More information about confirming domain ownership
To skip this step and continue without confirming ownership, click Not Now. However, you will need to confirm domain ownership at some point to view any related data. To go back and do this, hover your mouse cursor over the domain whose ownership you want to confirm. Then click More: > and then Verify Domain.
To prove that the domain belongs to you, click Verify.
If you want to add someone to your, domain use the instructions -> link
Dashboards
Once you set up and run the program and click on a verified domain, Google provides you with detailed information on several data points organized into seven dashboards. The reports generated by Google are updated daily, providing insight into performance information for the previous day.
You can filter the reports from the last 7 to 120 days.
1. Spam rate
Spam rate is a percentage that represents the ratio of the number of e-mails marked as spam by users to the number of e-mails that ended up in the Received folder.
2. IP Reputation.
Email deliverability rates are closely related to domain reputation. So if you have a good domain reputation, most of the emails you send will go straight to the recipients' inboxes. However, if it is poor, then no matter how well-written and engaging your emails may be, they will be routed to the spam inbox. When users mark them as spam, the reputation of your IP address will deteriorate.
To limit negative user feedback, regularly check your list of recipients. Send e-mails only to those users who want to receive them.
The spam classifications below include mail detected as spam by Gmail's spam filter and mail reported as spam by users.
Descriptions of the domain classification can be found here.
To check the reputation for a specific IP address, click on the specific day and reputation status you are interested in, and then you will get information about the IP addresses that have received that status.
3. Domain Reputation
Better reputation means that emails from your sending domain (SPF and DKIM) are less likely to be filtered into the recipient's spam folder or inbox.
You can find information about reputation here.
4. Feedback Loop
Email Feedback Loop (FBL) is a service provided by selected ISPs. FBL sends reports to the ISP (Internet Service Provider, or simply Internet access provider) on complaints made by their email recipients - how does it work?
You send a campaign to your recipients;
Some of them decide to mark the message as Spam;
The ISP sends this information to the sender, as long as the sender has FBL configured;
Having this information, the sender can remove these recipients from its lists.
FBL implementation instructions are here.
How to interpret the data?
Where there is an increase (Spam submissions) for a domain (blue graph), there appears a red bar with information for which specific subdomain the submission is for.
5. Authentication
This panel shows the percentage of email that passed SPF, DKIM and DMARC verification out of all incoming traffic that you tried to authenticate.
Authenticating a message is another way of securing the mailing and proving to mail operators that the message actually came from you and not from a spammer impersonating you.
6. Encryption
This panel shows what percentage of incoming and outgoing traffic is encrypted.
This is the percentage of emails sent from the sending domain encrypted in "transit" between the sender's and recipient's mail servers. Encrypting e-mail traffic helps ensure that the contents of e-mails are protected from being read by third parties while in transit.
7. Delivery Errors
This chart shows what percentage of all emails were rejected or temporarily not delivered compared to all authenticated traffic.
Explanations of the errors can be found here.
Need more help?
If you have any further questions about the Postmaster Tools, please do not hesitate to contact us at hello@edrone.me.