• Blacklist – These are lists that ISPs use to mark you as a sender of unsolicited email. Getting on one of these lists can make it very difficult to get your emails delivered, and getting removed from them can be very tricky.

• Block – When mailbox providers such as Gmail or Hotmail reject mail from a sender and don’t deliver mail to recipients, often based on the reputation of the sender.

• Dedicated IP address – a single IP address that mail is sent from. This allows the sender to be in complete control of their sender reputaion as ISPs can easily identify them and reward them for following best practice guidelines.

• DKIM –  DomainKeys Identified Mail is a common method of sender verification that many ISPs use to determine reputable senders.

• DMARC – Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance is another common method of email authentication that ensures senders are correctly following DKIM and SPF standards.

• Domain – A senders registered online, eg Pure360.com

• Double opt-in – A double opt-in email is automatically sent when a recipient signs up to your emails. It provides a link for the recipient to click to confirm their address and complete the sign up process. This ensures that sign ups are using authentic email addresses, as well as confirming they have been entered correctly.
  ESP

• Email Service Provider – a company such as Pure360 who provide email services, including batch email and email marketing.

• Hard bounce – This refers to when Pure360 tries to deliver an email to an address, but the receiving mail server tells us that the email address can’t be delivered to. It may have been closed down for instance. We’ll automatically unsubscribe these for you.

• IP Address– A unique address that identifies a device on the Internet or a local network. It allows a system to be recognised by other systems connected via the Internet. In email marketing, your IP address identifies you as a sender, and also carries a reputation that helps ISPs determine whether they should deliver your emails or not.

• ISP – Internet Service Provider, in this case we’re referring to mailboxes, so Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo and AOL are the major ISPs that you’ll interact with.

• Open rate – This refers to the percentage of recipients that have opened your emails, taken from the total number you originally sent.

• Sender Score – Sender Score is a free tool created by Return Path which allows you to monitor the reputation of your IP address. It’s a useful guide to determine any issues.

• Soft bounce – When Pure360 tries to deliver an email to an address, but the receiving mail server tells us that the email address can’t be delivered to on this occasion, but is still valid. A full inbox is a good example of this.

• Spam feedback loop – Some mailboxes such as Yahoo and Outlook.com allow email senders such as Pure360 to subscribe to feedback loops. When someone clicks on the ‘Spam’ button, they send a message to Pure360 and we make sure we opt that recipient out of any future sends.

• Spam trap – These are typically old email addresses that have been turned into ‘traps’. They are monitored by ISPs and blacklists to see if they receive emails and when they do, the sender is usually blocked or put onto a blacklist.

• SPF – Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a simple email-validation system designed to detect email spoofing by providing a mechanism to allow receiving mail exchanges to check that incoming mail from a domain comes from a host authorised by that domain’s administrators.

• Spoofing – This is when the sender address and email header are changed to look as though the email originated from a different source. This is generally considered to be bad practice.

• Temporary email addresses – These are non-permanent email addresses that people can sign up to for a short period of time, usually to avoid using their own email address. If you’re seeing a lot of these in your data, it usually means that people don’t trust you enough to submit their real email address.