Deliverability Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms you'll see in deliverability reports.
- Bounce Rate
- The percentage of your emails that couldn't be delivered.
- Whitelisting
- When a recipient marks your sender as safe.
- Sender Reputation
- How mailbox providers score your sending domain and IP.
- Blacklist
- A list of senders known for spam or abuse.
- SPF
- Sender Policy Framework — declares which servers may send email from your domain.
- DKIM
- DomainKeys Identified Mail — cryptographic signature that proves the email wasn't altered.
- DMARC
- Policy that tells mailbox providers what to do when SPF/DKIM fail.
- Spam Trap
- An address used only to catch senders with poor list hygiene.
- Open Rate vs. Deliverability Rate
- Open rate = emails opened; deliverability rate = emails that reached the inbox.