How to Monitor Email Deliverability and Avoid Spam

Track email performance metrics and take action to ensure your messages reach candidate inboxes.

Key deliverability metrics

Bounce rate

Percentage of emails that failed to deliver.

• Target: Under 5%
• Warning: Above 10% indicates list quality issues

Open rate

Percentage of delivered emails that were opened.

• Good: 20-40% for recruiting emails
• Low: Below 10% signals spam folder issues

Reply rate

Percentage of recipients who responded.

• Strong: 10-20% for outreach
• Weak: Below 5% may indicate relevance issues

Spam complaints

Recipients marking your email as spam.

• Acceptable: Below 0.1%
• Critical: Above 0.3% damages reputation

Viewing email stats

1. Go to Reporting / Email
2. View email statistics:

• Sent vs scheduled emails
• Open rate
• Daily limit

Campaign performance

For nurture campaigns:

1. Go to Reporting / Nurture Campaigns
2. View per-campaign metrics:

• Open rates by step
• Reply rates
• Progression through sequence

Warning signs

Your emails are going to spam

• Low open rates (below 10%)
• No replies despite good subject lines
• Test by sending to yourself

High bounce rates

• Invalid email addresses
• Outdated contact lists
• Typos in candidate emails

Sudden drop in engagement

• Reputation damage
• Blacklisting
• Content triggering spam filters

How to improve deliverability

Clean your email list

1. Enable email validation (ZeroBounce integration)
2. Remove invalid addresses before sending
3. Re-verify old contacts

Improve content quality

• Personalize with variables
• Avoid spam trigger words
• Keep subject lines natural
• Include clear value proposition

Maintain sending reputation

• Warm up new accounts
• Stay within daily limits
• Send consistently (avoid bursts)
• Use dedicated outreach accounts

Technical setup

Ensure your domain has:

• SPF record configured
• DKIM authentication
• DMARC policy (recommended)

Your IT team or email provider can help with these.

Actions for common problems

Bounce rate too high

1. Pause campaigns
2. Validate all email addresses
3. Remove bounced contacts
4. Resume with clean list

Open rate too low

1. Test subject lines (A/B test if possible)
2. Check if emails reach inbox (send to yourself)
3. Review sender name and email
4. Improve email preview text

Getting blacklisted

1. Stop sending immediately
2. Check blacklist status at mxtoolbox.com
3. Submit removal requests
4. Wait for reputation recovery
5. Resume with lower volume

Regular monitoring schedule

Daily:

• Check scheduled email queue
• Monitor for bounces

Weekly:

• Review open and reply rates
• Identify underperforming campaigns

Monthly:

• Audit email list quality
• Review overall deliverability trends
• Adjust strategies based on data

Related screenshots

These screenshots show the 100Hires areas used in this workflow.

Updated on: 18/06/2026