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Guide10 min read

Landed in spam. Bounce rate spiked. Domain flagged.

The exact order to check things in, and what to fix first — the same triage playbook we run before touching a client's list.

Summary
SymptomLikely causeFirst actionFix time
Reply rate dropped sharplyDeliverability, landing in spamRun a spam placement test1–14 days
Bounce rate spiked past 3%Bad list or domain reputationCheck bounce types1–3 days
Domain blacklistedShared IP issue or domain flaggedCheck blacklists, rotate if needed7–30 days
Inbox blocked in warmupWarmup network flagged sending patternsPause, investigate, maybe replace1–7 days
Gmail marking as promotionalContent triggers: links, images, HTMLSimplify content1–3 days
  • Quantify first: was it under half of the last 4 weeks' average? If not, it's noise — do nothing.
  • Then scope it: all campaigns, or one?
  • If fleet-wide, check in this order — spam placement test, domain auth (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), warmup health, bounce rate.
  • If it's a spam-placement problem: pause the worst campaign today, identify which filters are firing (day 1), fix them (day 2), cut volume 50% for two weeks, re-test at day 14.
  • Over 3% and mostly hard bounces: list quality. Re-verify and drop bad addresses.
  • Over 3% and mostly soft bounces: reputation. Cut volume 50% for two weeks.
  • Over 5% either type: stop the campaign same-day.
  • Confirm on a blacklist checker before doing anything else.
  • Domain-level listing usually means replace the domain. Shared-IP listing is usually not your fault — wait for rotation.
  • Minor list: file a delisting request, typically resolved in a week.
  • Under 30 days old: replace it. Over 90 days old: worth repairing — pause 7 days, delist, resume slowly.
  • Usually warmup peers flagged it, or you hit a provider rate limit.
  • Under 30 days old: retire and replace.
  • Over 90 days with prior good reputation: try lowering warmup volume first.
  • Plain rate limit: wait 48 hours, then re-enable.
  • Test on a fresh Gmail account and see where it actually lands.
  • Common triggers: multiple links, images, heavy HTML, marketing phrases, logo signature blocks.
  • Fix: strip to plain text, 0–1 links, no images.
  • A/B the stripped version against current copy, 50 leads each, compare after 7 days.
When nothing above explains it

The 72-hour checklist

  1. 01Pause all campaigns.
  2. 02Run a full deliverability audit.
  3. 03Run a placement test on two sender subsets.
  4. 04Check SPF/DKIM/DMARC on every domain.
  5. 05Check your infrastructure provider's health status.
  6. 06Cut volume 75% for the restart.
  7. 07Relaunch with known-good copy, not something new.
  8. 08Watch reply rate daily for 7 days.
Benchmark

The 1% rule

After any fix, give it at least 200 sends at normal volume before judging it. Still under 1%? There's a deeper issue — start the triage tree over.

Still broken after two weeks is usually an infrastructure problem, not a copy one.

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