Back to 'Product'In your Lettermint dashboard you'll find a status called Delivery Health. This status gives you an indication of your email sending based on Hard Bounces and any Spam Complaints from your recently sent emails.
Good to know: the status is visual only and does not affect your sender reputation or how your emails are delivered. Think of it as a quick check that shows whether everything is running smoothly. Does everything look good? Then just keep sending. Does the status ask for attention? Then it's worth taking a look at what's going on, so your reputation stays healthy. In this article we explain how Delivery Health works, what the different statuses mean and what you can do when your status changes.
How does Delivery Health work?
The status looks at the emails you've recently sent through Lettermint. We track two things:
- Hard Bounces are emails that permanently can't be delivered. For example because the email address doesn't exist. You can read more about this in our article on email statuses.
- Spam Complaints happen when a recipient marks your email as spam with their email provider.
Based on this data we determine your Delivery Health status.
Team and project level
The status is visible on two levels. On your dashboard you see the status for your entire team. This is a combined overview of all projects within that team. When you open a specific project, you only see the status for that project. This makes it easy to tell whether an issue is limited to one project or spread across multiple.
The three statuses
Delivery Health has three statuses. Below we explain what each one means.
Excellent
Everything looks good. Your Hard Bounces and Spam Complaints are low, and your emails are arriving just fine. Nothing to do here. Just keep sending.
Needs attention
Something needs a closer look. Maybe your bounce rate is a bit higher than usual, or a few Spam Complaints have come in. No need to panic, but it's worth checking what's going on. Also check whether it's your entire team or a specific project. Often the issue sits with one project and you can fix it there before it spreads.
Poor
Your bounce rate or the number of Spam Complaints is too high. A spike in Hard Bounces or Spam Complaints can directly affect your sender reputation. That's why we alert you early with this status, so you can step in before things escalate.
What can you do about a bad status?
Is your Delivery Health showing Needs attention or Poor? Here are a few things you can check.
Check your email addresses
A high bounce rate often means you're sending emails to addresses that don't exist. This can happen when users make a typo during signup, or when you're using an old list of addresses. Make sure you validate email addresses before storing them. At Lettermint, addresses that cause a Hard Bounce are automatically added to your suppressions list, so you won't send to them again.
Look into your Spam Complaints
Spam Complaints happen when recipients mark your email as unwanted. There can be several reasons for this. Maybe recipients don't expect your emails, or the content isn't relevant to them. Sending broadcast emails? Make sure recipients can easily unsubscribe. Lettermint automatically adds an unsubscribe link to broadcast emails.
Another common cause is bot signup spam. Bots create accounts using real people's email addresses, and those people then mark your welcome emails as spam. Protect your forms with a CAPTCHA or double opt-in to prevent this. In our article on bot signups we explain how to tackle this.
Conclusion
Delivery Health gives you a quick overview of how your email sending is doing. Everything looking good? Then there's nothing to worry about. Does the status change? Then you know it's time to take a look. The sooner you act, the less likely it is to affect your sender reputation.
Want us to take a look with you? Open a support ticket from your dashboard and we'll help you out.