Managed Deliverability
Email reputation monitoring, with a plan to improve it every month.
Managed Deliverability combines reputation monitoring with hands-on improvement for your marketing and transactional email. We watch the signals inbox providers use to decide where your email lands, and act as soon as we spot a potential issue. And every month we carry out one agreed strategic improvement with your team, so you can see what you’re getting.
Not ready to talk yet? Run the free health check
- Senior consultants, run by a former SendGrid and Twilio leader
- For teams whose revenue depends on email arriving
Trusted by teams whose revenue depends on email arriving
Sound familiar?
Your email runs across several platforms. Nobody owns how it lands.
Marketing goes out through one platform. Password resets and receipts go through another, set up by engineering. Each team looks at its own report. When the numbers drop, marketing suspects the content, engineering says nothing has changed, and the question of why sits with nobody.
Managed Deliverability gives that question an owner. We protect what you send every day, and we make it work better, one month at a time.
What’s included
The same commitments for every client.
Daily monitoring
Reputation, blocklists, authentication and delivery data across the sending streams we agree with you.
Proactive alerts
When we spot a potential issue, like a blocklisting or a downward trend, you hear from us the same business day. Then we stay on it until it’s resolved.
Monthly inbox placement test
Where your key emails land at Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, read alongside the providers’ own data.
Mid-month working session
45 minutes with your team to work through the month’s focus together.
Monthly report and review
Your report by the fifth working day: what we found, changed and checked, and what’s still open. Then a review call to go through it and agree the next focus. Plus a short summary for your leadership each quarter.
Deliverability audit twice a year
A full audit of your whole email setup, with a written report and an updated plan for the next six months.
Job one: protection
We watch the signals that decide where your email lands.
This runs every day across the sending streams we agree with you. When we spot a potential deliverability issue, such as a blocklisting, a dip in reputation or a downward trend in inbox placement, you hear from us the same business day with what we’ve seen and what we’re doing about it. Then we stay on it until it’s resolved. Investigating and fixing is included, not billed on top.
Blocklist monitoring
Your domains and sending IPs checked against the blocklists that matter, every day. If you’re listed, we find the cause, fix what’s in our control, and handle the blocklist removal request.
Sender reputation
How Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo rate your sender reputation, read from their own data in Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS and Yahoo Sender Hub. We look for a slide early, while it’s easier to turn round.
Inbox placement testing
A seed-list test every month shows whether your key emails reach the inbox or spam at the main providers, and which Gmail tab they land in. We read it alongside the providers’ own data, because a seed test on its own only tells part of the story.
Authentication and DMARC
SPF, DKIM and DMARC kept correct as your tools and domains change. DMARC monitoring shows us everyone sending as you, so we can stop the ones who shouldn’t be.
Incident response
A sudden drop, a block or a jump in complaints gets looked at the same business day. We work out the cause, fix what we can directly, tell you exactly what needs changing on your side, and deal with the mailbox providers when that’s needed.
Changes checked before they go live
A new platform, domain or large send gets looked at first. And when Google, Yahoo or Microsoft change their rules, we tell you what it means for you and what needs to change.
Job two: improvement
A plan for the year, with one clear focus each month.
Every engagement starts with a baseline: your numbers, where you stand, and what will make the biggest difference. The first 90 days are set from that. After that, we agree each quarter’s plan with you, based on what the data shows and what your business has coming up.
The first 90 days
Get the foundations right
- Baseline and your first scorecard
- Authentication fixed across every sending stream
- List hygiene: suppression and bounce handling
- A sunset policy agreed with your team
You’ll get: a clear picture of where you stand, and fewer sends wasted on addresses that will never engage.
For example, quarter 2
Send to people who want it
- How your main flows affect inbox placement
- Engagement segments
- Deliverability audit and updated plan
Aim: fewer complaints, and more of your volume going to people who engage.
For example, quarter 3
Test and grow
- Sending frequency and your preference centre
- Test timing and frequency against inbox results, not open rates
- Re-engaging lapsed contacts, where your data supports it
Aim: decisions based on evidence, and a tested approach to lapsed contacts.
For example, quarter 4
Prepare for the peak
- A sending plan for your busiest period
- Your logo in the inbox (BIMI), if it suits you
- Second deliverability audit and next year’s plan
Aim: closer watching and quicker response when volume peaks, and a year of measured progress.
Who does what
Clear about what’s ours and what’s yours.
We do
- Monitoring, testing, investigation and reporting
- Settings changes in your email platforms, within the access you give us
- Removal requests and contact with mailbox providers
- Drafting policies and plans, such as sunset and suppression rules
We do with your team
- Agree each month’s focus and each quarter’s plan
- Changes to flows, segments and sending schedules, approved by you
- Test plans, and reading the results
Your team does
- DNS changes, with exact instructions from us
- Building and editing campaigns and journeys
- Sign-off on anything that changes what your customers receive
Every item in your action tracker is marked done, awaiting approval or with your team, so you always know where things stand.
How we’re held to account
Promises you can check.
Proactive monitoring
You hear from us the same business day when we spot a potential deliverability issue, with a first assessment within one working day. Planned changes reviewed within two working days.
A live action tracker
Your plan sits in a shared tracker that we keep up to date. Every item has an owner and a date, on our side or yours, so you can see what’s done and what’s stuck at any time.
The numbers
Targets set at your baseline and reported every month. If one slips, we tell you why and what changes.
If we miss our monitoring or tracker commitments in any quarter, you can leave on 30 days’ notice.
Each one is defined in your agreement.
One service, sized to you
The same commitments. Set up around your sending.
There are no tiers to choose between. What changes from one client to the next is how much there is to cover: the domains, platforms and sending streams we look after, which we agree in your proposal.
On the first call we’ll give you an indicative range. Once we’ve looked at your setup, you get a fixed monthly fee. Six-month minimum, then rolling.
What we don’t do
- Write or send your campaigns
- Build your journeys or run your email platform day to day
- Send cold email
We look after how your email is delivered. Your team and your agency keep doing what they’re good at.
Who you work with
Senior consultants who do the work.
You work with one of our senior deliverability consultants, who does the work themselves. No account managers, and no handing you down to a junior.
Managed Deliverability is run by James Deacon, Digistrat’s founder, who spent nearly a decade leading customer success across EMEA at SendGrid and Twilio.
“His knowledge in this space is excellent and he was also really proactive throughout. On top of that, he collaborated brilliantly with our engineering team to help get everything fixed, and was consistently supportive and easy to work with along the way.”
“James brought our domain reputation into a genuinely healthy place, with a direct impact on our open rates and click-to-open rates. Every step was transparent and proving ROI was straightforward. Highly recommended.”
From earlier Digistrat engagements.
Why it matters
What happens when reputation erodes without anyone noticing.
Sender reputation is one of the main things inbox providers use to decide where your email lands. When it starts to slip, the signs are subtle at first:
- Open and click rates slide without an obvious cause
- Marketing emails drift into spam, or into Gmail’s Promotions tab
- Verification and password reset emails arrive late, or not at all
- A blocklisting causes a sudden drop in delivery
- Important messages stop reaching key contacts, and nobody realises
The causes are almost always structural, not content. Better subject lines won’t fix them. Reputation monitoring catches problems at the signal stage, before they show up in revenue, activation or support tickets. How email sender reputation works.
UK and Europe
Reputation monitoring built for UK senders.
Digistrat is a UK consultancy working mainly with businesses in the UK and Europe where email drives revenue.
Most deliverability advice and tooling comes from the US. UK senders have their own considerations: UK GDPR, how widely Microsoft 365 is used in UK businesses, and the lack of UK-based specialists. We’re built for this market.
It matters most for
- SaaS and fintech businesses where verification, onboarding and product emails must arrive for people to activate and stay
- Ecommerce businesses where a quiet drop in inbox placement means lost sales, especially around Black Friday and the January sales
- App platforms using lifecycle email to drive adoption and reduce churn
- Fintechs, where a failed transactional email carries Consumer Duty risk as well as a commercial one
Monitoring or recovery?
Reputation monitoring and reputation recovery are different jobs.
Reputation monitoring
Early detection and prevention. Problems are caught at the warning stage, before your email is in spam and before revenue takes a hit. This is part of Managed Deliverability.
Reputation recovery
For senders already in trouble: repeated spam-folder placement, a serious blocklisting, or damage that has built up over time. This is a separate piece of work, done first.
If you come to us with an existing problem, the usual order is a free check-up to confirm how big it is, a Deliverability Review and Fix to find and fix the cause, reputation recovery if the damage is serious, then Managed Deliverability to protect the gains.
Not sure which applies to you? A 90-minute advisory session gets you a clear picture for £250 + VAT, with no commitment either way.
Common questions
FAQs about reputation monitoring
How does reputation monitoring help with email deliverability?
It tracks the signals inbox providers use to decide whether your email reaches the inbox or spam. By watching reputation trends, engagement patterns, blocklist status and authentication health, we spot issues early and act before they become visible deliverability problems. In Managed Deliverability it sits alongside a monthly improvement plan, so the same problems don’t keep coming back.
Do I need reputation monitoring if my emails are not going to spam right now?
Monitoring is most valuable before problems become obvious. Reputation erodes gradually, through list ageing, configuration drift and changing inbox provider rules. By the time the symptoms are visible, revenue has usually been leaking for weeks or months. Monitoring catches the early signals and gives you time to act.
How does reputation monitoring work for UK businesses?
We take account of UK GDPR, the high share of Apple devices, how widely Microsoft 365 is used in UK businesses, and the rules major inbox providers now apply to bulk and transactional senders. We relate what we find back to the numbers that matter to you: sign-ups, trial conversion, revenue per email, and customer messages that carry regulatory weight.
Can I use reputation monitoring without a full review first?
Yes. Every Managed Deliverability engagement starts with a baseline in the first month, so you don’t need a separate review first. If the baseline finds serious damage, such as a blocklisting or a domain that needs replacing, we’ll recommend fixing that first through a Deliverability Review and Fix, so monitoring starts from a clean foundation.
What size of sender benefits most?
Volume matters less than impact. If a quiet drop in inbox placement would show up in your revenue, activation or retention numbers, it’s worth considering. It’s built for SaaS, fintech, ecommerce and app businesses where email is part of how the business runs.
Is reputation monitoring only for marketing emails?
No. We cover every sending stream in scope: marketing, transactional and lifecycle, and where relevant, outbound email your sales team sends from separate domains. The focus is on the emails that matter most, including sign-up, verification, password reset and billing, as well as campaigns.
How quickly can reputation monitoring start?
Once scope is agreed, the baseline starts straight away, and monitoring and incident response are live from the start. Your first monthly report follows at the end of the first month.
What happens if monitoring detects a serious reputation issue?
You hear from us the same business day, and we move into incident response: working out what changed, limiting further damage and setting out a recovery plan. Where the damage is significant, this can extend into a separate reputation recovery engagement. The focus is on fixing the cause, not just the symptom.
How is this different from using free dashboards from my ESP?
ESP dashboards show symptoms, not causes. They tell you something has changed, but rarely why or what to do about it. We combine the inbox providers’ own reputation data, your platform reporting and specialist interpretation, then explain what the changes mean and set out specific actions.
What are the terms for Managed Deliverability?
A six-month minimum, then rolling. The monthly fee depends on the domains, platforms and sending streams we cover, and is agreed in your proposal.
Find out where you’d start.
We run the checks on your domains before we speak, so in 15 minutes you get a straight answer on where you stand and what we’d look at first.
Not ready to talk yet? Run the free health check