What is a Deliverability Audit?
A deliverability audit is a systematic evaluation of every factor that affects whether your emails reach the inbox or land in spam. It examines your technical setup, sender reputation, content quality, list hygiene, and sending patterns to identify issues and provide actionable fixes.
What a Deliverability Audit Covers
Technical Infrastructure:
- SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration
- DNS record accuracy
- Custom tracking domain setup
- MX record configuration
- Sending IP reputation
Sender Reputation:
- Domain reputation across major providers
- IP address reputation and blacklist status
- Historical sending patterns
- Spam complaint rates
- Bounce rate analysis
Content Analysis:
- Spam trigger words and phrases
- HTML-to-text ratio
- Link-to-text ratio
- Image usage and alt text
- Unsubscribe link presence
List Quality:
- Email verification status
- Hard bounce history
- Spam trap exposure risk
- Data freshness and accuracy
- Opt-out compliance
When to Run a Deliverability Audit
- Before launching a new outbound program
- When open rates drop below 30%
- After changing email providers or adding new sending tools
- Quarterly as preventive maintenance
- After any blacklist notification
Common Issues Found in Audits
- Missing or misconfigured DMARC records
- SPF records exceeding the 10-lookup limit
- Broken DKIM selectors
- No custom tracking domain (using shared tracking)
- Sending from primary business domain instead of dedicated outbound domains
How FlowStrata Conducts Audits
FlowStrata performs a comprehensive deliverability audit at the start of every client engagement. We check 50+ technical and reputational factors, provide a scored report with prioritized fixes, and implement all remediation steps before any campaign goes live. We also run ongoing monitoring to catch issues before they impact campaign performance.