Delivered is not the same as in the inbox.

An email can be accepted by the receiving server and still land in spam. Deliverability is about which folder it reaches, and it is decided by six things: data quality, sender reputation, authentication, bounce rate, engagement and sending behaviour. Data is one of the six — the one we control — and this guide covers all of them.

gmail and yahoo bulk sender guidelines treat 0.3% complaints as the breaking point

Total bounce rate target

> %

Complaint rate ceiling

Sample rows to ask for

0 -200

Authentication records

What the receiving server is actually checking.

The decision to inbox, promote, spam-folder, bounce or reject is made in a fraction of a second on these signals. Fixing one while ignoring the others rarely changes the outcome.

01 yours to verify

02 earned slowly

03 set once

04 < 2%

05 relevance

06 ramp slowly

Eight checks before you press send.

Run this before every campaign, not only the first one. It takes twenty minutes and prevents most of what goes wrong.

Verify, dedupe, and strip prior bounces

Re-verify business addresses in your own tool, remove duplicate records, and drop every hard bounce from previous campaigns — from the database, not just the send list.

Confirm the segment matches the message

Check that the industry, role and size of the segment match what the email actually says. Mismatch shows up as complaints, and complaints are the expensive metric.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured

All three on the sending domain, verified by an authentication checker rather than assumed because someone set them up last year.

Test small, then scale

Send to a small tranche first and read the bounce and complaint numbers before releasing the rest. A ten-minute pause here saves a domain.

The five that cause most of the damage.

Each of these is common, avoidable, and expensive. The right-hand column is what to do instead.

Buying the cheapest available data

Sending to a list that has sat unused for months

Ignoring bounce reports between campaigns

Blasting thousands of emails from a new domain

Spending the whole week on subject lines

Judge on verification method and date, not price per record

Re-verify anything older than a few weeks before sending

Remove repeat invalid addresses from the database permanently

Warm up over two to three weeks at flat daily volume

We can hand you a clean list. We cannot warm your domain.

Data quality is one of six deliverability factors and the only one a data provider controls. If the addresses are real and current and the mail still lands in spam, the cause is in the other five — authentication, reputation, volume, engagement or content. That is not a deflection: it is why the refund policy is written around hard bounces, which are ours, rather than spam placement, which is not.

refund covers hard bounces above 5% in 7 days · not spam placement

we control

Whether the address exists and is current on dispatch

you control

Authentication, warm-up, volume, segmentation and copy

refundable

Hard bounces above 5% within seven days

not refundable

Spam folder placement, soft bounces, low reply rate

Questions about deliverability

What is a good bounce rate?

Under 2% in total is the usual target. On a sample test of a provider’s data, hard bounces above 2% suggest the file is stale.

Why do my emails go to spam even though they are delivered?

Delivery means the server accepted the message. Placement is decided afterwards on reputation, authentication, engagement and content. All four can fail on a technically valid address.

Does verification guarantee inbox placement?

No. It removes one failure mode — invalid addresses — and nothing else. Any provider suggesting otherwise is overselling.

Should I verify a purchased list even if it was just verified?

Yes, if any time has passed. Business data changes continuously, and running it again costs a few dollars against the price of a damaged domain.

What do SPF, DKIM and DMARC actually do?

SPF states which servers may send for your domain; DKIM signs the message so tampering is detectable; DMARC tells receivers what to do when either fails. Together they establish that the mail is genuinely yours.

Fifteen resource pages, none of them gated.

Trust is what we can show you about the data. Proof is what happens when you test it. Guides are what to do with it once it is yours.

What we can show you about the data before you spend anything.

How we build & verify

3 sources

Coverage dashboard

live counts

Compliance center

policies

GDPR / CAN-SPAM / CCPA

3 regimes

Opt-out & removal

permanent

What happens when you test it, and what we owe you if it fails.

Free samples

100 rows

Customer reviews

4.7 / 5

Case studies

worked

Accuracy reporting

up to 85%

Refund policy

5% / 7 days

What to do with the file once it is yours.

Blog

58 posts

Email marketing guides

6 guides

Lead generation guides

7 steps

Data buying guide

10 questions

Deliverability guide

checklist

Clean data is one of six factors. Take 100 rows and see that one handled properly.

Sales and service are reachable 24/7 on WhatsApp at +1 (315) 215-1563, or at [email protected].

Verified B2B and consumer contact data at a flat, one-time price. Every list dated, every record 11 fields deep.

Data products

Customer Care

Company

EMAIL	COMPANY	TITLE	CHECKED
j.whitcombe@•••••.com	Northloop	Founder	Updated
priya.n@•••••••.io	Cadence AI	CEO	Updated
+ 98 More Rows in Your Sample

EMAIL	COMPANY	TITLE	CHECKED
j.whitcombe@•••••.com	Northloop	Founder	Updated
priya.n@•••••••.io	Cadence AI	CEO	Updated
+ 98 More Rows in Your Sample

The B2B contact database, sold as files you own.

Every list, by country, industry, role and stack.

Buy data by what you are trying to do.

Account-level data, tied to the same contact rows.

Our workings, in public.

The B2B contact database, sold as files you own.

Every list, by country, industry, role and stack.

Buy data by what you are trying to do.

Account-level data, tied to the same contact rows.

Our workings, in public.

Delivered is not the same as in the inbox.

What the receiving server is actually checking.

01

Contact data quality

yours to verify

02

Sender reputation

earned slowly

03

Authentication: SPF, DKIM, DMARC

set once

04

Bounce rate

< 2%

05

Recipient engagement

relevance

06

Sending behaviour

ramp slowly

Eight checks before you press send.

The five that cause most of the damage.

Questions about deliverability

Fifteen resource pages, none of them gated.

Clean data is one of six factors. Take 100 rows and see that one handled properly.

The B2B contact database, sold as files you own.

Every list, by country, industry, role and stack.

Buy data by what you are trying to do.

Account-level data, tied to the same contact rows.

Our workings, in public.

The B2B contact database, sold as files you own.

Every list, by country, industry, role and stack.

Buy data by what you are trying to do.

Account-level data, tied to the same contact rows.

Our workings, in public.

Delivered is not the same as in the inbox.

What the receiving server is actually checking.

01

Contact data quality

yours to verify

02

Sender reputation

earned slowly

03

Authentication: SPF, DKIM, DMARC

set once

04

Bounce rate

< 2%

05

Recipient engagement

relevance

06

Sending behaviour

ramp slowly

Eight checks before you press send.

The five that cause most of the damage.

Questions about deliverability

Fifteen resource pages, none of them gated.

Clean data is one of six factors. Take 100 rows and see that one handled properly.

FREE 100-ROW SAMPLE

See 100 real rows before you spend anything.

EmailProLeads

100 verified rows, free, before you pay a thing.