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Sender health score

The hero of the Overview tab is your sender health score: a single 0 to 100 number that summarizes how mailbox providers are likely to see your brand right now. It is computed from the same metrics, with the same rate definitions, that SmartMailing's own sending protections use. When the dashboard says you are safe, the sending engine agrees, and when a rate drifts toward a limit, you see it before it becomes a problem.

Reading the gauge​

The gauge shows your score together with a band label: Excellent, Good, Fair, or At risk. Two special states exist:

  • Building means you have sent something, but not enough yet (aim for roughly 100 sends in the window) for the rates to be statistically meaningful. The score is shown, but treat it as provisional.
  • No data means there were no sends in the selected window at all.

Next to the gauge, a status pill shows your brand's current sending state: Sending active, Sending paused, or Sending suspended. A paused or suspended brand has its score capped, because a brand that cannot send is not in good standing regardless of what its rolling rates say.

Below the pill, a one sentence verdict tells you the single biggest thing dragging your score down and what to do about it, in plain language.

What feeds the score​

The breakdown under the verdict lists each contributor with a colored status dot (green, amber, or red), its current value, and the target it is measured against:

  • Spam complaints. The heaviest factor by far. Complaint rate is measured as complaints divided by emails sent. Even small fractions of a percent matter here.
  • Hard bounces. The second heaviest factor. Bounce rate for health purposes counts hard bounces only, divided by emails sent. Soft bounces (full mailboxes, temporary errors) do not hurt your reputation.
  • Email authentication (DMARC). Measured as the share of your mail where DKIM and SPF both pass and align. This only counts once DMARC reports are flowing; until then the row shows No reports yet with a Set up DMARC link to the /dmarc dashboard.
  • Audience engagement. Once you have a meaningful delivered volume, a low open rate starts to drag the score, because persistent low engagement nudges you toward the spam folder over time.

Complaint and bounce contributions only apply once your send volume is meaningful; before that they show as "building data" rather than penalizing a tiny sample.

Reputation timeline​

The Reputation timeline section lists every time SmartMailing acted to protect your sending reputation: warnings, pauses, suspensions, volume spike alerts, and recoveries. Each entry shows the event, the metric and value that triggered it, the limit it crossed, the action taken, and when it happened.

If nothing has ever happened, you see a green No deliverability incidents. Clean record. line. That is the goal.

warning

If you see a pause or suspension event here, fix the underlying cause (usually complaints or bounces) before trying to send more. Sending through a reputation problem makes it worse.

Email authentication​

The Email authentication section shows whether mailbox providers can verify your mail is really from you. Once DMARC reports are coming in, you get three cards: DKIM pass, SPF pass, and DMARC aligned, with the message volume they are based on. Unauthenticated mail is far more likely to be junked, so this is one of the biggest levers on inbox placement.

If you have no reports yet, the section walks you through setting up DMARC monitoring: it takes one DNS record. The Full DMARC report link opens the dedicated /dmarc dashboard with per-sender detail.