CASE FILE #003 — EVIDENCE ITEM
The Reputation Repair Protocol
Filed by the Deliverability Detective during the investigation of The Reputation Witness.
Season 1 — Deliverability | April 2026
Sector: Health & Wellness
Problem: Domain reputation collapsed from High to Low in 60 days
Root causes: Three compounding reputation killers
Status: Protocol issued. Recovery in progress.
The order matters. Step one before step two. Step two before step three. Skip ahead and the repair will not hold.
Action: Remove invalid addresses. Suppress cold segments.
Remove any addresses imported without validation. These may have become recycled spam traps — addresses reclaimed by inbox providers that silently flag senders who mail them.
Suppress subscribers who have not been emailed in 90+ days. Do not re-engage them until the domain has recovered. Re-engaging a cold segment without warming is one of the fastest ways to spike your spam complaint rate.
Do not delete suppressed contacts. Separate them. They can be re-engaged later under controlled conditions.
Action: Audit DNS records. Resolve SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment.
Authentication records drift over time. Hosting migrations overwrite DNS entries. ESP changes invalidate old DKIM keys. Additional tools sending from the same domain create conflicts.
Check SPF: Only one SPF record per domain. Multiple entries cause failures. Remove any records from tools or ESPs you no longer use.
Check DKIM: Confirm the DKIM key matches your current ESP. Old keys from previous providers will fail alignment.
Check DMARC: Ensure the policy is set to something other than “none.” A DMARC policy of “none” means you are monitoring but not protecting. Move to “quarantine” or “reject” once SPF and DKIM are aligned.
Action: Establish consistent sending. Start small. Expand gradually.
Week 1-2: Send only to your most engaged segment — subscribers who have opened or clicked in the last 30 days. Fixed schedule. Same day, same time, every week.
Week 3-4: Expand to 60-day actives. Maintain the same schedule.
Week 5+: Expand to 90-day actives. Continue only if reputation is stable or improving.
Full list: Do not email the full list until domain reputation returns to Medium in Google Postmaster Tools. Check weekly.
| Spam complaint rate | Target: under 0.3% |
| Domain reputation | Check weekly in Google Postmaster Tools |
| Bounce rate | Target: under 2% |
| Authentication | SPF, DKIM, DMARC all showing Pass |
| Recovery timeline | 30 to 90 days of consistent sending |
EVIDENCE LOCKER
Item Collected — Case #003: The Reputation Witness
This is your second Evidence Locker item. The first was the Foundation Checklist from Case #002.
— The Deliverability Detective
The Investigation Room — Season 1