Spam Recovery

Even with the right setup in place, deliverability problems can happen. A sudden spike in bounces, a domain that gets flagged, a campaign that stops landing in the inbox. When it does happen the response needs to be fast and methodical. Continuing to send from a compromised domain makes the problem worse, not better.

Spam recovery is the protocol we follow when something goes wrong.

How we know something is wrong

We monitor deliverability signals on a weekly basis as part of standard campaign management. The indicators we watch include:

• Bounce rates climbing above two percent

• Open rates dropping sharply without a change in send volume

• Spam complaint rates increasing

• Domain blacklist alerts from major providers

• Inbox placement scores falling below expected thresholds

Most deliverability problems show up in the data before they become serious. Catching them early is what makes recovery faster and less disruptive.

The recovery protocol

When a deliverability issue is confirmed we follow a structured four-step process.

Step 1: Pause

We stop sending from the affected domain immediately. Continuing to send while a domain is under review makes the reputation damage worse and extends the recovery time. The pause happens the same day the issue is identified.

Step 2: Diagnose

We run a full diagnostic on the affected domain and inboxes. This covers bounce analysis to identify whether the issue is list-related or domain-related, spam trap checks to see if any known traps are on the active list, blacklist checks across major providers, authentication review to confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are still correctly configured, and sending pattern analysis to check whether volume or timing triggered the issue.

The diagnosis tells us exactly what caused the problem so we fix the right thing rather than guessing.

Step 3: Repair

The repair depends on the diagnosis. Common fixes include removing the contacts that triggered the problem from the active list, cleaning authentication records if they have drifted from the correct configuration, submitting delisting requests to any blacklists the domain appeared on, and adjusting sending patterns or volume limits to avoid repeating the trigger.

If the domain damage is severe enough that recovery would take too long, we retire it and replace it with a fresh warmed domain. The campaign resumes from the new domain without the affected one.

Step 4: Rewarm and relaunch

Before the campaign resumes at full volume we run a short rewarm period on the repaired or replacement domain. This rebuilds the sending reputation and confirms the deliverability issue is fully resolved before we open back up to full sending.

The full recovery cycle typically takes one to two weeks depending on the severity of the issue.

What happens to the campaign during recovery

We do not stop the campaign entirely during a recovery. We redistribute the affected volume across your other active domains and inboxes while the repair is underway. This means your outreach continues at a slightly reduced volume rather than stopping, and the impact on pipeline is minimised.

We communicate what happened, what we are doing about it, and the expected timeline for full recovery as soon as a problem is confirmed.

How we prevent it from happening again

After every recovery we review what caused the issue and update the campaign configuration to prevent a recurrence. This might mean stricter list hygiene before sends, adjusted volume limits, more frequent bounce monitoring, or a change to the sending pattern.

We also use the incident to inform how we set up future infrastructure. Patterns that led to a problem on one campaign get flagged so they are not repeated on others.