Deliverability is whether your email lands in the inbox or in spam. It is earned, not bought: mailbox providers score your domain on authentication, list quality and how recipients react to your mail. This article covers what the platform does for you and what only you can do.
What the platform handles
- Authentication: your mail is DKIM-signed for your domain through your Amazon SES setup - see verify your sending domain
- Suppression: hard bounces, complaints and unsubscribes stop future sends automatically, account-wide
- Feedback loops: spam button presses come back as complaints and suppress the subscriber
- One-click unsubscribe headers: required by Gmail and Yahoo for bulk senders, added to your sends
- Branded links: opens, clicks and unsubscribes run through your own tracking domain, so your emails never carry a shared domain's reputation
What only you can do
- Send to people who asked. Every complaint costs more reputation than ten opens earn back. Double opt-in keeps quality high from the start.
- Never import bought lists. They contain spam traps that permanently damage your domain.
- Warm up a new domain. Start with your most engaged subscribers and grow volume gradually over the first weeks.
- Keep a steady rhythm. Providers distrust domains that go silent for months and then blast.
- Prune dead weight. Stop mailing people who have not engaged in 6 to 12 months, or win them back once and let them go.
Amazon SES specifics
Since you send through your own SES account:
- New SES accounts start in sandbox mode; request production access in the AWS console before real sending
- SES enforces its own sending quotas that grow with your reputation
- SES pauses accounts with very high bounce or complaint rates - the platform's automatic suppression is your main protection here
When mail lands in spam
- Check authentication first: SPF and DKIM must pass (the blog guide explains how to read the headers)
- Check your recent campaign statistics for bounce or complaint spikes
- Look at content last - content matters far less than reputation, but spammy subject lines ("FREE!!!", all caps) do not help
The deliverability page has the full story of how sending is set up.