Changes to the Switchboard Reputation Score

Last updated: June 23, 2025

We are changing how we evaluate the deliverability of email programs on Switchboard. On April 14, 2025, we will change how we determine your program's Switchboard Reputation Score. We'll show you the new score for a week, after which we'll move your program to the higher or lower IP pool if needed. If your program uses a dedicated IP, you'll see a reputation score, but no change will be made.

Why?

As email service providers (ESPs) like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo change how they evaluate and treat incoming email programs, we are updating our internal scoring model to better reflect the perceived quality of emailing programs.

The most significant motivation is that the way ESPs treat incoming emails impacts our indicators. For example, if Google or Yahoo send emails straight to a spam folder, that does not impact the spam rate (and will artificially reduce it). This makes the spam rate an unreliable indicator over time because emails aren’t actually hitting inboxes.

These changes reflect our commitment to maintaining strong deliverability on the shared IPs most Switchboard programs use and our goal of providing users with a clear view of their program's performance.

What?

We used machine learning models to evaluate our emailing programs and generate a set of new, holistic weights and indicators to use in our updated reputation scores. We’re committed to ensuring the models are interpretable, so here is how we’re weighting programs now:

In our testing, the variables that matter the most are the open rate, click rate, the percent of recipients who previously engaged (prior engagement %), and days on which a sender had a high spam rate.

As you may know, we first score each email program and then use weights to construct a final score between 1 and 4, where 4 is best. Here is our grading logic.

Scores

Scores are calculated on a rolling 30-day basis and updated overnight. Scores of 3 or above use the Main IP Pool. After 30 days, your Switchboard Reputation will remain but get marked as "stale." Since most of the metrics we consider use a 30-day window, you'll want to be mindful of any programmatic decisions as you start sending again. Your scores will be fully refreshed once you resume sending.

Score

Open %

Bot Open %

Click %

Prior Engagement %

Spam %

Unsubs %

1

7%

7%

2%

10%

.3%

1%

2

12%

14%

5%

20%

.1%

.5%

3

19%

20%

10%

40%

.05%

.01%

4

>19%

>20%

>10%

>40%

<.05%

<.01%

Weights

If the domain is still in the 30-day warmup period:

  • 50% weight on regular email opens

  • 30% weight on bot-detected opens

  • 20% weight on email clicks

If the 30-day open rate is below 7%:

  • 50% weight on bot-detected opens

  • 40% weight on email clicks

  • 10% weight on % of audience with prior engagement

If there is more than 1 day with high spam rates (over 0.3%) in the last 30 days:

  • 50% weight on bot-detected opens

  • 30% weight on email clicks

  • 20% weight on unsubscribe actions

For all other cases (default scenario):

  • 50% weight on bot-detected opens

  • 20% weight on email clicks

  • 10% weight on % of audience with prior engagement

  • 10% weight on spam reports

  • 10% weight on unsubscribe actions