Email Delivery and Deliverability

Email delivery and deliverability is a complex and ongoing issue. QuestionPro, like all SaaS platforms uses a shared infrastructure on behalf of ALL our clients to deliver email. We have taken a multi-tier approach to email delivery and offered layered solutions depending on budget and use-cases. This article outlines our approach to email deliverability and all the solutions offered and the trade-offs between them.

Email / Inbox Delivery Rates

Inbox delivery rates for emails depend on a number of factors - the primary of these being:

1. Past reputation of the IP Addresses that the email is delivered from.
2. Subject Line and Headers
3. Email Content - With Links (or without Links)
4. Reputation of the sites with the links
5. Bounce Rate
6. User reported SPAM Rate to ESP’s like Gmail, Hotmail, etc.
7. History of emails received by the recipient from the same sender

Email List Hygiene and OPT-IN

In the US and almost every other country - it’s by law - illegal to send mass-emails to recipients who have not explicitly opted-in to receive email. As a matter of policy, purchased or rented email lists are NOT allowed to be uploaded into QuestionPro for delivery. QuestionPro will suspend access, if we determine with conclusive evidence that a purchased or rented email list has been used for survey invitations. Moreover, the Opt-In for recipients for email must be explicit with clear understanding that they will be receiving future emails.

One of the first ways ESP’s determine if an email should show up in the INBOX is to look at the “From” email address of an email. If it’s from unmonitored email addresses like “noreply” or “[email protected]” - then they are automatically scored lower and flagged for bulk-email processing.

Accordingly, at QuestionPro - while customers are free to use any email address for the “FROM” address - they must be validated and a real inbox. QuestionPro does not allow emails to be sent from phantom email addresses like “donotreply” et al.

Our advice / best practice is also - that the FROM email be a real human / inbox - as opposed to something like “[email protected]” - this again has a negative effect on the score of the emails.

With DKIM - the customers need to validate (via their DNS entries) that QuestionPro is a valid services that is sending emails on behalf of them. This allows ESP’s to score the emails delivered by QuestionPro higher in the food chain - since the DKIM / SPF Records validate the emails and authorize QuestionPro servers as white-listed IP’addresses.

The SMTP delivery feature allows QuestionPro servers to deliver the email to internal email servers - so that the email appears to originate from the customers’s premises. This allows for a better layer - since our customers are also sending emails (for non/survey related emails) also.

This approach has several major benefits:

Maximum Deliverability Alignment: Emails sent via SMTP are treated the same way as any other email generated from within the customer’s organization, achieving the same deliverability rates and inbox placements.

Full Control: Customers have complete visibility and governance over outbound survey emails — including monitoring, authentication, and deliverability management — through their own systems.

Brand Consistency: Emails fully match internal email traffic, reinforcing brand trust and recognition with recipients.

However this does require additional IT overhead and work to setup.

The SendGrid option for email delivery is provided as a premium option for our Enterprise customers. This allows for a dedicated client-specific IP address and server for routing all the emails through a provider - SendGrid.

This option allows for using SendGrid as a the primary delivery source and uses SendGrid’s IP addresses for email warming, delivery and uses SendGrid’s reputation also for the delivery.

This is the best option for the highest deliverability if the customer is not able to setup SMTP but there is a cost since QuestionPro needs to create a dedicated email server for the customer.

There is a per/email delivery fee associated with this option. The fees are based on the total volume of emails sent.

Please contact your account manager to discuss this option.