Email Deliverability Consulting
SH Consulting offers the most comprehensive, technically grounded email deliverability support available - built for companies and organizations that rely on email to drive growth, engagement, onboarding, and retention.
Unlike traditional agencies that stop at dashboards and benchmarks, we embed ourselves within your team to improve performance at the infrastructure, strategic, and content levels. From startup SaaS platforms to large enterprises, we help you deliver email with confidence.
Our deliverability work doesn’t start with your inbox - it starts with your business. We take the time to understand your tech stack, customer lifecycle, sending architecture, and growth plans. Then we build a custom roadmap to improve inbox placement, engagement, and sender reputation - based on what you need, not just generic benchmarks.
We bring together technical precision and business context - working hands-on to solve problems across your email service provider (ESP) configuration, DNS setup, blacklist recovery, and email performance strategy. Not sure what an audit involves? Read what an email deliverability audit covers and when you need one.
We don’t just advise. We execute. And we stay until it works.
What We Do
Full-stack email deliverability audits (infrastructure, content, engagement, authentication)
Domain name blacklist (RBL/DNSBL) detection, investigation & delisting
Bounce, spam, and complaint trend analysis
Feedback-ID optimization including the initial configuration of the Feedback-ID header in outgoing emails
Engagement-based list management & sunsetting, including integration with your organization’s preferred choice for marketing automation and CRM software
IP/domain warm-up strategies and segmentation
ESP migration and consolidation planning
Email content audits for clarity, clipping, unsub mechanics, and reputation risk
Authentication & domain alignment: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI
Security protocols deployment: MTA-STS, TLS-RPT, DNSSEC
Post-security incident deliverability audits & remediation
Ongoing monitoring with trend dashboards, alerts, and performance reviews
Who We Work With
We provide in-depth configuration and support across major email platforms, including:
The Email Deliverability Lifecycle
Our 7-step framework covers the full lifecycle of email deliverability — from infrastructure hardening to ROI optimization.
Our Process
SH Consulting is in active communication with deliverability and abuse teams at major email providers - including Google, Microsoft, SendGrid, and Yahoo - as well as with RBL/DNSBL operators, spam trap networks, and filtering vendors.
These relationships allow us to escalate and resolve issues quickly, receive insights that aren’t publicly available, and advocate for your infrastructure when it matters most.
Your Deliverability Toolkit
With every engagement, you get:
Statistical deep-dives: delivery, engagement, and block reasons
Infrastructure audits: SPF/DKIM/DMARC alignment, link branding, and DNS
Blacklist monitoring: IP, domain, URL, and RBL tracking
Dashboards & trend monitoring (Google Postmaster Tools, Outlook Postmaster, Microsoft SNDS, and custom webhook data)
On-demand troubleshooting & expert remediation
Deliverability escalation & crisis response
Warm-up plans for new subdomains, IPs, and sender identities
Content + compliance guidance (CAN-SPAM in the U.S., Canada CASL, and EU GDPR where relevant)
Deliverability is Complex. We Make it Scalable.
Whether you’re recovering from a blocklist incident, launching a new mail stream, or scaling delivery to millions - SH Consulting gives you the confidence, clarity, and control to reach your audience every time.
Email Deliverability
Questions We Hear Most
Why are my emails going to spam?
Usually it’s security or infrastructure, not content. If DMARC is at p=none or an API key has leaked, someone else can send as you, and once your domain lands on Spamhaus or SURBL, nothing gets through. Sudden volume spikes are the second most common cause.
What does an email deliverability audit include?
We review engagement by mailbox provider, IP and domain reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT), content and sending patterns. A healthy 31% overall open rate can hide a 23% rate at Gmail. You get a report that ranks every problem by impact.
Why did my open rates drop after I verified my domain?
Verification moves your mail onto new infrastructure. If full volume goes out on day one, receiving servers can read it as a compromised account. We’ve seen open rates fall from 45% to 8% this way. A new domain needs a gradual warm-up.
How fast can I increase my sending volume?
Start with your most engaged contacts at low volume and ramp up over one to two months. After that, grow by no more than 50% per send if you mail weekly, or 30% if you mail monthly. Jumping from 300 recipients to 1,000 in one send will put much of that campaign in spam.
Can warm-up or reputation fixer tools repair my reputation?
They usually make it worse. Mailbox providers recognize artificial engagement and penalize the sender for it. Reputation comes back only from real email to people who expect it.
Should I move DMARC to p=reject?
Yes, but not overnight. We’ve seen a company do it in one day and lock hundreds of its teams out of their marketing platforms. First identify every platform that sends as your domain, fix its alignment, then enforce in stages.
Do spam trigger words matter?
Not really. Modern filters weigh sender reputation, authentication, engagement and sending behavior far more than individual words. A clean email sent after a volume spike will still land in spam.