What is Feedback loop?
A feedback loop is a service offered by some mailbox providers that notifies a sender when a recipient reports one of their messages as spam, so that person can be removed from future sends.
Each report identifies the message that was flagged, which lets the sender suppress that address. Continuing to mail someone who has complained is one of the fastest ways to damage reputation.
Not every provider offers a feedback loop, and many require you to register your sending IP or domain. Where you use a major email platform, complaints are generally processed on your behalf and the contact is suppressed automatically, but it is worth confirming how yours handles them.
Treat the volume of reports as a signal. A rising count after a particular campaign usually points to a list source, frequency or content problem rather than bad luck.
A worked example.
Imagine a stationery shop sends a promotion to a freshly merged list. Complaints arrive through feedback loop reports within a day. The team confirms those contacts are suppressed, finds that most came from one older import, and stops sending to that import until it is re-permissioned.
Common mistakes.
- Assuming complaints are handled without checking
- Ignoring which list source the complaints came from
- Re-adding complained contacts through a later import
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