Understanding the Sure Send Deliverability Suite
Understanding the Sure Send Deliverability Suite
Purpose: The Deliverability Suite gives you a comprehensive view of your email performance and the tools to protect your sender reputation by keeping your list engaged and healthy.
Before You Begin
The Deliverability Suite is available to senders enrolled in Sure Send's Managed Email Deliverability Service. The full suite, including advanced engagement tracking, trend charts, and the AI-powered weekly Deliverability Report, is available with the premium Deliverability Suite subscription.
To learn more or get enrolled, contact [email protected].
Accessing the Deliverability Suite
The Deliverability Suite is located in the Tools section of your Sure Send CRM.
If the Deliverability Suite is already enabled:
- Click Tools in the left navigation panel.
- Select Sure Send Deliverability Suite from the tools list.
- You will land on the Overview tab by default.
If this is your first time accessing it:
The left navigation panel will show "No tools enabled" with an Enable tools in Settings link.
- Click Enable tools in Settings.
- On the Integration Partner Widgets page, scroll down to find the Sure Send Deliverability Suite card.
- Toggle the switch to enable it.
- Once enabled, the Sure Send Deliverability Suite will appear under Tools in your left navigation panel.
The top navigation bar contains the following tabs: Overview, Deliverability Suite, By Provider, By Domain, Campaigns, By Date, Bounces, and Suppressions.
Most views share a global filter bar at the top with the following controls:
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Start Date / End Date | Set the reporting date range |
| Domain | Filter by a specific recipient domain |
| Campaign | Filter by a specific campaign |
| Provider | Filter by a mailbox provider (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) |
| Mailstream | Filter by mailstream |
Click Apply to refresh the view with your selected filters, or Reset to clear them.
Overview
The Overview tab is your deliverability dashboard. It gives you a high-level snapshot of your sending health and surfaces items that need your attention.
Summary metrics at the top of the page display:
- Grade — Your overall deliverability score
- Delivery — The percentage of messages successfully delivered
- Open Rate — The percentage of delivered messages that were opened
- Click Rate — The percentage of delivered messages that were clicked
- CTO Rate — Click-to-open rate
- Unsub / Spam — Unsubscribe and spam complaint rates
Below the metrics, the dashboard includes:
- Needs Attention — Flags providers with low deliverability scores and links directly to the relevant view for investigation.
- Important Updates — System announcements and guidance from the Sure Send deliverability team.
- Performance Trends — A chart of your sending performance over the selected date range.
- Top Mailbox Providers — Volume, delivery, open, and click rates by provider.
- Top Bounce Reasons — The most common bounce reasons across your sends.
- Top Performing Campaigns / Worst Performing Campaigns — A quick ranking of your campaigns by deliverability outcome.
Tip: The Needs Attention section is the fastest way to find a problem. If you see a provider flagged with a low score, click View Providers to investigate before your next send.
Deliverability Suite
The Deliverability Suite dropdown in the navigation contains four sub-views focused on deliverability intelligence. Click Deliverability Suite in the top navigation to expand the menu and select a sub-view.
Deliverability Report
The Deliverability Report is an AI-powered, expert-curated analysis of your sending performance. It includes human deliverability expert review and guidance.
Note: Your first report will be generated on the next scheduled run after enrollment. Reports are generated on a weekly basis.
Summary metrics at the top of this view display Delivery, Open Rate, Click Rate, Click-to-Open Rate, Unsubscribes, and Bounce Rate for your selected date range.
Trends
The Trends view provides an interactive, multi-dimensional time chart of your email performance over time.
Use the checkbox controls below the metric tiles to customize what is plotted:
| Group | Options |
|---|---|
| Volume | Sent, Delivered, Opened, Clicked |
| Rates | Open Rate, Click Rate, Delivery Rate |
| Engagement Tiers | High, Medium, Low, Unengaged, Unknown |
| Re-Engagement | Save Count, Rescue Count, Save Rate, Rescue Rate |
| CRM Activity | Active Count, Percent Active |
A Mailbox Provider Trends (14-Day Comparison) table below the chart shows volume and delta changes for delivery, open, and click rates per provider over the past 14 days.
Tip: Plotting engagement tiers alongside open rate over time is one of the most powerful ways to see whether your list health is improving or declining. If your Unengaged tier is growing while open rate drops, that is a signal to tighten your sending criteria or adjust your sunset policy.
Engagement
The Engagement view breaks down how engaged your audience is, segmented by mailbox provider.
Audience Engagement table shows each mailbox provider's audience distributed across engagement tiers: High, Medium, Low, Unengaged, and Unknown, with a Total Recipients count.
CRM Activity table shows Total Recipients, Active Recipients, Percent Active, Open Rate, Click Rate, and CTO Rate per provider.
Engagement Patterns table shows average open rate, click rate, CTO rate, and send volume by day of week, helping you identify the best days to send.
All three tables support CSV export via the Export CSV button.
Engagement Tags
Engagement Tags are one of the most powerful tools in the Deliverability Suite. They let you define rules to identify segments of your audience based on engagement data, then sync those segments directly to Sure Send as tags. Once tagged, you can use Smart Lists to include or exclude those contacts from your sends automatically.
A common use case is a sunset policy: a tag that identifies your least engaged recipients so you can stop sending to them and protect your sender reputation.
Tags are listed on this page with their name, the platform they sync to (Mailchimp or Sure Send), the tag name, and their current status. Each tag has Edit, Clone, Sync, and Delete actions.
Creating a New Engagement Tag
- Click + New Tag in the upper right of the Engagement Tags page.
Step 1 — Tag Details
- In the Target ESP dropdown, select SureSend CRM (or your connected email platform).
- Enter a Tag Name (Internal) — this is for your reference only.
- Enter a Sure Send Tag Name — this is the tag that will be created in your CRM. Tags use lowercase with hyphens (e.g.,
sunset). - Optionally, add a Description.
- Check Auto-remove tag when recipients no longer match to automatically untag contacts who re-engage. This is recommended for sunset tags so contacts who start opening again are removed from the suppression automatically.
- Check Enable automatic refresh schedule and set the Refresh Frequency (Weekly is recommended) to keep the tag current without manual effort.
- Click Next.
Step 2 — Engagement Criteria
- Use the Match recipients where dropdown to set the top-level logic: ALL groups match (AND) or ANY group matches (OR). For multi-group rules (such as applying different thresholds by provider), use OR.
- Within each group, add conditions using the condition dropdown. Available data points include:
| Data Point | Description |
|---|---|
| Total emails received | Total messages sent to the recipient |
| Open rate % (0-100) | Recipient's open rate percentage |
| Click rate % (0-100) | Recipient's click rate percentage |
| Total opens | Lifetime open count |
| Total clicks | Lifetime click count |
| Messages since last engagement | Number of consecutive messages sent without an open or click |
| Days since last engagement | Days elapsed since the recipient last opened or clicked |
| Overall deliverability rank | The recipient's engagement rank relative to all other recipients. Rank 1 is your most engaged recipient. Higher numbers indicate less engagement. |
| Provider deliverability rank | The recipient's engagement rank relative to all other recipients at the same mailbox provider |
| Domain deliverability rank | The recipient's engagement rank relative to all other recipients at the same domain |
| Random sample % (1-99) | Randomly select a percentage of recipients |
| Email domain | The domain portion of the recipient's email address |
| Mailbox provider | The recipient's mailbox provider (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) |
| Has/doesn't have tag | Filter by existing Sure Send tags |
| Warming step assignment (1-31) | Used during email warming |
| Migrated status (0=no, 1=yes) | Used for migration workflows |
- Set the operator and value for each condition.
- Add additional conditions within a group using the AND logic within the group, or click Add Group to create a separate condition group connected by the top-level OR logic.
- Click Preview Matches to see how many recipients the current rule identifies before saving.
- Click Save Tag.
Recommended Starting Point: Messages Since Last Engagement
Messages since last engagement is the most practical data point for a sunset policy. It counts every message sent to a recipient that went unopened or unclicked. The count resets to zero as soon as the recipient opens or clicks.
To set a threshold, consider your typical send frequency:
- Calculate how many messages you send to a recipient in a six-month window.
- Choose a number within that range that represents meaningful disengagement.
- For example, if you send once per week, six months is approximately 26 messages. Setting the threshold at 20 messages since last engagement captures recipients who have gone a significant stretch without engaging.
There is no universal correct number. Start conservative, preview the match count, and adjust from there.
Example: Provider-Specific Sunset Rule
Some mailbox providers, particularly Outlook, are more sensitive to unengaged recipients than others. You can create a single tag with two condition groups to apply stricter thresholds at specific providers:
Group 1 (less strict, all providers except Outlook)
- Messages since last engagement >= 20
- Mailbox provider does not equal Outlook
Group 2 (stricter, Outlook only)
- Messages since last engagement >= 10
- Mailbox provider equals Outlook
Set the top-level logic to ANY group matches (OR). This tags anyone who meets either set of conditions.
Syncing Tags to Sure Send
After saving a tag, click Sync to push the current list of matching recipients to Sure Send as a tag. If you enabled the automatic refresh schedule, this sync will run on your chosen frequency going forward.
Once the tag exists in Sure Send, use Smart Lists to build a list of contacts who do not have the sunset tag. Target that Smart List for your sends to automatically exclude your least engaged recipients without any manual list management.
By Provider
The By Provider tab shows email performance broken down by mailbox provider (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.).
The Mailbox Provider Performance table includes the following columns for each provider: Sent, Delivery, Open, Click, CTO, Unsub, and Spam. Click any column header to sort. Use Export CSV to download the data.
This view is useful for identifying whether a deliverability problem is isolated to a specific provider.
By Domain
The By Domain tab shows performance broken down by the recipient email domain.
The Domain Performance table includes: Domain, Provider, Sent, Delivery, Open, Click, CTO, Unsub, and Spam. Use Export CSV to download.
Campaigns
The Campaigns tab shows performance broken down by individual campaign.
The Campaign Performance table includes: Campaign, Date, Sent, Delivery, Open, Click, CTO, Unsub, and Spam. Use Export CSV to download.
This view makes it easy to compare how individual campaigns are performing against each other and spot outliers that may be dragging down overall deliverability.
By Date
The By Date tab shows performance broken down by send date.
The Performance by Date table includes: Date, Sent, Delivery, Open, Click, CTO, Unsub, and Spam. Use Export CSV to download.
Bounces
The Bounces tab shows a breakdown of bounced messages.
The Bounces table includes: Domain, Provider, Bounces, % of Total, % of Domain, and Reason. Use Export CSV to download.
Summary metric tiles at the top show aggregate delivery, open rate, click rate, CTO rate, unsub rate, and spam rate for the selected date range.
Suppressions
The Suppressions tab is where you manage your global suppression list — contacts who will never receive email from your account regardless of what list they are on.
Suppression Summary shows a count of each suppression type:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Global Unsubscribes | Contacts who have opted out globally |
| Bounces | Addresses that have hard bounced |
| Blocks | Addresses blocked by a mailbox provider |
| Spam Reports | Addresses that have marked your email as spam |
| Invalid Emails | Addresses flagged as invalid |
| Total Suppressed | Total count across all types |
Search Suppressions: Enter an email address and click Search to check whether a specific address is on any suppression list.
Upload Suppressions: Upload a CSV file with one email address per row (or in the first column) to add multiple addresses to the global suppression list at once.
Add Individual Suppression: Enter a single email address and click Add to Suppressions to add it directly.
Tips
Tip: Engagement Tags work best when combined with Smart Lists. Create a sunset tag, sync it to Sure Send, then build a Smart List that excludes contacts with that tag. Use that Smart List as your default send target to keep your sends automatically focused on your most engaged audience.
Tip: The automatic refresh schedule on Engagement Tags means you do not need to manually re-run your sunset logic before every send. Set it to refresh weekly and trust the system to keep your segments current.
Tip: Use Preview Matches before saving any Engagement Tag to sanity-check your rule. If you are starting fresh and have not sent much yet, a preview showing zero matches is normal.