How to Use Content Scoring, Risk Assessment, and Deliverability Testing
MailerLogic's email analysis tools help you identify spam-trigger patterns, assess sending risk, and predict email placement before you send a campaign. You can access these checks from Email Analysis or the Tools tab in the email editor.
Why Email Analysis Matters
Mailbox providers such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo evaluate incoming messages for spam likelihood before deciding whether they should reach the inbox, promotions tab, spam folder, or be rejected.
Content scoring checks your email content separately from your domain reputation. It helps identify potential issues in your subject line, body, links, images, and email structure before you send.
MailerLogic provides three checks:
| Check | What it does |
|---|---|
| Content scoring | Identifies spam-related patterns in your email content. |
| Risk assessment | Evaluates the risk of sending a specific message to a specific recipient. |
| Deliverability testing | Predicts where your email is likely to land. |
Run a Content Score
Step 1: Open Email Analysis
Go to 'Email Analysis', or open the 'Tools' tab in the email editor.
Step 2: Enter Your Email Content
Enter your 'Subject Line'. Add your 'HTML or plain-text email body'.If you are using the Email Builder, your current email design is used automatically. Click 'Content Score' to run the analysis.
Review the suggestions and make the recommended changes.
What Is a Good Content Score?
There is no fixed pass/fail score. Content scoring is a relative signal, so use it to compare your campaigns over time.
Track the scores of campaigns that perform well and compare them with campaigns that underperform. When a campaign lands in spam, review the content findings to identify patterns that may have contributed to the result.
Understand Content Score Results
The content score provides several types of information:
| Result | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Score | The overall spam-risk score. Lower is better. |
| Risk level | Whether the email has low, medium, or high content risk. |
| Matches | Specific patterns identified in your email and their individual risk levels. |
| Suggestions | Recommended changes that may help reduce content-related risk. |
| Reason codes | The category associated with each finding, such as an all-caps subject, spam-trigger phrase, image-heavy content, or missing text. |
Run a Risk Assessment
Risk assessment answers a more specific question: How risky is this message for a particular recipient?
It evaluates your email content together with a specific recipient address.
To use it, provide the message and recipient information requested on the Risk Assessment screen, then run the assessment.
The results include:
| Result | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Risk score and risk level | How risky the send is considered. |
| Would block | Whether the message would actually be blocked. |
| Action | What MailerLogic would do with the send. |
| Recommendations | Changes you can make to clear the risk. |
Use risk assessment when you're preparing an important campaign and want to verify that the message can be sent to a representative recipient before sending it to your full list.
Run a Deliverability Test
Deliverability testing predicts where your email is likely to land, such as the inbox, spam folder, or promotions tab.
Unlike content scoring, which evaluates the email content itself, deliverability testing considers the message together with your sending identity.
To run the test, you need a Subject Line and From address. The results provide an overall deliverability score along with details about individual factors that may affect placement.
Check Your Testing Quota
Deliverability testing has a separate monthly quota from email sending. To check your remaining quota, go to Usage → Monthly & Global Limits.
On the Free plan, content scoring, risk assessment, and deliverability testing have a quota of zero because these are paid-plan features.
Use the Three Checks Together
For the best results, run the checks in this order:
Content score: Fix obvious content-related risks first.
Risk assessment: Confirm that the completed message can be sent to a real recipient.
Deliverability test: Test the final campaign with both the content and sending identity in place.
A good content score does not guarantee good deliverability. Your domain reputation, recipient engagement, and other provider-level filtering factors can still affect where your email lands.
Common Content-Score Findings
The following are common issues that the content score may flag:
| Finding | Recommended action |
|---|---|
| Spam-trigger phrases such as "FREE," "act now," or "limited time" | Rewrite the phrase. Replace generic phrases such as "click here" with a specific description of the destination. |
| All-caps subject line | Use title case or sentence case instead. |
| Excessive exclamation marks | Limit your use of exclamation marks. |
| Image-heavy, text-light email | Add a text version and avoid creating an email entirely from one large image. |
| Missing unsubscribe link | Add {{unsubscribe}} to your footer. |
| Missing physical address | Add {{postalAddress}} to your footer. |
| Link domain mismatch | Align the link with your From domain or use a tracking domain on the same root. |
| Subject line too long | Keep the subject around 40 characters to reduce the chance of mobile truncation. |
You can use the footer presets in the Email Builder to automatically include {{email}}, {{unsubscribe}}, and {{postalAddress}}.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a low content score guarantee inbox placement?
No. Content is only one factor mailbox providers consider. Domain reputation, recipient engagement history, and provider-specific filtering can also affect placement.
A low score reduces content-related risk but does not guarantee that your email will reach the inbox.
Should I run content scoring on every campaign?
Yes. Content scoring can quickly identify common issues before you send a campaign.
Why did my score change even though I didn't edit the email?
Spam filters and provider rules can evolve. A pattern that was not flagged previously may be identified later. Re-score older templates before reusing them.
What's the difference between content scoring and deliverability testing?
Content scoring evaluates the email itself, including the subject, body, links, and structure.
Deliverability testing evaluates the email together with your sending identity, such as the From address and domain, to predict where the message is likely to land.
Can I use these checks through the API?
Yes. The same checks are available through the MailerLogic API. See API Keys & the MailerLogic API for more information.
Why are the tools unavailable on my Free plan?
Content scoring, risk assessment, and deliverability testing are paid-plan features. Upgrade your plan under Billing to use these tools.
