Bounce Types Explained: Hard vs Soft, and What They Actually Cost You
A bounced email looks like one lost send. It isn't. Hard vs soft bounces explained in plain English — and why your sender reputation pays for every one of them.
Email Infrastructure & Deliverability
Email that earns its place in the inbox.
Since 2006, I've designed, authenticated and repaired email systems. Authentication, sending reputation, marketing automation or overall strategy — if it affects whether your email delivers or earns its keep, it's my speciality.
Free email diagnostic tools
A selection of tools to help you understand exactly where improvements can be made. Check where you stand with free, browser-based diagnostics. No signup, nothing sent or stored.
Email authentication checker
Check any domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC — records shown, interpreted in plain English.
DMARC report viewer
Upload the aggregate report your inbox provider sends you — get plain English back on who's sending as you.
Preflight checklist
Ten checks to run before every campaign send — verified in minutes, before your sender reputation pays.
Deliverability ROI calculator
What is better email performance worth to you? Honest numbers out, every assumption shown.
What I do
Fixed scope. Clear deliverables.
Email authentication
SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up, audited and enforced properly — the baseline big inbox providers now demand.
Deliverability rescue
Your email is going to spam and you don't know why. I can diagnose the cause and fix it.
Managed Mautic hosting
Self-hosted marketing automation — built for you, or built and managed.
Email strategy consulting
Setup, migrations, automation architecture and list strategy for the platform you already pay for.
Sending infrastructure
Relay setup, IP reputation management and segmented sending — newsletters, drip campaigns and transactional mail that are separated cleanly.
Full-stack email systems
Where email meets everything else: SMS and messaging integrations, CRM connections, campaign landing pages.
How I SERVE every client
A defined process, agreed before anything changes — the same discipline for a one-off audit or for ongoing services.
Survey — consultation & investigation
We start with a conversation, then a technical survey of your current setup: DNS, authentication records, sending platforms, list hygiene. No proposals before diagnosis.
Explain — findings in plain English
You receive a clear picture of what's wrong, what it's costing you, and what fixing it involves. Scope and price are agreed before any changes are made.
Remediate — implementation
The agreed work, done properly: authentication records aligned, systems configured, deliverability repaired. Changes documented as they're made.
Verify — proof it works
Tests and reports demonstrating the result — authenticated mail, passing checks, measurable improvement. You see the evidence, not just my word.
Engage — ongoing relationship
Where it makes sense: monitoring, maintenance and defined response windows, so problems are caught before your sender reputation pays for them.
Not sure what you need? Start here
Book your free consultation, or use the diagnostic tools to help understand what is wrong with your email process.
From the blog
View all posts »Straightforward guides and updates on authentication, deliverability and overall strategy.
The DMARC Report Reading Checklist: What to Look At First
Aggregate reports arrive as unreadable XML. This is the reading order — which fields matter, which to ignore, and what each finding means for your next move.
The IP Warm-Up Playbook: How to Start Sending Without Burning Your Sender Reputation
New sending infrastructure has no reputation — which receivers treat as suspicious. This is the staged process for building reputation deliberately, and the mistakes that burn it in week one.
List Hygiene for Small Businesses: Why Dead Addresses Are Worse Than No List at All
Bigger list, more sends — that used to be the whole logic of email marketing. It no longer works like that. How to prune a list, when to do it, and why keeping dead addresses hurts you.