Unlocking Better Email Performance at Inboxroad: How Validity’s Sender Certification Boosts Your Inbox Rates
In the competitive world of email marketing, getting your message in front of the right eyes is half the battle—and it’s getting tougher. Between evolving spam filters, tightening privacy laws, and increasingly sophisticated consumer preferences, marketers face mounting challenges when it comes to email deliverability. One solution that can dramatically improve inbox placement, open rates, and click-through rates is Sender Certification from Validity.
If your business relies on email to drive conversions, generate leads, or nurture customer relationships, sender certification could be the key to achieving stronger campaign performance. At Inboxroad, we not only deliver your emails reliably, but we also partner with you to achieve and leverage certification status—improving your reputation and your results.
What Is Sender Certification?
Sender Certification is a premium whitelist program offered by Validity through their Everest platform. It’s designed to help legitimate senders gain preferential treatment from mailbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others.
Essentially, certified senders agree to follow email best practices—such as honoring unsubscribe requests and keeping complaint rates low—in exchange for enhanced inbox placement and reduced filtering.
Here’s how certification makes an impact:
- Increased Inbox Placement: Certified senders are far more likely to land in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
- Better Open and Click Rates: Emails that reach the inbox naturally have a better chance of being opened and engaged with.
- Improved Sender Reputation: Certification signals to mailbox providers that you’re a trusted, responsible sender.
- Enhanced Visibility and Analytics: With access to more granular deliverability metrics, certified senders can fine-tune their strategy.
Why Sender Certification Matters in 2025
Email remains one of the highest ROI marketing channels, but inbox access is not guaranteed. Algorithms are becoming more nuanced, and consumer expectations are rising. Marketers who don’t optimize for deliverability risk having even the best-designed campaigns miss the mark.
Certification is one of the few guaranteed ways to improve your deliverability across major ISPs. Certified senders enjoy:
- 40-70% reduction in filtering at major mailbox providers
- Priority treatment during ISP mail spikes and throttling periods
- Access to daily performance insights
In an era of signal-based filtering, being on Validity’s certified list tells ISPs, “This sender can be trusted.”
The Requirements for Certification
Sender Certification isn’t handed out to just anyone. You must meet specific criteria before you’re approved, including:
- Low complaint rates (typically below 0.1%)
- Low unknown user rates (addresses that don’t exist)
- Strong engagement metrics (opens, clicks, replies)
- Authenticated sending domains (SPF, DKIM, and ideally DMARC)
At Inboxroad, we can help you navigate these requirements with precision—monitoring your data, helping you fix problem areas, and ensuring your reputation is strong enough to qualify.
How Certification Improves Key Marketing Metrics
Let’s break down how certification influences the success of your campaigns.
1. Inbox Placement
It all starts with reach. If your emails are getting flagged by spam filters, none of your messaging, design, or CTAs will matter. Certification gives you the reputation boost necessary to land where it counts: the inbox.
Certified senders report up to 50% higher inbox placement rates compared to non-certified senders. That translates directly into more people seeing your message.
2. Open Rates
When your emails avoid the spam folder, your subject lines get a real shot at doing their job. Higher inbox placement naturally leads to better open rates, especially when combined with audience targeting and A/B testing.
Certified senders often see 20-30% increases in open rates, simply because their messages are being seen rather than buried.
3. Click-Through Rates
Better inbox placement and more opens lead to one of the most important metrics: click-through rate (CTR). A strong CTR shows your content is resonating and driving action.
Certified senders consistently report higher CTRs, giving your email marketing a measurable performance edge.
How Inboxroad Helps You Get Certified—and Stay That Way
At Inboxroad, we’re more than just an email delivery platform—we’re your partner in performance. That’s why we help clients through every step of the certification process and continue to support them afterward with insights and optimizations.
Here’s how we help:
Pre-Certification Assessment
We’ll review your current email performance and sender reputation to determine whether you’re ready for certification—and if not, what to fix.
Strategic Guidance
Inboxroad provides tailored recommendations on list hygiene, content, cadence, and authentication to align with Validity’s requirements.
Direct Partnership with Validity
We facilitate the application process with Validity, making certification faster and easier.
Ongoing Monitoring & Optimization
Certification is just the start. We help you interpret deliverability stats, troubleshoot any drops in performance, and ensure you maintain your standing.
Deliverability Tools & Reporting
Our platform provides visibility into bounce rates, engagement, and spam complaints—so you always know how you’re doing and where to improve.
Real Impact: A Sample Use Case
Let’s say you’re a B2C retailer sending 500,000 emails per month. Pre-certification, your inbox placement is 75%, and your open rate is around 15%. Post-certification, inbox placement improves to 95%, and your open rate jumps to 22%.
That’s an extra 85,000 inbox views per month—and thousands more potential clicks. For companies relying on email revenue, the ROI of certification is almost immediate.
Ready to Get Certified? Let’s Talk.
Sender Certification is a proven way to unlock better email performance. But like anything valuable, it takes work to get—and keep. That’s where Inboxroad comes in.
We’re committed to helping you reach more inboxes, engage more subscribers, and drive better business outcomes. Whether you’re ready to pursue certification now or need help getting your sending reputation in shape, our experts are here to guide you.
Interested in Sender Certification?
Contact us today and we’ll help you assess your readiness, walk you through the process, and monitor your results every step of the way.
Daniel Garcia Bonilla is a seasoned Email Deliverability Consultant with experience helping businesses optimize their email campaigns for maximum engagement and ROI.
Remember you can create a free account including 1,000 emails per month to test our service.
Don’t hesitate to contact us at contact@inboxroad.com if you have any questions.
