How often should I conduct a deliverability audit?

There's a baseline schedule, and then there are triggers that override it. Both matter.

The baseline schedule:

Full audit once a year. This means reviewing everything: authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene state, complaint rates, bounce patterns, blocklist status, ESP configuration, and your suppression list accuracy. It's a few hours of work, but it catches problems that accumulate slowly enough that you don't notice them quarter to quarter.

Light quarterly review. This is a 30-minute check on the metrics that can move quickly: complaint rate (should stay under 0.1%), hard bounce rate (should stay under 2%), inbox placement if you have a tool to measure it, and a quick blocklist check. You can also verify your authentication records are still valid. DKIM keys sometimes get rotated unintentionally during server changes.

Triggered audits:

And don\'t wait for the schedule if any of these happen. Start auditing immediately when: your open rates drop suddenly and significantly, your bounce rates spike, you migrate to a new ESP, you make major DNS changes, you add a new sending domain, or you start sending to a new audience segment. Each of these events can break things that were working fine before.

Continuous monitoring fills the gaps between formal audits. Watching your daily complaint rate and bounce rate in your ESP dashboard catches most problems within a send or two of them starting. This isn't a replacement for audits, it doesn't catch everything, but it does mean you rarely get surprised by a problem that's been building for weeks.

And If you're not sure where to start with an audit, our SOS line can walk through it with you. We also have free tools for checking your SPF, DKIM, and blocklist status independently.