Headline numbers
Across all sending verticals, median inbox placement was 96.4%. Gmail led at 97.1%, Outlook at 95.8%, Yahoo at 96.2%, Apple Mail at 98.1%. The gap between top-quartile senders (99.4%) and bottom-quartile (88.2%) widened relative to 2024 — reputation now matters more than ever.
Authentication adoption
DMARC adoption hit 71% across all sending domains in our customer base, up from 58% in 2024. p=quarantine and p=reject combined now represent 43% of all DMARC policies, up from 31%. BIMI adoption grew to 8% — slow but steady. MTA-STS hit 23%.
Complaint rates by industry
E-commerce led at 0.08% median complaint rate. SaaS at 0.04%. Fintech at 0.02%. Media at 0.05%. The 90th percentile in every industry stayed under 0.15% — the cliff above which mailbox providers degrade placement.
Bounce rates with validation
Senders using pre-send validation averaged 0.4% bounce rate. Senders not using validation averaged 2.1%. The 5x difference held across every industry. Validation is now the highest-leverage single change available to most senders.
Reputation recovery times
Median time to recover from a "Bad" Gmail reputation: 32 days of careful sending. From "Low": 14 days. The recovery curve is asymmetric — losing reputation is fast, regaining it is slow.