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Glossary

Reference
For:
Publishers and marketers, Workspace admins, Server operators, Developers

This email marketing glossary defines the terms ReputeCast and its documentation use. Each term has a link anchor (for example /reference/glossary/#send-readiness), and a term that has its own guide links to it.

A/B test
Sending two or three variants of a subject line, content or send time to a test share of the audience, then sending the winning variant to everyone else.
Adapter
The code that connects ReputeCast to one sending provider. It sends mail, verifies and normalizes the provider's webhooks, and declares what the provider can do.
Agency mode
An instance setting for businesses that run newsletters for clients. It adds agency staff, client workspaces, client roles and the agency area (Overview, Staff, Library, Usage).
Alignment
DMARC passes only when the domain that SPF or DKIM authenticates matches the domain in the From address. That match is called alignment.
API key
A token that lets a program call the ReputeCast API with a set of permissions. It is shown once, stored as a SHA-256 hash, and can be limited to lists or sender domains.
Approval
A sign-off an approval policy requires before a risky send goes out. Approvers review a snapshot of the campaign; changing the campaign after approval invalidates it.
Archive
The public page that lists past campaigns, with an RSS feed and a sitemap.
Audit log
The record of who did what in a workspace or in the instance, including attempts that were denied. Entries can't be edited or deleted.
Auto-pause
Guarded sending pauses a running send when bounce, complaint, deferral or provider error rates cross the auto-pause thresholds. The campaign shows Auto-paused until someone resumes or cancels it.
Auto-pause thresholds
The rates that pause a send. By default: bounces 2.0%, complaints 0.1% overall and per mailbox provider, deferrals 5.0% and provider API errors 5.0%. Workspaces and campaigns can set their own.
Automation
A flow that starts with a trigger and moves each contact through steps such as delays, emails and branches until it reaches a goal or the end. Automations are Draft, Live or Paused.
BIMI
Brand Indicators for Message Identification: a DNS record that lets supporting mailbox providers show your logo next to authenticated mail. It requires a DMARC policy that enforces quarantine or reject.
Blocklist
A list of IP addresses or domains (a DNSBL) that receiving servers use to refuse or filter mail. ReputeCast checks your sending domains and dedicated IPs against public blocklists.
Bounce
A message the receiving server refused. A hard bounce is permanent, such as an address that doesn't exist; a soft bounce is temporary, such as a full mailbox.
Bounce class
The reason ReputeCast gives every bounce, whichever provider reported it: mailbox unknown, mailbox full, domain invalid, policy block, spam block, reputation, temporary or other. The provider's original code is kept with it.
Bounce mailbox
A mailbox ReputeCast reads over IMAP or POP3 to learn about bounces, for providers that report none through webhooks, such as an SMTP server.
Campaign
A message sent once to an audience, by email, SMS, push or WhatsApp. Email campaigns go on the Broadcasts stream.
Channel
How a message reaches a contact: email, SMS, push or WhatsApp.
Click map
The report view that draws each link's share of clicks over the email that was sent.
Client workspace
A workspace that belongs to one client of an agency, with its own lists, providers and team.
Community adapter
An adapter installed for the whole instance that runs in its own process and speaks the signed adapter protocol. You can write one with the TypeScript adapter SDK.
Complaint
A recipient marked your message as spam, and the mailbox provider reported it back through a feedback loop. ReputeCast adds the address to the suppression list.
Composer
The email editor. It builds emails from blocks on MJML and also offers MJML and HTML code views, previews, test sends and version history.
Permission to email a contact, recorded per list with its evidence: how and when it was given and the text the contact agreed to.
Contact
A person in your audience. The app says contact; permission keys say subscribers, as in subscribers:view.
Custom role
A role you build from any set of permission keys, usually by duplicating a built-in role.
Dedicated IP
An IP address only your mail is sent from, as opposed to a sending provider's shared pool. A new dedicated IP needs warming up.
Deferral
A temporary refusal, usually a 4xx SMTP reply, after which the sending provider retries later. A high deferral rate can auto-pause a send.
DKIM
DomainKeys Identified Mail: a signature added to each message that receivers check against a public key published in your domain's DNS.
DMARC
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance: a DNS record that tells receivers what to do with mail from your domain that fails aligned SPF and DKIM, and where to send reports.
DMARC aggregate report
An XML report a receiver sends, usually once a day, listing the sources that sent mail with your domain and whether they passed SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Double opt-in
A signup that counts only after the person clicks a confirmation link sent by email.
Engagement tier
How recently a contact opened your mail: Active (opened in the last 30 days), Cooling (31 to 90 days), At risk (91 to 180 days) or Sunset (no open in 180 days).
Failover
Moving a route's mail to a fallback sending provider when the primary one fails. Each stream's failover policy is automatic, pause and ask, or automatic, warmed-up only.
Fallback language
The language a contact gets when no ready version exists in their own language.
Feedback loop
A mailbox provider's report of the messages its users marked as spam, sent back to the sender through the sending provider.
Generic HTTP adapter
A built-in adapter that connects any HTTP email API through a manifest that maps the request, the response and the webhooks, without code.
Goal
An automation condition that takes a contact out of the flow once they meet it and counts toward the goal rate.
Guarded sending
ReputeCast's monitoring of a send while it runs: it watches bounces, complaints, deferrals and provider errors per sending provider and mailbox provider, and auto-pauses the send when a threshold is crossed.
Hard bounce
A permanent refusal, such as an address or domain that doesn't exist. The address goes on the suppression list.
Hold period
How many days a confirmed referral waits before it counts toward the referrer's rewards.
HostRepute
HostRepute's reputation-monitoring service. Connecting it is optional and adds more blocklists, Postmaster and SNDS data and DMARC report collection; no ReputeCast feature requires it.
Human opens
Opens by people, counted apart from machine opens such as Apple Mail Privacy Protection prefetches, image proxies and security scanners.
Idempotency key
A value you send in the Idempotency-Key header so that retrying a transactional API call within 24 hours doesn't send the message twice.
Instance
One ReputeCast installation: the server, its PostgreSQL database and every workspace on it.
Instance admin
A person who manages the whole instance: users, workspaces, sign-in methods, SSO, security policies and updates. Also the name of the area where they do it.
Integration key
An API key created for one integration, such as a Zapier connection, that works only for that integration's operations.
Language version
A campaign's or template's copy in one language. Each version is Up to date, Outdated, Draft or Missing compared with the source language.
List
A group of contacts who subscribed to the same thing. Consent is recorded per list.
List health
The Audience screen that shows how engagement tiers change over time and how healthy each list is.
Live monitor
The real-time view of a running send, with delivery, bounce and complaint rates per sending provider and mailbox provider.
Mailbox provider
The service where recipients read their mail, such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or iCloud. Not to be confused with a sending provider.
MCP
The Model Context Protocol, an open protocol AI agents use to call tools. ReputeCast runs an MCP server at /mcp on your instance.
MCP agent
An AI agent that connects to the MCP server with its own token (rc_agent_…) and the permissions you give it. Scheduling a send becomes a proposal that a person approves.
Member
A person who belongs to a workspace, with exactly one role in it.
Milestone
A number of counted referrals that earns the referrer a reward.
Normalized event
A provider event translated to ReputeCast's own types (delivered, deferred, hard bounce, soft bounce, complaint, rejected, open, click, unsubscribe), with the provider's original type and code kept.
One-click fix
A fix that Send Readiness applies for you from a check, such as inserting the footer. It is recorded in the audit log and the checks run again.
One-click unsubscribe
Unsubscribing straight from the mail app's unsubscribe button, defined by RFC 8058 through the List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers.
Outage
A sending provider that stops accepting mail. ReputeCast detects it and holds the affected share of a send until you move it to another provider, wait for recovery or cancel.
Page copy
The text of your public pages and forms in one language. Each language's page copy is Live, Incomplete or Not set up.
A contact with paid access through a Stripe subscription, a complimentary grant or a gift.
Passkey
A sign-in credential stored on your device or security key that replaces the password, based on WebAuthn.
Permission
One thing a role, API key or MCP agent may do, written as a key such as campaigns:send. Nobody can grant a permission they don't hold themselves.
Personalization token
A Liquid placeholder replaced with each contact's data when the email is sent, such as {{ first_name | default: "there" }}.
Placement test
A test send to your seed mailboxes that shows how many copies landed in the inbox, in spam or in another tab, per mailbox provider.
Poll
An email block with a question and answer links. Each answer opens a page that records it, so link scanners can't vote.
Preference center
The public page where a contact chooses their lists, how often they hear from you, a pause and their language.
Preview as
Rendering an email as a chosen contact would receive it, with their data, language and conditional blocks.
Production access (Amazon SES)
Amazon SES approval to leave the sandbox and send to any address. Until then, SES sends only to verified addresses.
Quiet hours
The hours, in each recipient's time zone, when no texts are sent.
Recommendation
A newsletter you recommend to new subscribers, as a plain link or through a partner link with another ReputeCast instance.
Recovery code
A one-time code that signs you in when your passkey or authenticator app isn't available.
Recurring digest
A campaign that ReputeCast builds on a schedule from the new items in a feed. Each edition is its own campaign.
Referral program
Rewards for subscribers who bring in new subscribers through their personal referral link. One program per list.
Restricted key
A Stripe API key limited to the permissions ReputeCast needs (rk_live_ or rk_test_). ReputeCast refuses full secret keys.
Review & send
The screen before a campaign goes out: Send Readiness results, the route, estimates, scheduling, test sends and the final confirmation.
Role
The set of permissions a member has in a workspace. The built-in workspace roles are Owner, Admin, Editor and Viewer; they can't be edited, but you can duplicate one into a custom role.
Role address
An address for a function rather than a person, such as info@ or sales@. ReputeCast keeps role addresses out of marketing mail.
Route
The rule that decides which sending provider delivers an email, by stream, list, sender domain or the recipient's mailbox provider.
Route tester
A tool on the Routing & failover tab that answers which provider would send a given email.
Scope
A limit on a role, member or API key to certain lists or sender domains.
Score
A 0 to 100 measure of a contact's interest, built from rules you set. Scores fall into the bands Cold, Warm and Hot and never start or stop mail by themselves.
Seed mailbox
A mailbox you own at a mailbox provider that receives placement test copies, so ReputeCast can see where they landed.
Segment
A saved set of conditions that selects contacts. SQL segments select them with a read-only SQL query instead.
Send Readiness
The checks ReputeCast runs before a send, in 10 groups from reputation to routing. Each check passes, warns, blocks or is unknown, and the send gets one verdict.
Send-only key
An API key that can only send transactional email. SMTP relay credentials are send-only keys.
Sender
The From name and address a message is sent as, on one of your sending domains.
Sender reputation
How mailbox providers rate mail from your domains and IP addresses, based on complaints, bounces, spam traps and engagement.
Sending domain
A domain you send from, with the DNS records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MAIL FROM) your sending providers need.
Sending provider
The service that delivers your mail, such as Amazon SES, Postmark, Mailgun, your own Postal server or an SMTP server. Not to be confused with a mailbox provider.
Sensitive permission
A permission flagged as sensitive, such as campaigns:send or subscribers:export. Holding one can require two-factor authentication.
Single opt-in
A signup that counts as soon as the form is submitted, without a confirmation email.
Single sign-on (SSO)
Signing in through your organization's identity provider with OpenID Connect. ReputeCast can create accounts on first sign-in and map groups to workspaces and roles.
SMS segment
The unit texts are delivered and billed in: up to 160 GSM-7 characters, or 70 UCS-2 characters when the text has emoji or other characters outside GSM-7.
SMTP relay
An SMTP server built into ReputeCast for apps that send transactional mail over SMTP instead of the HTTP API.
Soft bounce
A temporary refusal, such as a full mailbox or a server that is down for a while.
Spam trap
An address that never signed up for anything, used by mailbox providers and blocklists to catch senders with poor list hygiene.
SPF
Sender Policy Framework: a DNS record listing the servers allowed to send mail for your domain.
A company that pays for a placement in one or more issues of your newsletter.
Stream
The kind of mail a message is: Broadcasts (campaigns), Automations (flows), System (confirmations, preference links, invitations, password resets) or Transactional (product mail). Each stream has its own route.
Suppression list
The addresses ReputeCast never sends to, shared by every sending provider: hard bounces, complaints, unsubscribes and addresses you add. Each entry applies to all mail or to marketing only.
Suppression sync
Keeping the suppression list and each sending provider's own suppressions in step: two-way, pull only, or local only when the provider has no suppression API.
Tag
A label on a contact that you can filter, segment and trigger automations on.
Throttle
A limit on how fast mail goes to one mailbox provider, applied on every route.
Tier
What a paid subscriber pays for: a set of prices, lists and access.
Transactional email
Mail your product sends to one person because of something they did, such as a receipt or a password reset. It goes on the Transactional stream with its own route.
Transactional template
A versioned email your product sends through the API, with declared variables. Publishing makes a draft the live version, and you can roll back to an earlier one.
Trigger
The event that starts an automation for a contact, such as joining a list or an event sent through the API.
Two-factor authentication
A second sign-in step after the password: a passkey or a code from an authenticator app.
Verdict
The overall result of Send Readiness: Ready, Ready with warnings or Blocked.
Visibility
A block setting that shows the block to everyone, only to contacts who match conditions, or to everyone except them.
Warm-up
Raising the daily volume of a new sending provider or IP step by step, sending to the most engaged contacts first, so mailbox providers learn to trust it.
Webhook
An HTTPS request one system sends to another when something happens. Sending providers send ReputeCast delivery events this way, and ReputeCast sends your endpoints signed events.
Weighted split
Sharing a route's mail across sending providers by percentage, such as 90/10, for migrations and warm-up.
Workspace
A separate space with its own lists, campaigns, automations, sending providers and team. An instance can have any number of workspaces.
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