How to identify a Cloudmark spammy fingerprint in Everest

Content containing a Cloudmark spammy fingerprint is usually sent to the spam folder or blocked by participating mailbox providers. If you suspect your content has a Cloudmark spammy fingerprint, open Everest and look at your campaigns' deliverability performance.

If you do not have Everest access for the companies listed below, some mailbox providers that use Cloudmark will reference Cloudmark in their SMTP bounce error code. Contact your ESP, hosting provider or email administrator to help you gain access to the SMTP error code messages or reports.

Roadrunner, Charter, Shaw (Canada), XS4ALL, Ziggo, and Terra (Brazil) will usually place some or all of your email in the spam folder when it has a Cloudmark spammy fingerprint.

1. Login to Everest
2. Navigate to In-Flight>Inbox Placement>Inbox Tests
3. Click a campaign subject line with spam placement issues and look for spam placement at the mailbox providers listed above.
   • If none of the mailbox providers listed above have spam placement issues, it's likely your content does not have a Cloudmark spammy fingerprint.
   • Review your SMTP error code messages or reports to confirm if there are other mailbox providers filtering your email due to a Cloudmark spammy fingerprint.
4. If one or more of the mailbox providers listed above have spam placement issues, click the mailbox provider's details arrow on the far right.
5. Click the details arrow on the far right under the Headers column to view header detail.  
6. In the email header, look for the line that starts with X-Authority-Analysis, X-Cloudmark-Analysis, X-CM-Analysis or X-CMAE-Analysis and look for the p= value.

You are looking for something like:

X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=0 p=neZ8rOBKY8RCsn2dNZAA:9 a=AKN1m6ldSC8A:10 a=QohdFYnNhn4A:10 a=TAyLsFIKAAAA:8 a=dEkErsIXAAAA:8 a=tVVJVAu5AAAA:8

or

X-Cloudmark-Analysis: v=1.0 c=0 p=neZ8rOBKY8RCsn2dNZAA:9 a=AKN1m6ldSC8A:10 a=QohdFYnNhn4A:10 a=TAyLsFIKAAAA:8 a=dEkErsIXAAAA:8 a=tVVJVAu5AAAA:8

or

X-CMAE-Analysis: v=1.0 c=0 p=neZ8rOBKY8RCsn2dNZAA:9 a=AKN1m6ldSC8A:10 a=QohdFYnNhn4A:10 a=TAyLsFIKAAAA:8 a=dEkErsIXAAAA:8 a=tVVJVAu5AAAA:8

If the header contains a p= value, this indicates that Cloudmark has given the fingerprint a spammy designation. A header with an a= value simply indicates that fingerprinting has occurred, but it is not considered spammy. All email reviewed by the Cloudmark system will have an a= value.

• If the p= value is the same across all seeds for that mailbox provider in that campaign, the content is considered spammy.
• If you see multiple p= values in the same header for a single campaign, it just means there is more than one aspect of your email that Cloudmark considers to be spammy.
• If only a few of the seeds have the p= value, it indicates that the content is receiving a mix of spammy and non-spammy designations by Cloudmark. The content may continue to be marked as spammy and should be monitored closely.
  • If the content is consistently receiving both spammy and non-spammy designations over a few sends, take steps to troubleshoot, fix the cause, and request a reputation reset from Cloudmark.
• If the p= value is the same for multiple campaigns assigned to a particular mail stream, then the mail stream is considered spammy.
• It is rare for Cloudmark to classify an IP address as spammy. For this to occur, the same p= value would be present for all email sent from the IP address.

If you identify that your campaign has a spammy Cloudmark fingerprint, go here for tips on troubleshooting the cause and requesting a reputation reset from Cloudmark.