Becoming certified

What is the Validity Certification program? Validity Certification is the industry’s most unique and powerful allowlist, providing benefits at major mailbox providers to ensure your emails get delivered to the inbox. More messages in the inbox mea...

Application Service Provider (ASP) Certification certifies entities who are contracted to send transactional mail from dedicated IPs on behalf of their clients to get the benefits of (IP) Certification. This document includes comprehensive informa...

What is ASP Certification? Application Service Provider (ASP) Certification certifies entities who are contracted to send transactional mail from dedicated IPs on behalf of their clients to get the benefits of (IP) Certification. What is an Applic...

What is the Certification for Mandated Mail program? Certification for Mandated Mail helps businesses send (potentially) time-sensitive and high-risk messages that are intended to inform their customers of critical, non-promotional information ...

 Please view our updated Certification requirements document here: Certification Requirements  

Certification for Mandated Mail provides an expedited path to the Certification service for critical, non-promotional information that are deemed an exception to your standard campaigns. This document includes comprehensive information for sender...

What timelines should I be aware of? Applications must be received at least 1 week prior to the event start date, but 2 weeks’ notice is recommended in case any adjustments need to be made.   Once a request has been submitted, customers will rec...

Certification for Mandated Mail provides an expedited path to the Certification service for critical, non-promotional information that are deemed an exception to your standard campaigns. Once you have identified a triggering event, please fill ou...

Due to confidentiality agreements with participating partners, we cannot share any type of list. However, we can give you more information about Certification and how it works. Please visit the Validity website for additional information. Validity...

The Certification program helps make sure your email is delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes. Getting and staying Certified positively influences inbox placement rates with major mailbox providers like Microsoft, Comcast, and more. Below is a sm...

Validity Certification is the industry’s most unique and powerful allowlist, providing benefits at major mailbox providers to ensure your emails get delivered to the inbox. More messages in the inbox means more opportunities for your customers to ...

The Certification application process involves a review of your eligibility and performance to determine if you meet the standards and requirements for approval. When applying for Certification, you can expect to: Review the eligibility standards...

Certified senders must be a part of a company that has a certifiable business model. Read the requirements below to learn about the business models and types of email we do, and do not, certify.  Requirements Certifiable business models include bu...

As a Certification member, you are expected to stay within your thresholds for the Certification compliance metrics outlined below, by following industry best practices for complaints, unknown users, spam traps, Microsoft Sender Reputation Data (S...

Smart Compliance is how the Validity Certification program manages benefits at our mailbox provider partners.  Below are the mailbox providers that offer deliverability benefits:  Microsoft Global providers (all other mailbox providers and data p...

Take adequate, industry-standard steps to keep your systems and databases secure so you can protect your infrastructure and your subscribers. Secure systems A secure system prevents malware (such as viruses, worms, spyware, adware, trojans, recurs...

After you are accepted into the Certification program, your newly certified IP addresses are placed on the allowlist on the same day you receive your activation email. Thus, benefits are immediate. However, it can take up to 24 hours for the Domai...

Validity, along with its data partners, expects certified senders to be easily reachable and proudly stand behind the mail they send. If your email content, such as subject lines, headers, and contact information, is hidden, misleading, or decepti...

Clear and conspicuous disclosure is a term used in the email industry to describe how a sender should communicate to subscribers at the point of collection about how their email address and personal information will be used. The communication shou...

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) gives you the ability to better confirm that your email is legitimate. Because almost all major mailbox providers check SPF natively or through third-party services, they may think your legitimate email is fraud if yo...

Certified senders must only send email to subscribers who have opted in to receive it.  Acceptable methods Acceptable methods for getting consent from subscribers include: Confirmed opt-in: Subscribers take a single step to confirm their subscrip...

Validity offers support and knowledge to help senders remain certified and become even better senders. A sender's level of support varies depending on the terms of the contract. However, all certified senders can receive support at any time by ref...

Successful email marketers get permission to send emails to their subscribers and potential customers.  As a certified sender, you are expected to stay within compliance metric thresholds related to complaints, spam traps, unknown users, and block...

Unless your company has extensive operational needs, certified senders should only need one or two IP groups. Sending from a large number of IP addresses makes it appear as if you are trying to water down or avoid bad reputation metrics. Also, it ...

To be accepted into Validity's Certification program, a company's business model must meet certain requirements. One of these requirements includes only sending email from dedicated IP addresses and dedicated DKIM domains.  Dedicated and shared IP...

Abuse and postmaster accounts are called role accounts. A role account is an email address that is not associated with a specific person, but instead is associated with a company, department, or group of people. here are some role account examples...

Certification requirements state that every commercial, promotional, or peer-initiated email sent over your IP address includes both a list-unsubscribe header and an unsubscribe link. Refer to the Certification requirements document for all unsubs...

Forward-to-a-Friend (FTAF) emails are those forwarded from a subscriber on your list to a contact not on your list. As a certified sender, FTAF messages must follow the same rules as regular email messages. However, there are additional rules beca...

Certified senders need to have an up-to-date, accurate, and transparent WHOIS record. A WHOIS record contains information about a company that registers a domain. The recorded information includes name and contact information of the company, regis...