An allowlist (also called a whitelist) is a list of approved senders, domains or IP addresses that are trusted to bypass spam filtering.
In depth
Allowlists exist at two levels. Recipients can add a sender to their address book or safe-senders list so that sender’s mail always reaches the inbox. Organisations and mailbox providers maintain their own allowlists of reputable senders. Asking new subscribers to add your from-address to their contacts during onboarding is a simple, effective deliverability tactic, especially for the first few sends before your reputation is established.
Example
A welcome email that says “add us to your contacts so you never miss an update” is prompting the reader to allowlist you.
Related terms
See our full email marketing glossary or the complete email marketing guide.