What’s the first step in reputation repair?

The first step in reputation repair is stopping the bleeding. Before you can rebuild, you must prevent ongoing damage:

Pause or reduce sending immediately, especially to segments generating complaints or bounces. Continuing to mail while reputation craters makes recovery harder.

Identify the root cause through diagnostic analysis. Was it a bad list segment? A spamtrap hit? Authentication failure? You cannot fix what you do not understand.

Isolate the problem by separating affected infrastructure from healthy streams. If a specific subdomain or IP is damaged, stop using it while you investigate.

Clean your lists by removing recent bounces, complainers, and any suspicious segments.

The first step is not repair, it is triage. Like a ship taking on water, you must plug the leak before you can pump out the hold and assess the damage.