Emails Going to the Spam Folder

On certain occasions, you'll notice that the emails that you're sending are arriving in the Spam folder. Even though that depends on several factors, there are some things you can do to reduce the chances of this happening and improve your overall deliverability.

Please note that the Spam folder is completely different than the Gmail Promotions and Social tab, so the following recommendations won't apply in those cases.

What can you do to avoid it?

1. Set SPF and DKIM records in your domain name

In simple terms, both SPF and DKIM work by verifying that a sender is authorized to send emails on their website's behalf. In other words, they make sure that you aren't pretending to be someone else. 

Users sending with MailPoet's Sending Service need to authenticate their sending domain as explained in this guide.

2. Test your spam score with our Mail Tester tool

Mail Tester is very useful for determining your "spam score" or likelihood of ending up in the spam inbox. You may want to test specifically the newsletter that it's landing in spam.

Here you can find a step-by-step guide.

3. Use a proper subject line and From Address

• The subject line of your emails should be descriptive but not very flashy. Avoid using clickbait or false promises or using symbols like the dollar sign or any other currency.
• Don't use a free email address (i.e. Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, etc.), try to use your own From email (preferably by using the domain name of your site). MailPoet rewrites free addresses in the FROM as free email inbox providers don't generally allow third parties to send with their addresses. If you're using a personal From address (i.e. mydomain.com), avoid adding numbers at the beginning or end of your address (1222marc@mydomain.com or marc1222@mydomain.com).
• For both the subject line or the address, avoid using capitalization.

4. Check if you have a restrictive DMARC policy in your domain name

DMARC allows a domain owner to instruct email service providers (e.g. Gmail or Yahoo) what to do if they receive unauthenticated emails (usually spoofed emails, phishing attacks).

DMARC instructs recipients that the domain owner wants all emails coming from this domain to be authenticated (via SPF and/or DKIM). The policy tells the recipient what to do with the email if it fails authentication (e.g. treat it as spam, or reject it). A DMARC policy is recommended for helping to protect your business against unauthorized use of your domain.

That means that if your emails are landing in spam, you can check what policy they have published for the domain name ( p=none,p=quarantine,p=reject). If your DMARC is set up with p=quarantine or p=reject, you'll need to authenticate your sender domain by adding a DKIM. We strongly recommend not setting a p=none policy since it won't do anything to protect a domain against spoofing.

ReturnPath and ProofPoint have great guides on how to set up DMARC.

5. Mail Clients can move your emails to spam

Sometimes everything looks okay from your end and still, the email is moved to the spam folder by the mail client. There's not a lot you can do about it as a sender, but your subscribers can mark your communications as legit, that way the mail client will eventually learn that your sender and emails are safe.

Additionally, if your email was moved to spam by an email client, you can check the headers of your email, as they can shed some light on the problem.