What To Do if Your Emails Go to Spam: A How-To Guide
Have you ever experienced the frustration of realizing that your important emails have ended up in someone's spam folder? It’s a common issue that many people and businesses face, and the reasons behind it can be quite complex. But fear not—there are steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve this problem on your own.
This blog post will help you solve the frustrating dilemma of what to do if your emails go to spam by guiding you through important questions to ask and providing solutions to common issues. Let’s dive in!
Gather Information
Start by asking yourself some questions about your situation to help determine why your emails are going to spam. This includes basic background information, as well as recipient and sender details.
Background Information
First, it's important to know some background information to understand the scope of the issue. Are your bulk emails, such as marketing campaigns, being affected? Or are your day-to-day one-to-one communications getting lost in the spam abyss? Perhaps it's both. Is this problem isolated to a specific email address or affecting emails sent from your entire domain?
Recipient Information
Next, determining who is affected is crucial to troubleshooting email spam issues. If it's just one specific recipient, they might have inadvertently marked your email as spam. In such cases, educating them on how to retrain their inbox can be helpful. For those whose emails are consistently being directed to spam, it might be due to their company's firewall or security settings. In these instances, reaching out to their IT team to whitelist your domain could alleviate the problem. And if it seems like your emails are randomly going to spam for various recipients, it's time to investigate your domain.
Sender Information
Before diving into technical solutions, make sure that you're following email best practices. Avoid spammy behavior, such as using misleading subject lines and sending emails to unengaged contacts. And whenever you send promotional emails, always include an unsubscribe link. Remember, permission-based marketing is the way to go.
Training Inboxes
If you find out that certain recipients aren’t receiving your emails, they may need to train their inboxes to accept your messages. Regardless of the original reason you landed in spam, having them explicitly label you as safe will help. You can streamline this process by providing them with easy-to-follow instructions for Gmail and Outlook.
Gmail
If the recipient uses Gmail and finds an email from you in their spam folder, they can use the "not spam" button.
They can also add you to their contacts or safe senders list to ensure future messages end up in their inbox, where they belong. For more details, visit this Gmail Help article and scroll down to the "Remove an email from Spam" section.
Outlook
If they are using Outlook, guide them to their Junk Email folder. Here, they can select the message they want to keep. From the top toolbar, select Not junk > Not junk.
Another key step to avoid email deliverability issues in the future is to have them add you to their contacts or safe senders list. You can find detailed instructions on how to do that through this Outlook Support article.
Okay, we've covered a lot of steps so far...
Make this process a little easier on yourself with our downloadable step-by-step Email Spam Troubleshooting Checklist 
Domain/Sender Troubleshooting
If the issue persists, it's time to delve deeper into your domain settings. It could be that your sending domain has taken a ding somewhere and needs a little TLC.
Cold Emailing
Have you recently engaged in cold emailing or lead prospecting? Has anything changed around the spam timeframe, such as sending more cold emails or changing messaging? Suppose more leads mark you as spam, or your emails aren't getting opens and clicks following increased volume. In that case, inboxes may start to eye your sending domain with more suspicion, which can cause email deliverability issues.
DMARC Policy & Domain Authentication
Authenticating your domain with proper protocols, such as a DMARC policy, is crucial. Check with your hosting company for instructions on how to do this, as the process may be different for each. For example, here are step-by-step instructions for how to publish your DMARC record on GoDaddy.
In addition, be sure to authenticate your domain through any system that sends emails on your behalf. This may include CRMs, invoicing, scheduling, or marketing programs. This step will ensure that all your email communications are authorized to send on your behalf and are not spoofing or sent "via" another email address.
Recent Changes in Email Requirements
It’s also important to remain aware of recent changes in email requirements, especially if you're a bulk sender. For example, Gmail and Yahoo have recently announcing stricter guidelines that may potentially lead to more emails being marked as spam.
What's Happening
Starting February 1, 2024, Gmail and Yahoo inboxes implemented more strict requirements for incoming email senders and will be sending more emails to spam if they don't comply with the new requirements. This affects all types of emails sent from the same domain, including promotional, marketing, and transactional. The requirements apply to "bulk senders," i.e., anyone sending 5,000+ emails in a given day from the same domain. If you send 5,000+ emails (or close to it) on any day, the following need attention.
What Bulk Email Senders Need to Do
Ensure compliance by following these steps and guidelines:
1. Always send from your own domain.
No matter how many emails you send, always send from a domain you own and not from free email addresses @gmail.com or @yahoo.com.
2. Confirm DNS records with DKIM, DMARC, and SPF protocols.
The exact steps here vary depending on your email provider and domain host, but all require access to the domain name servers and hosting.
DKIM/SPF protocols help inboxes know that your domain is verified and that emails are really coming from you and aren't phishing from spammers. DKIM authentication is required for each sending source (for example, Shopify, Klaviyo, Mailchimp...) your company uses, and each platform may have slightly different requirements. Here's a quick list of how to set up DKIM authentication for common email platforms:
Klaviyo
Mailchimp
Zoho Campaigns
Drip
MailerLite
Brevo
GetResponse
ActiveCampaign
Constant Contact
Shopify
DMARC policy is a record added to your DNS that monitors all emails sent from your domain to help you catch all sending sources. When monitoring is in place, you can see if any nefarious senders are using your domain. You need only one DMARC record per domain and can check yours by entering your URL in this DMARC checker tool »
3. Add a 1-click unsubscribe link to email headers.
Most email service providers automatically handle this, so no action is likely needed. When configured correctly, it should look like this:
4. Monitor your spam complaint rates and engagement metrics.
It is ideal to keep spam complaints below 0.3%, but ongoing vigilance and list hygiene are necessary to maintain deliverability.
For more details about these recent changes in email requirements and how to prepare for them, check out this handy checklist from Klaviyo.
Troubleshooting emails going to spam can be a multifaceted process. By following these steps and staying proactive, you can increase the chances of your emails reaching your recipients' inboxes.
DKIM, DMARC, DNS...all these acronyms got your head spinning?
Domain authentication and adding a DMARC policy should take less than 20 minutes in most cases—and definitely shouldn't have you losing sleep!
Tracking down and resolving spam email issues can be a bit trickier, but rehabbing a sending domain to get your emails showing up in inboxes is possible.
Schedule your free 30-minute consultation and tell us what your biggest hurdles are with email deliverability right now.
[…] Speaking of Spam, don't miss our How-to-Guide: What to Do if your Emails Go to Spam » […]
[…] If emails are ending up in spam folders, it can hurt your engagement and overall effectiveness. An email audit can help you diagnose delivery issues and suggest ways to improve your inbox placement. For more detailed guidance on addressing this issue, check out our blog post, What To Do if Your Emails Go to Spam: A How-To Guide. […]