In today’s digital age, ensuring that your web enquiries land in your inbox, not your junk folder, and that your email newsletters land in your recipient’s inbox, is crucial for effective communication and successful marketing campaigns. There have been some recent edits to algorithms that require more validation than we used to have to get.
In this article, we explore what you need to do to improve deliverability, and the common reasons emails and your web form enquiries end up in junk folders.
The primary reason emails get flagged as spam and rerouted to junk folders is due to low domain trust. This can happen if your domain has inadvertently ended up on a spam list or if proper authentication protocols aren’t in place.
When visitors send emails from your website enquiry form, your email provider may get confused: hang on, I’m getting an email from the website with a suffix @yourwebsitedomain, coming to @yourwebsitedomain, but the web IP address is different from where I know the email server lives. It must be masquerading!
Email providers are increasingly vigilant in filtering out suspicious emails and they subscribe to monitors of “poorly behaving email addresses”, so if your website hasn’t been whitelisted by your email server, or somewhere along the line, your email got on a spam list, your emails may be redirected to junk boxes.
We got put on a spam list the other day, by submitting a web form three times from the same site on the same day. We were testing the form so it was valid from our point of view, but it appeared spammy enough to get us in the poo. We immediately got our IT team to check spam lists, and request our removal.
Improving your domain reputation is essential for keeping emails out of junk folders. Start by implementing key authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These acronyms will be well known by your IT team. They are protocols verify that your emails are legitimately sent from your domain, boosting trust and credibility.
There are tools available to help you check the health of your domain’s email setup. For instance, MX Toolbox can test whether your SPF and DKIM records are configured correctly. Similarly, Google’s Postmaster service provides insights into how Google views your email, helping you identify and fix issues before they affect your deliverability.
Certain practices can increase the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam. For example, avoid using URL shorteners in your emails, as these are often associated with spammy content. Instead, always include the full link, starting with “https://”. Additionally, ensure that your email content is relevant and not overly promotional, as spam filters can pick up on these cues.
If web form submissions from your site are ending up in junk folders, it’s likely due to improper SPF, DKIM, or DMARC records. The server used to send these messages may lack the necessary authority to send mail on behalf of your domain. Ensuring that your web developer or IT team has correctly set up these records is crucial for improving the deliverability of web form emails.
When setting up your domain, it’s important to register it with a reputable domain name registrar and configure it with the necessary text records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) in the zone records.
This process is typically handled by your web developer, hosting provider, or IT team, but it’s crucial for ensuring that your domain is properly authenticated and trusted by email providers.
Typically you go to Google Console, and log in with your company Gmail address. Here you can verify that you are an authorised manager of your website, and Google will sometimes send important notices to you about your website.
If you’re using a CRM or email marketing platform like MailChimp or Zoho, ensure that all necessary records are set up correctly. These platforms often provide specific services or guidelines to enhance deliverability, so following their recommendations can be highly beneficial. They are another platform essentially sending email on behalf so it looks like it’s coming from your domain. So they need the validation process done too.
Using DMARC in conjunction with SPF and DKIM not only helps with deliverability but also protects your domain from spoofing and phishing attacks. DMARC allows you to specify how receiving servers should handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks, giving you greater control over your domain’s email security.
By implementing these strategies, you can significantly reduce the chances of your hard earned leads ending up in your junk folders and improve the overall effectiveness of your email campaigns which have taken a bit of energy to create. Shame to see all that effort go to junk boxes.
Let’s chat to help you enhance your email deliverability and keep your communications out of the junk folder.
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