It’s incredibly frustrating when important emails you send end up in your recipient's spam folder. When this happens, the immediate instinct is to find a quick fix. As your DNS hosting provider, we want to guide you to the fastest and most effective solution.
This article explains why this happens and clarifies the roles of your email provider versus our role as your DNS host, so you know exactly who to contact.
Understanding the Key Players in Email Delivery
Think of sending an email like sending a package through the mail. There are three key players involved:
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Your Email Provider (The Mail Carrier): This is the service you use to send your email, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail, or Mailchimp etc. They are the mail carrier responsible for picking up your package, handling it properly, and delivering it. Their reputation (like the reputation of a shipping company) is critical. If their servers are associated with spam, recipients will be wary.
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The Receiving Server (The Destination): This is the recipient's email system (e.g., Gmail, Outlook). They decide whether to accept the package, deliver it to the inbox, or put it in the spam folder based on who sent it and how it’s labeled.
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Your DNS Records (The Official Address Label): This is the part we manage for you. DNS records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC act as an official, verifiable address label on your package. This label proves that your "mail carrier" (your email provider) is authorized to send emails on your behalf. We don't create the contents of the label; we just apply the exact label your email provider gives you.
The most common reason for emails landing in spam is a problem with the "mail carrier" (your email provider's reputation) or an incorrect or missing "address label" (DNS authentication records).
Your 3-Step Action Plan for a Quick Resolution
Since the problem almost always originates with the email sender or the authentication records they require, here is the correct process to follow:
Step 1: Contact Your Email Provider First
This is the most important step. Reach out to the support team for your email service (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, etc.).
Ask them these specific questions:
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"My emails are going to spam. Can you check the sending reputation of my account or your servers?"
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"Can you please confirm the exact SPF and DKIM records I need to have in my DNS to properly authenticate my email?"
They are the only ones who can diagnose issues with their own systems and provide you with the correct DNS records required for their service.
Step 2: Forward Their Instructions to Us
Your email provider will give you specific DNS records to add or update. They will look something like this:
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SPF: v=spf1 include:servers.theiremail.com -all
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DKIM: A TXT record with a long string of characters, often with a name like k1._domainkey.
Step 3: We Apply the Changes
Once you have these records, simply forward the information to our support team. We will update your DNS zone for you promptly. This ensures your "address label" is correct, which is a crucial step in fixing deliverability.
Helpful Tools for Diagnosing the Problem
While you wait for your email provider to respond, you can use these excellent third-party tools to get more insight into your email health.
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What it does: Gives you a spam score from 1 to 10. You send an email to a unique address they provide, and it gives you a detailed report on what’s wrong, including issues with your server, SPF, DKIM, and content.
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How to use it: Visit the site, copy the email address, send a typical email to it from your account, and then click to check your score.
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What it does: This is a powerful tool for checking your domain’s technical setup. You can check your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and see if your domain is listed on any common blacklists (which would cause major spam issues).
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How to use it: Enter your domain name and use the dropdown to select "SPF Record Lookup" or "Blacklist Check."
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By following this process, we can work together efficiently to resolve your email deliverability issues. The solution starts with your email provider, and we are ready to implement the necessary changes as the final step.