How to stop your business email going into your customer spam. Or In other words, why you need to check that your business email domain has SPF, DKIM and DMARC records set up correctly.
This is a biggie for every business regardless of size. Both Google and Yahoo are going to be carrying out more validation on email addresses sending bulk emails. The extra validation is going to prevent spamming, spoofing ( emails not from who they appear to be from) and fraud. This is great news as a personal email user of google or yahoo, but potentially a big headache for all businesses sending emails.
These new validation requirements will definitely impact any email address using email marketing systems like Mailerlite, Mailchimp, Active Campaign etc. Hence why Mailterlite are discontinuing their free classic version and asking accounts to upgrade to their new version.
It can also impact any business sending emails. If your customers complain that your emails are going to their spam boxes, or perhaps you’re sending out emails that are getting rejected straight away. This could be the reason why.
The validation requirements are that your business email domain will need to have DNS (network) records for SPF, DKIM and potentially DMARC.
Warning to Businesses using gmail or yahoo email addresses:
The huge implication here is that if you are using a free generic email with gmail, yahoo or similar, you won’t have DNS records to set up SPF, DKIM or DMARC. You need a business email account on your business domain (e.g. info@mycompany.com) .
The good news is that there are free and low cost options to set up a business email (google workspace or zoho) and they have great documentation on how to set up DKIM, DMARC. Plus if you have moved to or already using the new version of Mailerlite, the authentication shows you how to set up SPF.
If you already have a business email address, then all you need to do is follow the instructions to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Here are some steps you may want to check:
Where are my DNS records?
They are most likely to be on the dashboard for your website hosting. If you don’t manage your own website, you may need to go back to your web developer to make the changes. Alternatively they be on your site where you registered your domain:
What does an SPF record look like?
Common SPF records will look these commonly used systems:
Table
However it is important that you ONLY have 1 SPF record
Combine
What does a DKIM records look like?
This is the most complicated of the three. Through helping my clients, I’ve discovered there are 2 types:
DKIM defined by a unique key.
This common where you email is hosted separately to your website. E.g google or zoho:
DKIM defined by CNAME records. THis could be if your email is hosted by your web hosting provider or if you use Active Campaign.
What does DMARC records look like?
These are relative straight forward:
WHere p =
So how do you check what you’ve got?
One way is to send an email from your business email address to your personal gmail address. Go to original view and look for where is it says DKIM=pass or SPASS
If you have active campaign as your EMS try this page:
There are some free domain checkers on the internet – feel free to try these, however be aware that they are probably trying to sell you additional services.
As always, I’m here to help, so if you think this impacts you and you need help, you can fill in this form and we can set up a one to one to sort it all out. Depending on how much you need to set up, sessions may be £39 or £69. https://forms.gle/fCbu1oj79dJNeS3m7
Even if you don’t use an email marketing system, it’s always a good idea to
- Have a proper business email address
- Set up DKIM, SPF and DMARC to make sure your emails are validated and don’t end up in your customers’ spam folders.
I hope you’ve found this useful