Have you ever sent an email from your business account, only to find out later that it landed in your client’s junk or spam folder? We recently experienced this issue ourselves. Our emails sent from our business Gmail account were flagged as spam by some recipients. If you’re a business owner you know how detrimental this can be to your communication and reputation.
In this post, we’ll walk you through our experience diagnosing and fixing email deliverability issues, and the steps you can take to ensure your emails reach your recipients’ inboxes.
The Problem: Emails Going to Spam
We discovered that some of our emails, sent from our business email account, were landing in spam folders. This could kill client relationships so we knew we had to address the issue immediately.
After running some tests, we realized that the core problem was missing or improperly configured DNS records on one of our domains. Specifically:
-
We had already set up SPF and DKIM records on our current domain, inbounddesignpartners.com, but it was missing a DMARC record.
-
Our former domain, inbounddesignstudios.com, which is still tied to our Google Workspace, was missing all three records: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Because both domains are in use, we had to configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for both domains to ensure proper authentication.
The Solution: Setting Up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Records
Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo use DNS records to authenticate your emails. Without these records, your emails are more likely to be flagged as spam.
Here’s how we fixed it:
1️⃣ SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
The SPF record tells email providers which servers are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. If an unauthorized server tries to send an email, it will be flagged as suspicious.
We added an SPF record to our DNS that includes both Google Workspace (for our business Gmail account) and HubSpot (for marketing emails). This ensures that email providers know our authorized sending servers.
2️⃣ DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM adds a digital signature to your emails, verifying that they haven’t been altered in transit.
We went to the Google Admin Console and generated a unique DKIM key for both of our domains. We then added these keys as TXT records in our DNS settings to authenticate our outgoing emails.
3️⃣ DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)
DMARC is a policy that tells email providers what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
We set up a DMARC record on both domains that tells email providers to quarantine suspicious emails and sends reports to our designated email address. This helps us monitor our domain’s email performance and identify any potential issues.
How to Test Your Setup
Once we updated our DNS records, we used tools like:
-
Mail Tester to check our email deliverability score.
-
MXToolbox to verify that our SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records were properly configured.
After making these changes, our score jumped to 9.3/10, indicating that our emails were properly authenticated and more likely to land in inboxes.
Key Takeaways: How You Can Improve Your Email Deliverability
If you’re experiencing similar issues, here’s what you need to do:
-
Set up an SPF record to authorize your email servers.
-
Configure DKIM to digitally sign your emails.
-
Implement a DMARC policy to tell email providers how to handle suspicious emails.
-
Check your email domains — especially if you’re using aliases or multiple domains.
-
Test your setup using tools like Mail Tester and MXToolbox.
Final Thoughts
Don’t wait until clients tell you your emails are going to spam. Proactively set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to protect your domain and ensure your messages reach their destination.
It's not something we do regularly but now that we know how to do it, maybe we can help you improve your email deliverability if you can't figure it out on your own. Or, if you need help with your website or digital presence, reach out to us today!
