Deliverability
Email Deliverability: How to Stay Out of the Spam Folder
You can write the perfect email, but if it lands in spam, none of it matters. Deliverability, getting to the inbox rather than the spam folder, is infrastructure, not an afterthought. The good news: a few fundamentals get most small businesses to reliable inbox placement.
Authenticate your domain (non-negotiable)
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are DNS records that prove your email genuinely comes from your domain. Without them, major providers like Gmail and Yahoo may reject or spam your mail outright, both now require authentication for bulk senders. This is the first thing to set up, before any campaign.
Build and protect sender reputation
Mailbox providers score your sending domain and IP based on how recipients react. High opens and clicks help; spam complaints, bounces, and hitting spam traps hurt. Reputation is earned slowly and lost quickly, so treat every send as a deposit or withdrawal.
- Warm up new sending domains gradually, do not blast a large volume on day one.
- Send consistently; long gaps followed by big blasts look suspicious.
- Only email people who opted in, permission is the foundation of reputation.
- Use a dedicated subdomain for marketing to protect your primary domain.
Practice list hygiene
Process bounces and unsubscribes immediately, remove repeatedly inactive subscribers, and never re-add people who left. A smaller, engaged list delivers better than a large, stale one, because engagement is exactly what providers measure.
Avoid technical spam triggers
Always send multipart emails with a plain-text alternative, balance images with real text (image-only emails are a classic trigger), include a working unsubscribe link, and keep your HTML clean. These are the basics, but they are also the basics most often skipped.
Monitor and react
Watch your bounce rate, complaint rate, and inbox-placement reports. Set up Google Postmaster Tools and your platform’s deliverability dashboard. If placement drops, pause, diagnose, and clean your list before sending more.
Key takeaways
- ✓Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC before sending, Gmail and Yahoo require it.
- ✓Reputation is earned slowly via engagement and lost quickly via complaints.
- ✓Warm up new domains and send consistently.
- ✓Keep your list clean: process bounces and remove dead contacts.
- ✓Send multipart email, balance images and text, and monitor placement.
Valter Brandt
Chief Marketing Officer
Valter Brandt is the Chief Marketing Officer of ThisCom, working with clients across the United States and Europe. He has led marketing strategy through the major shifts in social advertising, mobile, content marketing, programmatic media, and marketing automation.
Frequently asked questions
Why are my emails going to spam?+
The most common causes are missing domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), emailing people who did not opt in, a poor sender reputation from complaints or bounces, image-heavy emails without text, or a missing unsubscribe link.
What is a good email bounce rate?+
Keep your bounce rate under about 2%. Higher rates signal a stale or low-quality list and damage your sender reputation. Process and remove hard bounces immediately.
Do I need a dedicated IP address?+
Most small businesses are better off on a reputable shared IP, where the provider maintains reputation. Dedicated IPs only make sense at high, consistent volume because they require careful warm-up and steady sending.
How do I check my deliverability?+
Use Google Postmaster Tools, your email platform’s deliverability reports, and seed-testing tools that show inbox-vs-spam placement across providers. Monitor bounce and complaint rates continuously.
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