Why are my emails going into recipients’ spam folders? Stop Spam Emails with DMARC
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Reading Time: 5 min
What is a Spam email sent from your email address?
If your email address is forged by an attacker to send fake emails in bulk to your receivers, these emails may be marked as spam emails on the receiver’s side. This can be due to a typical case of email spoofing where an attacker sends an email from your own domain.
Emails are often flagged and marked as spam when the receiving server fails to affirm the authority of the sender. When an attacker forges your email address, the Return-path address remains unmatched, and so does the DKIM signature. This leads to authentication failures, causing your emails to be marked as spam.
Key Takeaways
- Email spoofing can lead to legitimate emails being marked as spam if authentication fails.
- Improperly configured SPF, DKIM, or DMARC records can cause legitimate emails to be flagged as spam.
- Using excessively long DKIM keys may not be supported by all third-party providers, risking spam issues.
- Including all third-party vendors in your SPF record is essential for maintaining email deliverability.
- Consistently marked spam emails can damage your domain’s reputation and result in being blacklisted.
Why are my emails going into recipients’ spam folders: different test case scenarios
1. You are using wrongly configured email authentication records
If your DNS records for SPF, DKIM, or DMARC are improperly configured, even your legitimate emails can fail authentication and get marked as spam emails. Line breaks, unwanted spaces, or even a missing semicolon can lead to syntax errors which can invalidate your DNS record.
Exercise caution during implementation and try using online tools to help you in the process instead of relying on guesswork.
Simplify Email Marketing with PowerDMARC!
2. Your DKIM selector is too long
While using 2048-bit DKIM keys is the recommended practice for enhanced security, not all third-parties support it. This can result in spam emails. You can use 1024-bit keys instead, or verify with your service provider before implementing the protocol.
3. You have not included third parties in your SPF record
If you are an online business using multiple third-party vendors for your email transactions, you need to confirm their authority over your domains by including them in your domain’s SPF record.
For example, if you use Zoho Mail as a third-party vendor, you need to add the following include mechanism to your record for SPF:
include:spf.zoho.eu
On the PowerDMARC SPF record generator tool, you can add your third-party vendor in the “Authorize domains or 3rd party services that send emails on behalf of this domain” section, while generating your record. To add multiple vendors, simply separate each domain with a single space in the following way:
If your record for SPF is exceeding the lookup limit after including all vendors, flatten it with our auto SPF flattening tool.
4. You’re using bots to send bulk emails to customers for business or marketing purposes
This isn’t a case where spam emails are being sent from your own domain. If you’re into commercial email marketing, you may be configuring botnets to send emails in bulk to potential customers. While this is an inexpensive way to gain exposure, more often than not these emails land in the spam box.
How can spam emails sent from your own domain affect your domain’s health?
If your emails are consistently getting marked as spam, it is a problem. Too many spam emails arising from a domain can drastically affect the reputation and credibility of the said domain. Email receivers can block or blacklist your domain to stop incoming emails from you, suspecting malicious intentions. This can in time lead to even legitimate emails getting rejected.
To fix this issue:
- Make sure all your DNS records are valid. Check your records using this SPF record lookup tool.
- Update your records in case you add to your third parties
- Enhance your knowledge regarding email authentication protocols
- Shift to a DMARC reject policy to stop spoofing
- Enable reporting for DMARC with a DMARC reporting tool. This will help you track your authentication results and detect problems in your email setup
Popular Internet Questions on Email Spam – ANSWERED
What is the impact of spam on Gmail?
If your sales messages get blocked in the email spam folder in Google mail it will not only be you trying to get more clients. The impacts of such a move extend beyond lower response rates. More of your emails might redirect to a Google email spam filter, causing more conversion. This means your emails will be automatically sent as spam and will never be redirected to a primary mailbox. Consequently, your email is no longer being read and your outreach efforts will be futile. Those steps reduce sales and decrease yield and therefore affect the bottom line.
Tell me the best way to get rid of spam emails
First, check your email’s spam settings. If you set up a filter for spam, but it hasn’t been configured correctly or hasn’t been updated since the last time you checked it, then that’s where the problem is. You should contact your internet service provider (ISP) and ask them to help you configure the filter so that it only allows emails from the addresses listed in your filters. This way, only the messages that go through this filter will show up in your inbox.
If this doesn’t work, then consider contacting the person who sent you the email and asking them to stop sending you their messages. It may be easier to just block them from sending emails altogether—if they’re running an actual business out of their home computer and they’re not being rude by trying to sell something on your behalf (like an expensive item), then we recommend that approach instead of just blocking them as email recipients.
What is the best way to determine if an email is spam?
The first thing you should look for is whether or not the email has come from a company or person you know. If it doesn’t, then you can be sure it’s not from your friend or colleague—and that means it’s probably spam.
Another thing to look at is the subject line. If it’s too long or uses too many words, that could also signal an automated message rather than something coming directly from a human being.
If both of these things check out, then there are other things you can check: make sure the email address isn’t fake (check out how many times it appears on different sites) and make sure there aren’t any spelling errors or unusual grammar mistakes in the body text itself. Use a free grammar checker if necessary to identify and rectify any errors in your writing to enhance its professional tone.
An error-free DMARC setup can help you reduce email spam. Get your free trial today!
Domain & Email Security Expert at PowerDMARC
Yunes is an Operations Team Lead at PowerDMARC with expert knowledge in email authentication and security. Yunes is a Microsoft-certified Azure Administrator Associate with certifications in CompTIA A+ and many more.
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