Your business email lands in spam? Here are the most common causes
There is nothing worse than sending a customer a quote and hearing "nothing reached me". When business emails land in spam or do not arrive at all, it is almost always because recipients' servers are not sure it is really you sending.
Three protections that decide this
Email has three "credibility stamps" written into the domain:
- SPF: says which servers are allowed to send email on your domain's behalf.
- DKIM: signs messages digitally so the recipient knows the content has not been altered.
- DMARC: instructions on what to do with an email that failed the above tests.
If any of these is missing or set incorrectly, recipients' servers treat your emails with suspicion and drop them into spam.
Other common causes
- Sending from an address on a free domain (e.g.
@gmail.com) on behalf of the company. - The sending server landed on a spammer list (DNSBL), sometimes because of an infected site on the same account.
- The email content looks "spammy": all caps, suspicious links, no text version.
The most common scenario in a small business: email worked for years, until the host changed or a new sending tool was added and SPF stopped matching.
How to check and fix it
The state of SPF/DKIM/DMARC can be verified in a few minutes. The fix is usually adding the right records in the domain's DNS. The effect is often immediate, emails reach the inbox again.
We will handle it for you
We check the email configuration, add the missing protections and monitor whether anything "drifts out of alignment" over time.
Are your emails disappearing or landing in spam? Get in touch, we will diagnose your email.