To do checklist before sending emails!

Follow the below step by step.

A. Keep your primary domain safe:

The key thing to take into account is to not use your main website domain for email marketing purposes unless you’re highly sure about it. 

The newsletters that you receive from most of the companies, you must have noticed they use subdomains or other extensions (.com, .io, .co…) to prevent affecting their main domain from IP bad reputation score.

A bad reputation score can get your domain blacklisted (....And you don’t want that)

If your domain gets blacklisted, you have to follow a time consuming and uncertain process to get back in the game. Well, you don’t want to face this, so keep your website/product domain name safe.

If you want to check whether your domain is blacklisted or not, you can have a look at this great tool.

Anyone can send an email with your address as a “from”. That’s a fraud, and that’s called: spoofing! 

‍B. Configure your domain name:

 You need to always authenticate your email account, which will send ISPs two positive signals: “I agree I’m the one who sent this email" and "the message isn’t altered”.

Here are the three parameters your IT team needs to set:

 i) Set your SPF

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. It’s a small text (A record) that defines who’s (which IP) authorized to send an email from the DNS (domain name server, what comes after the @ of your email address). 

This allows the receiver to authenticate your email and certify you’re the original sender.

If you’re using Gsuite email, you can follow this tutorial :

If not, search in Google: “{your domain provider} SPF record” and follow a step-by-step tutorial.

Then verify it’s properly set with this spf check tool.

SPF authenticates the bound between your IP and your domain.

 ii) Set your DKIM

DKIM stands for Domain Key Identification Mail. It is an authentication standard which guarantees that your message has not been altered and that it was sent from your domain. 

It basically associates your email to your domain name in a hidden signature located in the header of your email. The authentication is possible thanks to a DNS (domain name server) record that provides an encryption key.

If you’re using Gsuite, you can follow this tutorial :

If not, search in Google: “ {your domain provider} DKIM record” and follow a step-by-step tutorial.

Then verify it’s properly set with this dkim check tool.

DKIM authenticates the bound between your email and your domain.

And what if SPF and DKIM would collaborate...? 

Boom: DMARC.

 iii) Set your DMARC

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance. 

It basically unifies SPF and DKIM and enriches them by providing :

• Spam reports: about emails that have been blocked and the reasons for this issue;

• Spam policy: explaining what to do with emails that didn’t pass authentication checks;

• Identity alignment check: actually the email identity of the sender may change between: your FROM address, the DKIM signature and the “return-path address”. 

DMARC takes the FROM address field as a reference, since it’s the one that will be read by a human. It will take into account DKIM and SPF authentication test results, ONLY IF they run their authentication process based on the same email address.

If you’re using Gsuite, you can follow this tutorial :

If not, search in Google: “ {your domain provider} DMARC record” and follow a step-by-step tutorial.

Then verify whether it’s properly set with this dmarc check tool.

Now you get an idea of what’s happening with your emails going through ISPs, spam filters, blacklists and how you should prepare your email account for the war…

Let’s see how to end up victorious and keep your IP reputation high.

 C. HCA Framework

To sum up, you’re doing spam in ISP eyes, because normally your account should act like a human. 

BUT sending hundreds of emails each day doesn’t seem to fill this requirement. 

And don’t forget that there’s no ultimate checklist as spam filters rules are customized, obscure and changing… Well, let’s analyze the situation.

In order to make your email account “act normal” and avoid landing in spam, I advise clients that they need to take into account three parameters; the HCA Framework:

• History of the IP/domain

• Content of the emails

• Activity of email account

 Every single time you’ll read on this topic it would be related to one of these key elements: 

• IP reputation score (Covered in this blog)
• Spam wording
• Warm-up process
• Daily sending volume
• ESP daily limits

… That’s enough buzzwords for now if you notice it they all fit in these three sections.

If you keep patiently following all the above and keep the HCA rule in mind, you will see your IP reputation score rising to the moon and beyond or at least getting better.

More in next read....