Emails that land in the inbox, not spam

Booking confirmations, quote replies and password resets only help if people see them. When they land in spam, customers assume you never replied. Most of the time the cause is how the email is sent, not what it says.

Send from your own domain

Email from you@yourbusiness.com that is set up properly is trusted far more than a website form that sends from a free address or straight from the web server.

Three records that prove it's you

• SPF lists which services are allowed to send email for your domain.
• DKIM signs each email, so the receiver can check it wasn't changed on the way.
• DMARC tells receivers what to do when a message fails those checks, and where to send reports.

They're all DNS records, added where your domain is managed. Your sending service gives you the exact values; they look something like this:

yourbusiness.com.         TXT  "v=spf1 include:_spf.sender.example ~all"
_dmarc.yourbusiness.com.  TXT  "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourbusiness.com"

Gmail and Yahoo now expect these. Since 2024 they require SPF or DKIM from everyone who sends to them, and all three from anyone sending in bulk.

Use a sending service

Services built for sending a site's emails handle the signing, retries and reputation for you, and show whether each message was delivered. It's far more reliable than the web server's own mail function.

Check it worked

Send a test to a Gmail address, open it, and choose 'Show original' from the menu. You want to see PASS next to SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

“An email that isn't seen is a reply that was never sent.”