How can I improve email deliverability?
Improving email deliverability is crucial for ensuring that your emails reach their intended recipients, especially with providers like Gmail that have strict filtering measures. At Elitehost, we’ve designed a robust email infrastructure to help you achieve excellent delivery rates.
Emails sent from our servers are routed through our advanced outgoing email cluster, powered by SpamExperts. This cluster leverages multiple delivery IPs, ensuring optimal performance and reliability. Our IP pool is automatically monitored against reputation lists and any listed IPs are promptly rotated out while the source of spam is identified and stopped. With this proactive system, our outgoing email cluster maintains an excellent reputation, offering you superior email delivery rates. Additionally, we strictly monitor email queues to ensure smooth and timely delivery.
Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records is also essential for enhancing your email deliverability and preventing your messages from being marked as spam. All Elitehost accounts come pre-configured with valid SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. However, we recommend checking these settings in cPanel to ensure they remain correct.
Log in to your cPanel.
Navigate to Email Deliverability in the Email section.
Review the Email Deliverability Status column for your domain.
- If the status says Valid, no further action is needed.
- If any errors are listed, click Repair to automatically resolve them.
These steps only apply if your domain points to Elitehost's name servers. If you are using external DNS (such as Cloudflare), the DNS records will need to be copied into their DNS zone.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
SPF is a DNS record that specifies which mail servers are authorised to send emails on behalf of your domain. When an email is sent, the receiving mail server checks the SPF record to verify that the sending server is authorised. If it is not listed in the SPF record, the email may be rejected or flagged as spam. Since we use our own SpamExperts cluster for outgoing emails, the SPF record spf.zamailgate.com covers all our outgoing mail server IP addresses.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
DKIM uses public/private key encryption to attach a digital signature to your email headers. The receiving server validates this signature using a public key stored in your DNS. This process ensures that the email has not been altered in transit and confirms the authenticity of the sender.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)
DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM by adding a policy record in your DNS that specifies how your domain handles suspicious emails. It provides instructions to receiving servers on how to treat emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks, enhancing protection against forged spam. By default, our DMARC policy is set to none, but you can change it to quarantine or reject. We recommend starting by monitoring DMARC reports using Postmark.
Check your domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC Records
Follow the steps listed above.
Avoid Spammy Practices
Avoid using misleading subject lines or excessive promotional language in your emails.
Monitor Email Deliverability
Regularly check your email deliverability metrics to ensure that your emails are being received as intended.
Use tools that provide insights into your email performance and identify potential issues.
Keep Your Email List Clean
Regularly remove inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses from your mailing list to improve engagement rates.
Use double opt-in methods to ensure that subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails.
By following these steps and utilising SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, you can significantly enhance your email deliverability and improve the likelihood that your emails reach the inbox rather than the spam folder. If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to reach out to our support team.
Emails sent from our servers are routed through our advanced outgoing email cluster, powered by SpamExperts. This cluster leverages multiple delivery IPs, ensuring optimal performance and reliability. Our IP pool is automatically monitored against reputation lists and any listed IPs are promptly rotated out while the source of spam is identified and stopped. With this proactive system, our outgoing email cluster maintains an excellent reputation, offering you superior email delivery rates. Additionally, we strictly monitor email queues to ensure smooth and timely delivery.
Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records is also essential for enhancing your email deliverability and preventing your messages from being marked as spam. All Elitehost accounts come pre-configured with valid SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. However, we recommend checking these settings in cPanel to ensure they remain correct.
To check SPF, DKIM and DMARC records:
Log in to your cPanel.
Navigate to Email Deliverability in the Email section.
Review the Email Deliverability Status column for your domain.
- If the status says Valid, no further action is needed.
- If any errors are listed, click Repair to automatically resolve them.
These steps only apply if your domain points to Elitehost's name servers. If you are using external DNS (such as Cloudflare), the DNS records will need to be copied into their DNS zone.
Understanding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
SPF is a DNS record that specifies which mail servers are authorised to send emails on behalf of your domain. When an email is sent, the receiving mail server checks the SPF record to verify that the sending server is authorised. If it is not listed in the SPF record, the email may be rejected or flagged as spam. Since we use our own SpamExperts cluster for outgoing emails, the SPF record spf.zamailgate.com covers all our outgoing mail server IP addresses.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
DKIM uses public/private key encryption to attach a digital signature to your email headers. The receiving server validates this signature using a public key stored in your DNS. This process ensures that the email has not been altered in transit and confirms the authenticity of the sender.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)
DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM by adding a policy record in your DNS that specifies how your domain handles suspicious emails. It provides instructions to receiving servers on how to treat emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks, enhancing protection against forged spam. By default, our DMARC policy is set to none, but you can change it to quarantine or reject. We recommend starting by monitoring DMARC reports using Postmark.
Steps to Improve Email Deliverability
Check your domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC Records
Follow the steps listed above.
Avoid Spammy Practices
Avoid using misleading subject lines or excessive promotional language in your emails.
Monitor Email Deliverability
Regularly check your email deliverability metrics to ensure that your emails are being received as intended.
Use tools that provide insights into your email performance and identify potential issues.
Keep Your Email List Clean
Regularly remove inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses from your mailing list to improve engagement rates.
Use double opt-in methods to ensure that subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails.
By following these steps and utilising SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, you can significantly enhance your email deliverability and improve the likelihood that your emails reach the inbox rather than the spam folder. If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to reach out to our support team.
Updated on: 21/11/2024
Thank you!