Why are my emails going to spam?

This article walks through the most common reasons mailbox providers file your email as spam, and what to change. Delivered in Emailit means the recipient’s server accepted the message. Whether it reaches the inbox or the spam folder is decided by the provider afterward.

Symptoms

• Emails show Delivered, but recipients find them in Spam or Junk.
• Gmail shows a warning banner, or Outlook moves messages to Junk Email.
• Opens are much lower than usual for one provider in Analytics.

Cause

Providers score each message on several signals. The usual problems are:

• Missing DMARC. SPF and DKIM pass once your domain is verified, but without a _dmarc record many providers treat bulk mail with suspicion. Gmail and Yahoo require DMARC for bulk senders.
• No reputation yet. A new domain that suddenly sends thousands of emails looks like a spammer.
• List quality. Old, bought or scraped lists cause bounces, spam-trap hits and complaints. Complaints hurt the most.
• Content. Image-only emails, URL shorteners, link text that doesn’t match the target, missing plain-text parts and very large HTML all add to the spam score.
• No easy way to unsubscribe. Recipients who can’t unsubscribe press Report spam instead.

Fix

1. Check authentication in a received message. In Gmail, open the message and choose Show original. SPF, DKIM and DMARC should all say PASS, and DKIM should be signed by your domain (d=acme.com). If DMARC is missing or fails, continue with the next step. See DNS records.

2. Publish a DMARC record. Start in monitoring mode:

   Text

   _dmarc.acme.com  TXT  "v=DMARC1; p=none;"

   Emailit shows this record on the domain page. On Pro and Business, turn on DMARC reports to see who sends as your domain before you tighten the policy.

3. Check the spam score. In Email API›Emails, the Spam score column shows Emailit’s score. Orange scores (5 to under 7) are sent but risky. Open the email and review the Spam Checks panel for the rules that matched. See Spam checks.

4. Clean up content. Include a plain-text version, keep a healthy text-to-image ratio, link to your own domain instead of shorteners, and keep HTML small enough that Gmail doesn’t clip it (about 102 KB).

5. Send only to people who asked. Remove addresses that haven’t engaged in months, run old lists through email verification and never use bought lists. Add an unsubscribe link and a List-Unsubscribe header. Campaigns add the header for you.

6. Warm up gradually. Start with your most engaged recipients and raise volume over a few weeks. See Warm-up.

7. Separate streams. Send marketing from a subdomain such as news.acme.com so it can’t drag down receipts and password resets. See Should I send from my root domain or a subdomain?.

8. Watch provider tools. Register your domain in Google Postmaster Tools to see Gmail’s view of your reputation and spam rate.

For the complete checklist, read Deliverability best practices and How do I meet Gmail and Yahoo bulk sender requirements?.

Still stuck?

Contact support or ask in Discord. Share an email ID and the full headers from a message that landed in spam.