E-mails which we send to our customers hitting their inbox is a big challenge, E-mails may land in to customer’s spam folder depends on various factors, we will discuss about that in detail in here.

Introduction about email authentication

First of all, we need to understand why emails from new domain are landing in spam folder. Below are the few reasons…

Authentication

Email providers use different authentication methods or mechanism to check the authenticity of the e-mail sender. If any authentication failure causes the email message to reach spam folder.

No reputation of Domain

If the domains are newly or recently claimed or registered, then the emails form the new domain will have less reputation and marked as spam by the other email providers

Spam behavior

If email contents are the key to avoid spam, sending bulk email in short period, poor engagement, or high bounce rate emails will trigger spam filters, led those emails to land in spam or junk folder.

Important DNS records to prevent emails landing in spam or Junk folder.

Important (DNS) Domain Name services records which will help to improve the quality and standard of e-mail are as follows

SPF record (Sender Policy Framework)

This value will be auto generated at the time of hosting a domain with any hosting provided, that can be find under DNS manager tab.

If you are using DNS provide as your Hosting provider, no action needed, in case if you are DNS other than you hosting provide, you need to get these SPF values and update in their DNS. Without SPF record, there is very high chance the emails sent would be marked as phishing, and lead email straight to hit the spam folder.

Example of SPF

v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

(The above example is for Microsoft 365.)

Go to DNS manager and add a new TXT record with the above format.

v=sf1  – This is the version of SPF

include:spf.protection.outlook.com – This represents the authorized mail server

-all – all other sources are not allowed to send email on behalf of the domain.

DKIM (Domain Key Identification Mail)

DKIM is one of authentication method that will help receiver to check this mail has been sent by an authorized domain owner. DKIM will adds digital signature to the email, which will be verified by the receiver’s mail server.

Setting up DKIM:

Email provider will generate the DKIM key for each Domain. (777Hosting, Microsoft 365, Google workspace etc).

Login to DNS provider and add a TXT entry given by the email provider

Example

default._domainkey.yourdomain.com   v=DKIM1; k=rsa;=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBA…

default._domainkey – is a selector which helps to identify DKIM record

P=  This holds the public key that helps to verify email’s authenticity

DKIM make sure that the email sent by sender is not spoofed or altered over the wire during transmission and confirms that is came from the actual domain.  

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance)

DMARC is a policy which is built on SPF and DKIM, this will give the control to domain owner, how the email authentication needs to be handled. Also, this will help the email provider to report back the owner on authentication failure.

Setting up DMARC:

Add a txt record in your DNS record settings.

Example

_dmarc.yourdomain.com   v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]

v=DMARC1 is the DMARC version.

P=none  , this setting will monitor the and will not take any action (p=quarantine or reject)  can be changed if the email is are authentication properly.

rua=mailto:[email protected] is the email address, where DMARC reports will be sent.

DMARC gives us insight how the domain is managing or performing the email authentication.

PTR (Pointer) Record or Reverse DNS Lookup

Reverse DNS lookup is to verify that IP address of the Domain, This PTR should be associated and point to the mail server IP

Conclusion

DNS record configuration is very important to improve the email deliverability and make sure that emails doesn’t end up landing in spam or junk folders. SPF, DKIM, DMARC and PTR setup for the domain in DNS records builds a solid foundation and create trust and reputation for the emails.