Gmail blocking some emails to clients

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jmh

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# 251514 28-Jun-2019 18:34

Hi - I'm looking for some advice.

I send emails from my domain successfulresumes.co.nz to gmail accounts of clients. The majority are fine even with attachments.

Emails contain a link to our web address and a link to our logo held on imagur

Setting is html

Hosting company is Freeparking who also host the email - they say it's nothing to do with them.

I'm using Thunderbird email on my PC to send.

As I say, most emails get through fine, but a handful don't. A common factor is attachments, but they are the same attachments that others receive without a problem. It's hard for me to know what the client has set at their end. One has said the email was in their spam after I asked her to look.

Can anyone identify why some might get through and some not? There's a limit to what I can ask clients because some are not that tech savvy. I would like to do what I can at my end, e.g. avoid certain words etc. I realise links are not ideal, but since some are getting through I assume that is not the problem.

Any thoughts?

Batman

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# 2266511 28-Jun-2019 19:34

Easiest way would be to add your email to their safe / unblock list.

If they can't do that, then don't send any attachments other than pdfs. I presume PDFs are more likely to get through.

Swype on iOS is detrimental to accurate typing. Apologies in advance.

Dynamic

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# 2266515 28-Jun-2019 19:44

Do a bit of testing to your own gmail account.

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michaelmurfy

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# 2266516 28-Jun-2019 19:44

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You don't have any SPF policy (it is set to accept all), DMARC or DKIM enabled on the domain. Gmail is way more likely to mark emails as spam without these enabled.

You really need to enable at minimum SPF and DMARC (ensure your SPF rules are correct before turning on DMARC) - see https://dmarc.postmarkapp.com/

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Batman

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# 2266523 28-Jun-2019 20:01

Dynamic: Do a bit of testing to your own gmail account.

It is random. I also send emails and randomly some gmails will block it.

Swype on iOS is detrimental to accurate typing. Apologies in advance.

jmh

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# 2267752 1-Jul-2019 13:18

Thanks everyone - I'll have to investigate this SPF thing. A bit beyond my normal tech expertise but I guess it's a learning opportunity!!

outdoorsnz

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# 2267776 1-Jul-2019 14:21

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Basically you a sending a email via freeparking servers. Receiving email server looks up your domain, and says hold on your domain is not setup correctly or not authorised, we have a high level of security, so we will reject...

A quick google finds freeparking DNS settings:

https://helpdesk.freeparking.co.nz/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/401/0/correct-freeparking-email-service-dns-records

Add the domain txt record and should be fine.

This is also a handy testing tool:

https://mxtoolbox.com/

jmh

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# 2277190 15-Jul-2019 16:59

Well after being told by the hosting company that there isn't a problem, I copied and pasted the above comments regarding DKIM and DMARC. This is the reply I got:

Thank you for the email.

Please note that every recipient server is different and may apply different spam filtering criteria for the messages being received. In most cases, recipient servers don't provide any information about spam filtering to the sender of an email that was filtered. It would give too much information to spammers who would use that data to get around spam filters.

Spam filters are constantly changing to adapt to new techniques and types of spam messages, so what lands in the inbox today could be spam filtered tomorrow. There are some things you can do to help ensure your emails are being delivered to the inbox.

Most of the major email providers, including Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, and Gmail use engagement-based filtering to help detect spam. This means that the more your recipients interact with your emails by opening, clicking, and reading, the more highly engaged your audience is, and the more likely you'll end up in their inboxes. If a lot of users are marking a message as spam, it's more likely to end up in other people's spam folders. If you've moved emails out of the spam folder, that's a positive indicator and can help ensure future emails that are similar are delivered to the inbox instead.

Ideally recipients can remove the SPAM label set on these emails by clicking on the X mark besides SPAM thereby allowing mails to be moved into Inbox folder rather spam. You can refer to the same here: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1366858?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&hl=en

However if the mails still continue to move into spam folder, then ask the recipients to check the same with their email hosting provider.

Feel free to contact us back, if you need any further assistance.

He/she hasn't really resolved my problem. Any thoughts?

mattwnz

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# 2277205 15-Jul-2019 17:38

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Why don't you go into the domains DNS settings in CPanel, and setup these thigns like a DKIM and DMARC etc? I am assuming you get a self service control panel like CPanel to allow you to do this?

chewster

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# 2277220 15-Jul-2019 18:32

jmh:

He/she hasn't really resolved my problem. Any thoughts?

I mean what they say is true, but there's often more that can be done. One tool I've found particularly helpful in discovering SPF/DKIM/DMARC config issues is mail-tester.com. Also litmus.com for real world spam testing across a range of email account providers can be very useful.

Another thing that could happen is that Freeparkings email server IP could be on a spam blacklist which is usually the result of another bad actor user or hacked account connected to their SMTP (might be unbeknownst to them or to you), mail-tester.com or https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx will give you this blacklist info.

Another thing I've noticed (did a bit of email marketing and deliverability testing in the past) is that it seems like you can trip up a spam flag by using "dodgey looking" content in the email subject and body (don't judge me lol) - ones I noticed were too many $ symbols and too much usage of the word "free" but there will be many more "black box" email signals that create a footprint, sometimes just changing the email wording can help.

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