Why Are My Emails Going to Spam (Junk) Instead of Inbox? Check DMARC!
Why are your emails going to spam (junk) instead of the inbox? If one is using Gmail, he might find his legitimate emails sitting in the Spam folder; or if he is using Outlook, he might find them in the Junk folder. Everyone has had that frustrating experience.
Having legitimate emails land in spam and having illegitimate emails reach the inbox are two sides of the same coin. The former can happen for a lot of reasons, one of which is not having a full DMARC implementation.
Why DMARC can improve email deliverability
As an email authentication protocol, DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is known for email authentication reporting and email spoofing prevention.
However, it's actually more than that. It actually can improve your email deliverability, when implemented properly.
A domain without having DMARC fully implemented (p=reject, or at least p=quarantine) still leaves room for spoofed email to reach the inbox. Needless to say, your users rarely reply to or even open such messages. The more spoofed emails are sent on behalf of your domain, the lower user engagement is.
Mailbox providers like Gmail keep a close eye on user engagement: it's a metric used to calculate your domain sender score. When user engagement of emails from your domain goes down, so does your domain sender score.
A domain sender score is a score that an email service provider (mailbox provider) assigns to an organization that sends emails. It's a crucial component of your email deliverability. The higher the score, the more likely an email service provider will deliver emails to the recipients' inboxes they host. The lower the score, the more likely your emails will go to spam.
In other words, not implementing DMARC or leaving the DMARC policy to none:
- allows spoofed emails to go through;
- excessive spoofed emails lower the domain's sender score;
- a low domain sender score hurts your email deliverability.
The upshot here is that you should implement DMARC to p=reject, so that it:
- stops spoofed emails;
- increases user engagement;
- improves your domain sender score;
- a high domain sender score improves your email deliverability: your business emails are more likely to reach the inboxes.
In addition to DMARC authentication, good email deliverability hinges on many other factors. Check out these email deliverability tips for improving your email deliverability.
How to implement DMARC
To properly implement DMARC, check out our definitive guide.
Here are some tools to facilitate an effective DMARC implementation: free DMARC setup tools.
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