Have you ever heard clients complain that your email got stuck in their spam folder? An issue that occurs all too often and can have a serious impact, such as losing a booking. It is most likely an issue because you have not been verifying the origin of your emails. By verifying the origin of your emails the receiving mail servers can confirm that your email was sent by you and not by a spammer. This will significantly reduce the chance that your email will be marked as spam.
Below are three tips that will help ensure your emails do not end up in spam folders. Some tips are quite technical, so we recommend discussing these with your IT person, who also manages your domain name.
Don't send unsolicited emails
Never abuse your domain name and/or mail server for spam or unsolicited emails. People will mark those emails as spam and as a result, your domain and/or mail server will get blacklisted as a spam domain/server.
Don’t use a shared mail server. Instead use Google or Microsoft to handle your company’s email.
Shared mail servers are often blacklisted because another company, that shares the same mail server, abused it for spam. It is better to use one of these alternatives:
Use Gmail for sending a copy
An easy, but less professional solution would be to register a free Gmail account (or Yahoo or similar). If you email a client using your company’s email address, you can send a copy of your email using your Gmail account.
We wouldn't recommend only using a Gmail account, as that would make an even less professional impression. People expect companies to have email addresses that use the company's domain name.
Use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for your email
The more professional and better solution would be to create a 'Google Workspace' or 'Microsoft 365' account for your company email. These solutions by Google and Microsoft enable you to use their infrastructure to handle the email of your company's domain name. As a result, your emails are sent using mail servers from Google or Microsoft, which are the most trusted in the world.
If you are currently using an email client on your computer, such as Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook, it is good to know that both solutions can be used in combination with these or any other professional email client.
These solutions cost around $6.00 (USD) per account per month and you can use multiple email addresses within one account. You will have to ask your IT person to configure it.
More info:
If English is not your first language, there is another great advantage to using Workspace or Gmail. The spelling and grammar check is one of the best in the world. Workspace or Gmail will check the text that you type in your emails and offer suggestions to fix any errors. Using correct spelling and grammar errors in your emails will greatly increase the chance that clients will book with you.
How to turn on the spelling and grammar check in Workspace and Gmail
Use a dedicated server for your email
A third option is to use a dedicated mail server instead of a shared mail server. That way only your company can use the mail server. But this is the most expensive and complex option as you will need an IT professional on a regular basis for server maintenance. It is best that the server is located in the US or Western Europe as some spam filters are less likely to trust emails from African mail servers.
Verifying the origin of your emails
Most tour operators send emails that include their company's domain name. If you use your company’s domain name (e.g. info@yourcompanyname.com) when sending emails, you will need to verify that the email was sent by your company and not by a spammer.
Unless you verify the origin of your emails, there is a high chance that they will be delivered directly into the client’s spam folder and will never be seen. You should verify the origin of your emails regardless of whether you use a dedicated or shared mail server, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, or another platform for sending emails.
The two main methods for verifying the origin of your emails are SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). Both methods are quite technical and if they have not yet been implemented, you will need your IT person to do this for you.
Once SPF and DKIM are implemented correctly, you could ask your IT person to also implement DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance). DMARC is also recommended, but not as necessary as SPF and DKIM.
What you (not your IT person) need to do first
The first step is to check if SPF and DKIM have been implemented for your emails. Checking this is made easy thanks to the email deliverability tool of MXtoolbox.com.
Please follow these steps:
- Open the email application that you normally use for sending emails to clients and send an empty email to ping@tools.mxtoolbox.com.
- You will get an automatic reply. In the reply click the red link that says ‘View your full deliverability report’.
- On the page that opens go to the ‘Delivery Information’ section to see if SPF, DKIM and DMARC are implemented correctly. When correctly implemented, the delivery information section will show green check marks:
If SPF or DKIM are not implemented correctly, you should ask your IT person to have a look. If the DMARC check fails, it is up to you whether or not you want to ask your IT person to also implement DMARC. As mentioned above, DMARC is recommended but not as important as SPF and DKIM.
Below is more information about SPF, DKIM and DMARC. You can forward this information to your IT person.
SPF records
Your IT person can configure an SPF record to list which mail servers are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain name. This is an important confirmation to spam filters that your emails are genuine and not sent by spammers. Please note that if you start using a different outgoing mail server or a new third party emailing service (that sends emails using a ‘from’ address that includes your domain name) your IT person will have to update the SPF records accordingly.
More info: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
DKIM
DKIM is a way to verify that your emails really came from your domain name and weren't changed after they were sent. This is also an important confirmation to spam filters that your emails are genuine and not sent by spammers. Also here, your IT person will have to configure DKIM in these providers or services as well, if you switch to a different email provider or start using a third party emailing service (that sends emails using a ‘from’ address that includes your domain name).
More info: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
DMARC
Once SPF and DKIM are successfully implemented, you could consider letting your IT person add a DMARC policy to your domain name records.
The DMARC policy tells receiving mail servers what to do with emails that fail both the SPF and DKIM checks. The policy will not be enacted if only one of two fails. If both fail, the email was probably sent by a spammer. Your DMARC policy can then tell the receiving mail server to move the email to trash, spam, or do nothing. The 'do nothing' option is intended for the setup phase only.
The DMARC policy gives domain owners control of what to do with spam emails that pretend to come from your domain name. Having your policy say those spam emails should be moved to spam or trash will help web servers to better trust the emails that were sent by you.
DMARC is a bit more complex to implement. It is recommended to take a step-by-step approach (See the 'How Senders Deploy DMARC in 5-Easy Steps' section on https://dmarc.org/overview/).
More info: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365