How To Get Emails Delivered to Inbox

Written by Julia. Posted in Email Marketing

In one of my previous articles I’ve already touched upon the email filtering and blocking issue and talked about the reasons why the email may be blocked or filtered by ISPs. That was mostly all about the message content and list building. There are also some technical issues that may be overlooked by email marketers but play a significant role in the email delivery process. By addressing those issues, you can increase your email deliverability rate and ensure your newsletter is delivered directly to the recipient’s Inbox.

You probably know that the best way to send emails is through the SMTP server. You can use the SMTP server of your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and be happy with it. But many ISP now limits the number of email messages you can send per hour or day. This definitely hurts your business if you have a large contact database and need to send the message to the whole list urgently.

With that said, if you can’t use the SMTP server of your ISP because of email sending restrictions, consider the following solutions:

1. Get your own SMTP server. The advantage is that you will be able to send as many emails as you want without any restrictions. The disadvantage is that you will need to setup the sender’s authentication records on your server yourself.

Email Authentication is the effort to include identifiable information into the messages so that the receiver can recognize incoming email message automatically. Email authentication helps prevent forged emails from being sent from your mail server and thus, helps reduce the amount of spam in the recipient’s Inbox.

So, when you get your mail server, adjust your authentication records to make sure your emails are delivered to the recipient’s Inbox. The sender’s authentication can be done in several ways such as SPF, Reverse DNS Lookup, DomainKeys, or Sender ID:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records. SPF is an open standard created to stop forgery of From addresses. Because the majority of spam emails are sent from forged email addresses, SPF records allow the receiver’s host to verify that the email is being sent from the server it asserts it’s sent from. It’s like the email sender is telling to the receiver “I send emails from this computer only”. So, if any other machine tries to send an email from the same domain, the receiver’s mail server knows the From email address is forged. SPF standard is being used by some ISPs (including several large providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.) and mail hosts. You can ask your hosting company to setup SPF records for you. Or, go to your cPanel and click on “Email Authentication”. Then enable the authentication parameter you would want to apply to your emails.


• Reverse DNS. This is another way to authenticate the email sender to the receiver host. Reverse DNS lookup implies determining what host and domain name belong to a given IP address. If a Reverse DNS Lookup returns a “no domain associated”, then the email will likely bounce to the sender, or will be deleted or filtered. To avoid Reverse DNS Lookup problems, follow these simple rules: 1) don’t send emails directly from your home computer (always use an SMTP server when possible) and 2) don’t send emails from a crappy shared hosting server for a small fee monthly fee. Get a solid host, better yet a VPS (virtual private server) or a dedicated server and ask your hosting company to enable Reverse DNS for you.


• DKIM. This is the next step to do after you setup your Reverse DNS records. According to Wikipedia “DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email validation system designed to detect email spoofing by providing a mechanism to allow receiving mail exchangers to check that incoming mail from a domain is authorized by that domain’s administrators and that the email (including attachments) has not been modified during transport.”. In other words, DKIM authentication system checks if the email is sent from the domain it claims to be sent from. By installing DKIM, you can help your server deliver your emails directly to the recipient’s inbox.

In fact, if you have SPF records, Reverse DNS and DKIM setup, this is enough to get your email delivered to the recipient. However, you may also want to setup your Sender ID.

The Sender ID is an email authentication technology that validates the origin of email messages by verifying the sender’s IP address against the supposed owner of the domain the email is sent from. The Sender ID authentication algorithm addresses the problem of forging email messages headers by verifying the domain name from which the emails are sent.

2. Use the 3rd party email service. If you don’t have mail server or don’t have enough knowledge to properly setup your SMTP server to send your emails to the recipient’s Inbox, consider using the 3rd party email service provider. We recommend the following:

• Amazon SES. Amazon SES is probably the cheapest email sending service. They charged only $1 per 10 000 messages. You can use GlockApps Bounce Monitor for bounced emails management.


• SMTP.com. SMTP.com provides the highest performance in sending emails and ensures inbox delivery for your critical messages while protecting your IP reputation. SMTP.com establishes Feedback Loops (FBL), DomainKeys/DKIM signing, SPF and manages ISP Relationships (including Whitelist, Greylist, and Blacklist resolution) for you. They have a variety of service plans that address the diverse needs of users ranging from small businesses to large corporations who require higher service levels and support.

The steps listed above will help, but they still may not be enough. There are a few more things you can do to build your email sender reputation and improve your email campaign performance:

• Check your mail server’s IP address against DNS based blacklists every few email campaigns. You can use the G-Lock Apps delivery and spam testing tools to see your inbox placement, spam scores, authentication issues, daily blacklist monitoring to check if your server’s IP address is blacklisted and get summary email alerts. If it is, there is nothing wrong with emailing to the admins of those DNSBL sites and ask them how you can be removed from the blacklist.


• Sign up at email deliverability services. These services work as whitelists and ensure the email delivery to the recipient. When you sign up, your server’s IP address is included into their database. The ISPs check those databases, and if your IP is found there, your email is delivered. Only note that the email deliverability services are not free. They charge a monthly fee or the fee is based on the quantity of sent emails.


• Whitelist your server with ISPs. Large ISPs have a procedure you can follow to facilitate the delivery of your email messages directly to the subscriber’s Inbox and not to the bulk email folder. The bad thing is that the ISP may not whitelist you if you are using a shared mail server. Even the host owning the mail server may come into troubles with getting the server whitelisted if shared accounts are in use. The experience shows that to send the emails as reliably as possible, email marketers should use a dedicated mail server and implement all the steps I described above. And the final thing to do is to follow the ISP whitelisting procedure. There is also a concern about the quantity of emails sent at a time. ISPs tend to meter incoming emails and accept only a certain number of messages per hour. Gone are the days when it was possible to continuously blast thousands of messages. Now the emails should be metered to leak over time.


• Signup for Feedback Loop programs with ISPs. Those are free programs provided by major ISPs to help email senders improve the delivery of email messages to their recipients. When a user receives a message from a sender enrolled in the Feedback Loop program and clicks on the Report Spam button on the message instead of clicking on your unsubscribe link, a feedback report for each spam complaint is sent to the email sender. Why is it useful? It lets you know there is something wrong with your email (off topic, unreadable, etc.) so that one of your subscribers clicked the spam button on it. A spam complaint is a valid reason for you to immediately remove that person from your list. Remember, by clicking on the “Report Spam” button the recipient does not unsubscribe. They will still receive your emails until you manually unsubscribe them. So, to avoid more spam complaints in the future, you’ll want to remove them immediately.

What you’ll need in order to register for email feedback loops:

• Access to accounts on your domain: abuse@ or postmaster@
• IP addresses that you want to receive feedback loop emails for

Email Feedback Loop Forms you can fill out online

AOL Feedback Loop – This page will give you access to the email feedback loop form.Read more about their application information, amongst other requirements and info which is all very important too.

Comcast Feedback Loop – A very simple form from Comcast.net that includes an informative “terms of service” agreement and privacy policy.

Cox Feedback Loop – Another quick form, provided by ReturnPath.

Bluetie Feedback Loop – BlueTie offers a feedback loop service, operated by Return Path, free of charge, to parties sending large amounts of mail to BlueTie members.

MSN/Live Feedback Loop – This Junk Email Reporting Program (JMRPP) encourages large senders to remove unwanted recipients from their email list. Click to read instructions on how to get accepted into the program.

United Online Feedback Loop – This lengthy application form also acts as a white list request. You may need to consult your Email Service Provider or IT team to get the information needed for this form.

USA.net Feedback Loop – Another simple form that also gives you access to existing feedback loops, also run by ReturnPath.

Yahoo! Feedback Loop Form – Yahoo! offers a Complaint Feedback Loop service, free of charge, but you need to log in first.

Rackspace Feedback Loop – Simple form, run by ReturnPath.

Email Feedback Loop Forms you can fill out through email

Common requirements for application:

• your IP range
• your domains
• your network’s contact information: name, contact e-mail and phone
• the e-mail to which the FBL will be sent

Charter Feedback Loop – (unblock@charter.net) Charter doesn’t have an official feedback loop, but they do have very strict spam policies. If your message is flagged as spam, you’ll get a notification automatically with a “550 [MESSAGE ID] Message identified as SPAM” message. From there, you can re-send (not forward) the original message with your plea to be unblocked to unblock@charter.net.

Earthlink Feedback Loop – (fblrequest@abuse.earthlink.net) Use the information list above to determine what to send to this email address.

Excite Feedback Loop: (fb-loop@bluetie.com and emailadmin@cs.excite.com) Use both of these email addresses, because as of June 2008, Excite moved over to BlueTie. Use the information list above to determine what information to send to these email addresses.

Gmail Feedback Loop – Just as a note, Gmail doesn’t accept white listing requests nor do they provide feedback loops. Last year they did enact a type of feedback loop, but it’s only available to your email service provider. They use contact lists plus extensive filters to determine what gets delivered to an inbox. They do have a bulk sender contact form however, if you feel that some of your messages are incorrectly marked as spam.

Verizon Feedback Loop – Verizon doesn’t have a feedback loop, but they do offer a whitelist form.

• Do not change your mail server’s IP address without any evident reason for it. Some ISPs are more cautious to new IP addresses and restrict the amount of emails that can be sent from a new IP address.


• Do not change your “From” email address without need. The recipients have already used to your From field and probably added your From email address to their whitelists. Sending from a new email address may make them think it is spam and hit “Report Spam” button or just delete your email message. If you are forced to change your From email address, consider sending a short notification to your subscribers before the change takes place. This way, they can update your records in their address books or whitelists and your future emails will more likely to be received in the Inbox.


• Ask subscribers to whitelist your email address. It’s better if you include into your welcome message the instructions how to whitelist you in order the recipient receives your regular HTML email newsletters into the Inbox. If you’re looking for an easy way to build your own mailing list, this subscription plugin for WordPress is exactly what you need. Using this plugin you can place the signup form at the side bar on your WordPress blog and let people subscribe to your newsletter using the confirmed opt-in method. The plugin automatically sends the welcome email new subscribers proving them with the instructions how to whitelist your email address. The subscribers will be saved to your internal WordPress database. You will be able to create and email newsletters to your list directly from WordPress, or export the subscribers for using the list your in-house hybrid email marketing software.

To conclude, keep in mind that nowadays the sender’s reputation question is timely as never before. It’s easy to fool anti-spam filters using some tricks but it’s not easy to restore your good name. Your email sender’s reputation determines the success of your mailings so put your efforts to create a good picture of yourself.

Tags: How To Get Emails Delivered