How can I resolve email delivery errors due to tempfail and suspected spam?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that improving your sender reputation is key. Ensure your sending IP addresses and domain have a good reputation by authenticating your emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Email marketer from StackOverflow explains that to reduce spam scores, optimize your email's HTML code, avoid excessive use of images without alt text, and ensure your email is mobile-friendly.
Email marketer from EmailOctopus explains that a high spam complaint rate negatively impacts deliverability. They recommend using double opt-in, segmenting lists, and providing clear unsubscribe options to reduce complaints.
Email marketer from Quora shares to avoid spam trigger words in your subject lines and email content. Also test emails with tools like Mail-Tester or GlockApps to check for spam triggers.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares to look at the logs for messages such as rate limiting due to unusual mail rates, and to slow down sending or check list quality/inactive contacts.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that regularly cleaning your email list is crucial for maintainability. Remove inactive subscribers and those who haven't engaged in a while to boost deliverability.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that warming up your IP address gradually is crucial, especially when starting with a new domain or IP. Start with small volumes and gradually increase over time to build a good reputation.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares that to improve deliverability, clean your email lists regularly, personalize your email content, and avoid using spam trigger words in your subject lines and body.
Email marketer from Sendinblue explains that maintaining a good sender reputation requires consistent sending volume, avoiding spam traps, and actively managing your email list by removing inactive subscribers.
Email marketer from MailerCheck says that to consider using a dedicated IP address, especially if you are sending a high volume of emails. This allows you to manage your sender reputation independently of shared IP addresses.
What the experts say7Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks advises to stop mailing people who don't want to hear from you.
Expert from Spamresource.com explains that if you are seeing a tempfail error due to greylisting (a technique used by mail servers to temporarily reject emails from unknown senders) ensure that your sending server retries sending the email after a delay as per the SMTP standards. Also, make sure that your server is properly configured for retries.
Expert from Spamresource.com says to resolve tempfail errors due to authentication problems (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), check your DNS records to make sure they are set up correctly. Use online tools to validate the syntax and correctness of your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
Expert from Email Geeks states that a 1% complaint rate indicates recipients don't want the mail, and the temp failing is Google acknowledging this.
Expert from Email Geeks points out that Crystal Travel has a terrible reputation unrelated to email, suggesting the spam reports might stem from this.
Expert from Wordtothewise.com suggests regularly cleaning your email list and segmenting by engagement to maintain a good sender reputation and prevent being marked as spam. Actively remove unengaged recipients.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that "suspected spam" means Google suspects the mail is spam and is slowing down delivery to decide if it is spam, and suggests checking links, image hosting domains, and subscriber list quality.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft explains that to prevent email from being marked as junk, ensure your sending server has reverse DNS records, avoid URL shorteners, and monitor your domain reputation through their Sender Support services.
Documentation from Google explains that to fix email delivery issues, resolve any blocked IP addresses, use consistent IP addresses for sending, keep complaint rates low, and ensure properly formatted email headers.
Email Documentation from GlockApps shares that you should regularly check your IP address and domain against email blacklists. If you are on a blacklist, work to get removed by following their specific procedures.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that implementing email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is essential for verifying your sender identity and preventing spoofing.
Documentation from RFC explains that "Tempfail" indicates a temporary failure, it means the server encountered a transient error and the message might be delivered later. Check server logs, network connectivity, and retry sending.