Why are Gmail OTP emails delayed and how can I fix it?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from EmailOnAcid Blog mentions that using a dedicated IP address for sending OTP emails can improve deliverability and reduce latency, as it helps establish a consistent sending reputation with Gmail.
Email marketer from Sendgrid Support says that using properly formatted email headers, including 'List-Unsubscribe' to manage opt-outs and set email priority as 'high' for transactional emails, can help improve deliverability and reduce the chances of delays.
Email marketer from GSuite Admin recommends checking Google Workspace Admin console logs to see if there any throttling limits or issues with Gmail infrastructure that can be causing delays. If it's hitting the limits set, increase the allowed amount.
Email marketer from Mailjet recommends segmenting your email lists and sending OTP emails from a separate, dedicated sending infrastructure to ensure high deliverability and reduce latency, as it isolates the transactional traffic from marketing emails.
Email marketer from Reddit recommends ensuring the OTP emails are not being flagged as spam by Gmail's filters. Suggests testing the email content with various spam checkers and avoiding common spam trigger words.
Email marketer from Litmus Blog recommends throttling email sending volumes to avoid being flagged as a spammer. They explain that gradually increasing sending volume helps establish a good sending reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests checking the sending server's IP reputation, as Gmail may be throttling emails from IPs with poor reputations. Also, they suggest implementing proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to improve deliverability.
Email marketer from SparkPost suggests that monitoring real-time bounce rates and feedback loops (FBLs) can help identify deliverability issues and improve the reliability of OTP emails. They recommend addressing any high bounce rates promptly to reduce delays.
Email marketer from StackOverflow says that the location of the SMTP server is important. Having a server far away may increase latency and slow down OTP delivery. Suggests using an SMTP server that is geographically located in proximity to the recipient or using a CDN.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that aggressively filtering promotional or transactional emails, even OTPs, can cause delays. He recommends reviewing filtering configurations and ensuring essential transactional emails are prioritized.
Expert from Word to the Wise discusses that temporary deliverability issues might stem from problems with your sending infrastructure. Suggests checking server logs and DNS configurations to identify and resolve these issues, as well as looking into throttling.
Expert from Email Geeks analyses the provided email headers and finds that the delay is on the sender's end, as Google delivers the email to the inbox immediately upon receipt.
Expert from Word to the Wise talks about issues from poor list hygiene. If you are sending to a large number of invalid addresses, then Gmail is likely to throttle your email.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that the sender's server took approximately 40 seconds to deliver the email to Google after accepting it, suggesting a need to review the mail server logs to identify the cause of the delay (queue time, connection initiation, etc.). The server's misconfiguration, including a potentially invalid hostname and broken DNS, could also contribute to the latency.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools states that monitoring your domain and IP reputation through their tools can provide insights into potential deliverability issues and latency problems with Gmail. They also suggest checking for high spam rates and authentication issues.
Documentation from RFC 5321 describes SMTP standards, highlighting that transient network issues or server overload can cause delays in email delivery. It advises checking for network connectivity problems and ensuring the SMTP server is not under heavy load.
Documentation from MXToolbox recommends analyzing mail delivery reports (MDRs) to identify potential bottlenecks or errors in the email sending process, which can pinpoint the cause of delays with Gmail OTP emails.
Documentation from DKIM.org suggests correctly implementing DKIM signatures to ensure email integrity and authenticity, which can help bypass spam filters and reduce delivery delays with Gmail.