Why are operational emails from G Suite hosted forms going to Outlook spam even after fixing SPF and DKIM?

Email marketer from DigitalOcean tutorials explains that the DNS records have to be correct. Make sure the SPF record includes all possible sources of email from your domain, and DKIM keys are set up correctly. Ensure that the DKIM key size is adequate (2048 bits is now recommended).

Email marketer from Stackoverflow suggests implementing a feedback loop with Microsoft (if volume justifies it) to understand why emails are being marked as spam. Implementing DMARC is also essential.

Email marketer from Sender notes that content plays a vital role. Using spam trigger words, having poor HTML coding, and including broken links can all contribute to emails being flagged as spam. They suggest testing your email content using spam checking tools before sending.

Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that you need to check your spam score. This helps reveal potential issues in your emails and how those might be interpreted by spam filters. Tools like SpamAssassin offer insight.

Email marketer from Neil Patel suggests monitoring your sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools, and addresses factors beyond just SPF and DKIM. Focusing on consistent sending volume, engagement metrics (open rates, click-through rates), and removing unengaged subscribers is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation and avoiding spam folders.

Email marketer from Email Geeks shares an experience where the location of their asset library (specifically, the domain) caused deliverability issues. Renaming the library's domain from “<https://companyassets.azureedge.net>…” to <https://companyassets.companycdn.com>…” resolved the problem.

Email marketer from Reddit User responds that G Suite's shared IP addresses might have a poor reputation due to other users' sending practices. Suggests warming up a dedicated IP address or using a reputable third-party email sending service to improve deliverability. Also, check the IP isn't on any blocklists.

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that transactional emails, despite being automated, must adhere to deliverability best practices. They recommends ensuring proper list hygiene, monitoring bounce rates, and segmenting your email list to send more targeted and relevant emails. Also, they suggest ensuring your sending IP is not blacklisted.

Email marketer from SuperUser forum responds that Microsoft is strict. You may need to tweak the message headers to contain all the proper fields. Also, consider checking for reverse DNS entries for your sending IP address.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests that if spammers also use similar code for generating emails, it might contribute to spam filters flagging the emails as spam.

Expert from Word to the Wise (Dennis Dayman) emphasizes the impact of email content and sender reputation on Outlook's filtering decisions. He suggests that Outlook considers various factors beyond SPF/DKIM, including the content of the email, the sender's IP and domain reputation, and user complaints. It's important to monitor your reputation and ensure your email content is not triggering spam filters.

Expert from Email Geeks clarifies that the issue isn't necessarily hosting images on Azure itself, but rather hosting images on Azure and not changing the domain you point to in the email that caused delivery problems.

Expert from Spam Resource (Laura Atkins) explains that engagement is a critical factor. Even with proper authentication (SPF, DKIM), if recipients consistently don't open or interact with emails, Outlook will likely filter them to spam. Content relevance and maintaining a clean list are essential. In summary, Authentication is NOT deliverability.

Expert from Word to the Wise (Steve Jones) recommends setting up a feedback loop with Microsoft. This allows senders to receive reports about when their emails are marked as spam by recipients, providing valuable data for diagnosing and addressing deliverability issues. This will require you to provide a abuse@ email account.

Documentation from Microsoft Support explains that Outlook's Junk Email Filter automatically evaluates messages for spam characteristics. Several factors can cause emails to be marked as spam, including the sender's reputation, content, and whether the recipient has marked similar emails as junk in the past. Even with SPF and DKIM set up, content or user-defined rules can still trigger spam filtering.

Documentation from DKIM indicates that DKIM failures can happen if the message is altered in transit, causing the signature to no longer match. Forwarding and changes by mailing lists can cause this. Also, having the wrong DNS entries can cause this.

Documentation from RFC notes that SPF is a technical method to prevent sender address forgery. It might fail if intermediate mail servers forward the email, but are not explicitly permitted to send emails on behalf of the domain. Also, having an SPF record is one part, the email server has to be configured to respect and check it.

Documentation from SANS ISC answers that you need to analyze your email headers. Viewing the email headers can provide valuable insight into why the email may be getting flagged. They explain the importance of the `X-Spam-Status` and `Authentication-Results` headers to determine what triggered the spam filter.

Documentation from Google Workspace Admin explains the importance of DMARC in addition to SPF and DKIM. DMARC allows you to instruct receiving mail servers on how to handle emails that fail SPF and DKIM checks, providing an added layer of security and improving deliverability by preventing email spoofing.