Why are Salesforce emails blocked or refused, and what are potential solutions?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from EmailGeek Community responds that shared Salesforce IPs can lead to deliverability issues due to the actions of other users. Potential solutions include migrating to a dedicated IP (if available), using a separate email service provider for transactional emails, or improving list hygiene and engagement.
Email marketer from GMass explains that warming up a new IP address or domain involves gradually increasing sending volume over time to establish a positive sender reputation with ISPs.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares a link about the CSA certification.
Email marketer from StackExchange explains the importance of configuring the SPF record properly with all sending sources to ensure your emails are authenticated. They also highlight the necessity of using a tool to validate the SPF configuration.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that poor sender reputation is a common cause of blocked emails. They suggest warming up your IP address gradually, monitoring bounce rates, and engaging with subscribers to improve your sender score.
Email marketer from Litmus Blog shares that segmenting your email list and sending targeted content improves engagement and reduces the likelihood of recipients marking your emails as spam.
Email marketer from Mailjet Blog shares that double opt-in process confirms subscribers' consent. This ensures higher quality leads, reduces spam complaints, and protects sender reputation, improving deliverability.
Email marketer from EmailOnAcid Blog shares avoiding spam trigger words, maintaining a clean HTML structure, and ensuring mobile-friendliness are crucial for improving email deliverability and avoiding spam filters.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that if fixing SPF and DKIM didn't help, the problem is likely reputation-related and asks if they are on shared or dedicated IPs.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource shares it is important to read and understand bounce codes to know why emails are blocked or refused by receiving mail servers. It is important to know if the issue is temporary (e.g., server overload) or permanent (e.g., invalid address, blocked IP).
Expert from Email Geeks shares a link about the CSA certification.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that Salesforce's shared IPs can be problematic due to other users' sending practices. Suggests monitoring reputation and considering dedicated IPs or separate sending services for critical transactional emails if deliverability issues persist.
Expert from Email Geeks says to check if they are sending opt-in mail versus cold prospecting messages. Adds that Salesforce may be experiencing more delivery problems since allowing purchased lists, even losing their CSA certification and that abuse handling at Salesforce is awful.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Google explains that Postmaster Tools provides insights into your sender reputation, spam rate, and other deliverability metrics. They recommend using these tools to identify and address any issues affecting your email delivery to Gmail users.
Documentation from Microsoft shares that it is crucial to configure SPF/DKIM/DMARC, carefully monitor complaints, and segment lists based on subscriber engagement to improve deliverability and comply with regulations.
Documentation from Salesforce Help explains that factors affecting deliverability include sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), content quality, and list hygiene. They suggest ensuring proper authentication setup, monitoring sender reputation, avoiding spam triggers in content, and regularly cleaning your email list.
Documentation from EasyDMARC explains that implementing DMARC (along with SPF and DKIM) helps prevent email spoofing and phishing, improving deliverability. They recommend starting with a 'p=none' policy to monitor email flows before moving to stricter policies like 'p=quarantine' or 'p=reject'.
Documentation from RFC explains SPF's technical specifications for domain owners to specify mail servers permitted to send emails on their behalf, helping receiving servers to verify legitimacy and reduce spoofing.