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How do I avoid Method emails going to spam?
How do I avoid Method emails going to spam?

What to do when emails from Method are marked as spam.

Updated over 3 months ago

Emails sent without proper DKIM/DMARC configuration will be marked as spam, and negatively affect your domain reputation. Make sure you have authenticated your domain.

NOTE: Configuring your DMARC (see below) is required. If you do not have a DMARC policy enabled, your emails may not be delivered to recipients' inboxes.

If Method emails are being sent to spam, this will require you to go to your hosting provider and ask your domain administrator to properly set up your DNS configuration.


Definition of Terms

  • DNS: Your Domain Name Services (DNS) configuration will define how your domain is accessed by the rest of the internet. In it you will define subdomains, allowed email servers, etc.

  • DKIM: The DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an authentication protocol used to verify the legitimacy of an email sender. It's the public key encryption that ensures the sender is who they say they are — the domain matches the domain encrypted.

  • SPF: A Sender Policy Framework (SPF) restricts which email servers can send emails from your domain.

  • DMARC: The Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is a set of policies that decides what to do when DKIM and SPF aren't configured correctly. It also links the sender’s domain name with what is listed in the From: header and also has some better reporting back from mail recipients.


Configure your SPF record

One way to avoid emails sent from Method going to spam is to add Method's email server SPF record as an allowed email server.

Method sends email out via a third-party called SendGrid. Your domain administrator will need to include the following SPF record for Sendgrid:

include:sendgrid.net

For more information on custom SPF records, please see SendGrid's article "SPF Records Explained".


On DMARC Policies

When Method sends an email out on your behalf, it will still appear as though the emails were sent from Method. The DKIM will then verify the legitimacy of the message by looking at the return-path DNS. This would not be your domain, but our own.

However, DKIM is configured on the mailserver, which is Sendgrid. The DKIM cannot be configured by you or your DNS administrator, and we do not have a DKIM signature for SendGrid that can be shared.

This means SendGrid cannot allow for a restrictive DMARC policy. All policies other than

p=none will cause emails to be sent to spam.

Solution #1

You can continue sending emails through your account by setting your DMARC policy to p=none.

  • Pros: simple configuration, low cost, default setting used by Method.

  • Cons: not completely configurable.

Solution #2:

Use a seperate mailserver or implement your own DKIM policy with your own SendGrid account. You can do so by following the instructions from the article DKIM Records Explained.

  • Pros: configurable, potentially cheaper, potentially more secure.

  • Cons: more complicated, likely not free, more difficult to support/debug.

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