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Measures to ensure delivery quality
If you want to ensure reliable email delivery, you need to take action at various levels. On the one hand, a high level of email delivery can be ensured through technical measures. On the other hand, you also have the opportunity to positively influence the delivery of newsletters yourself – especially when it comes to sending trustworthy emails that end up directly in your recipients‘ inboxes and not in the spam folder.
Many of the technical measures are included in our service and the software itself also contains tools that ensure high delivery rates (e.g. the integrated spam check). Other precautions, such as the activation of DKIM or DMARC or the setting of an SPF record and the creation of a CNAME resource record, also require your attention or that of your IT administrator. These are usually one-off settings that your IT technician can implement without much effort.
In this white paper, we will tell you what is behind these abbreviations and why we strongly recommend these measures in favour of high email delivery. We also tell you what you can do to prevent your emails from being blocked by spam filters and give you other helpful tips on how to improve the delivery quality of your newsletters.
What is an SPF record and what is it good for?
The abbreviation SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. This is a procedure designed to curb the misuse of trustworthy e-mail addresses by spammers. When an e-mail is received, it is often checked whether the sending server is actually authorised to use the specified sender. If this is not the case, it is likely that an e-mail will be categorised as spam.
By making an entry in the Sender Policy Framework, you can determine which servers are authorised to send emails with your (sender) domain. In order for the eworx Marketing Suite to deliver your emails smoothly, it is necessary that the entries in the Sender Policy Framework (SPF records) contain the IP addresses of the eworx Marketing Suite servers and that corresponding SPF records are available for all sender domains used.
How do I create an SPF record?
Please contact your IT manager or network administrator. They must store a resource record of type TXT in the DNS zone of the domain. This resource record contains the IP addresses that are authorised to send for this domain.
In order for the eworx Marketing Suite to deliver your emails smoothly, it is necessary that the entries in the Sender Policy Framework (SPF records) contain the following configuration for the eworx Marketing Suite: „include:spf.mlwrx.com“ and that corresponding SPF records are available for all sender domains used.
Whether the SPF records of your sender domains are configured correctly will be displayed when you check your email campaign in the eworx Marketing Suite:
What does DKIM mean and why should you use DKIM?
DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail and is another technical measure that was created to combat spam and phishing emails. The main aim is to prevent recipients from being deceived by so-called spoofers. Spoofers are fraudsters who send you emails that look confusingly similar to those from your bank or large online shops, for example.
Each e-mail is labelled with an invisible digital signature. The DomainKey is a key that is publicly available (after an entry in the Domain Name System). This allows receiving e-mail servers to check the digital signature in your e-mails and determine whether they are authentic.
How do I activate DKIM?
Your IT manager or network administrator must store a resource record of type TXT in the DNS zone of the domain. Before this is possible, however, we must create a certificate and a public key for your sender domain.
The activation of DKIM is therefore divided into 3 steps:
Step 1: Requesting a DKIM from the service crew for the desired sender domain(s).
Step 2: Entry of the DKIM record in the DNS zone of the domain by your IT manager or network administrator.
Step 3: Activation of the DKIM by the eworx Service Crew.
Whether the DKIM record of your sender domain is configured correctly will be displayed when you check your email campaign in the eworx Marketing Suite.
What is a subdomain and what is it good for?
To ensure that the tracking of link clicks and similar functions correctly, all links in your campaigns are forwarded via our content delivery network (cdn.mlwrx.com). This means that the links in your campaigns are forwarded via the domain https://cdn.mlwrx.com by default.
A subdomain can be defined in the eworx Marketing Suite so that your recipients can recognise your organisation from the links at first glance. This will display the url you have selected instead of cdn.mlwrx.com.
This also increases the delivery quality of your email campaigns, as some spam filters use a discrepancy between the tracking link and the sender domain as a criterion.
How can I configure a subdomain?
You must select a subdomain for this (for example: news.costumername.at). From a technical point of view, your domain administrators must then set up a „CNAME Resource Record“ with a forwarding to cdn.mlwrx.com.
Let the service crew know as soon as this has been set up so that they can carry out all further steps and activate the subdomain for your campaigns.
What is a DMARC record and what is it good for?
DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance and is a measure to identify spoofers and take precautions against them.
DMARC builds on the SPF and DKIM techniques by specifying how the recipient of emails should perform authentication. In addition, the sender can specify an action as to how the receiving server should deal with emails for which the SPF or DKIM check fails. The DMARC standard distinguishes between three different actions. It is possible to specify that no actions (none) are carried out and the message is delivered to the receiving server as normal. With the value (quarantine), the message is delivered but marked as spam. With the most restrictive setting (rejected), the message is not delivered and is therefore rejected by the receiving server.
In addition, an Aggregate Data Reporting Address or a Forensic Data Reporting Address can optionally be specified, for which you must set up a mailbox at your sender domain. Reports are sent to this mailbox according to a defined interval. These reports contain information on whether the authentication of SPF, DKIM and DMARC was successful or not. In addition, these reports provide you with further insights into how successful the delivery of newsletters is and whether there are authentication problems or fraudulent activities for your sender domain.
Changes to the delivery of newsletters to Gmail addresses:
From 1 February 2024, Google will tighten the requirements for the delivery of more than 5000 newsletters within 24 hours to Gmail addresses from a sender domain. If the limit is exceeded, a DMARC record must be set on the sender domain to ensure delivery quality to Gmail addresses.
Requirements for the activation of DMARC
As already mentioned, DMARC is based on the SPF and DKIM checks. A DKIM must be set up for every domain that is used as a sender domain in the eworx Marketing Suite. The sender domain must match exactly the domain that is used for the DKIM.
Furthermore, a valid SPF record must be set up for each sender domain.
How can I activate DMARC?
YYour IT manager or network administrator must also store a resource record of type TXT in the DNS zone of the DMARC domain.
The following is an example of an entry that fulfils the minimum requirement to comply with the Gmail guidelines:
Sender address: office@kundendomain.at
Sending domain: kundendomain.at
DMARC domain: _dmarc.kundendomain.at
The following TXT record must be set to the DMARC domain:
v=DMARC1; p=none; adkim=s; aspf=r
To create DMARC records, we recommend the „DMARC Record Assistant“ from Kitterman.
What is a return path and what is it good for?
The return path address (or envelope from address) identifies the address via which returns are analysed. By default, a mailworx domain is specified as the return path address for emails sent via the eworx Marketing Suite. In order to increase the trustworthiness of the emails sent – and therefore also the delivery quality of your email campaigns – we recommend configuring an individual return path address that matches the sender address. This also successfully completes the SPF alignment of the DMARC check.
How can I configure a return path?
To do this, you must select a return path address. This address must be a subdomain of the sender domain.
As with the sender domain, it is also necessary to create an SPF record on the return path domain for the individual return path domain. Please contact your IT manager or network administrator for this.
To ensure that the returns are analysed correctly, two MX records must also be created for the individual return path domain by your IT manager or network administrator in the DNS zone of the domain. You will find a corresponding example below.
Finally, please contact the eworx Service Crew to have the individual return path address stored in the eworx Marketing Suite.
Example for MX and SPF records of an individual return path address:
Sender address: office@kundendomain.at
Envelope domain: kundendomain.at
EnvelopeFrom address: mail.kundendomain.at
The following MX records must be specified on the EnvelopeFrom domain:
mail.kundendomain.at MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = bounce1.mlwrx.com
mail.kundendomain.at MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = bounce2.mlwrx.com
The following txt record must be specified on the EnvelopeFrom domain:
v=spf1 include:spf.mlwrx.com -all
What measures can I take to prevent my emails from being categorised as spam?
There are various reasons why your e-mail may be categorised as spam by senders or providers. You should be aware of the following things to ensure that you are considered a trustworthy sender and that your emails can actually be delivered.
Consent must not be missing
Do not send e-mails to people from whom you have not received express consent! The most secure method in this case is the double opt-in procedure, in which the recipient is asked to reconfirm their e-mail address by clicking on a link.
Pay attention to Robinson lists to make sure that advertising refusers do not receive your campaigns. Members of the ECG list (Austrian Robinson list) are excluded from sending by the eworx Marketing Suite with just one click.
We advise against purchasing email lists. These recipients have no connection to your company, and it is useless to force them to be happy. The use of purchased lists can also cause you great damage if the spam trap snaps shut.
„Spam traps“ are email addresses that initially look completely normal, but can send a sender directly to the email provider’s blacklist if you send to this address. These e-mail addresses are deliberately scattered by providers or blacklisters in order to thwart fraudsters. They may also be e-mail addresses that were previously used by real people but were then shut down. If an e-mail is still sent to this address, this is often a clear indication of spam mail for e-mail providers. Unfortunately, even reputable senders can be caught out if they do not pay sufficient attention to the quality of the data.
Data quality & list hygiene
The up-to-dateness of your data therefore plays an important role. The eworx Marketing Suite ensures that email addresses that no longer exist with an active account at the provider are labelled as hard bounces. However, you should keep an eye on which recipients have not responded to your campaigns for some time. If no reactivation measures are effective, it is usually better to deactivate the recipient.
Take care of your bounce management and duplicates. The eworx Marketing Suite also offers tools to simplify the cleansing of data. The correct spelling of email addresses must also be observed. The system automatically checks the correct syntax of the email address when you manually create or import a recipient. Obviously invalid e-mail addresses are not even sent. However, misspellings or typing errors can creep in, which you should correct manually, especially if you receive a bounce message when sending this e-mail.
Relevant content and the right words
You can see whether you are using terms in your newsletter that cause spam filters to sound the alarm with the automatic anti-spam check before sending. However, no tool can measure the relevance of the content. If a sender generally has high open rates, this also has an effect on their reputation with the email provider.
The ratio of image to text should also be mentioned in connection with content. It is still very common to see email campaigns that consist of a large image with just a few lines of text. Even if this method seems tempting for many due to the great design possibilities, we must strongly advise against it. There is another reason for this: many email providers do not load the images by default, but only when the recipient actively downloads the images.
Our tip at this point: Keep your newsletters compact instead of embellishing them unnecessarily. It’s not about how much content you include in your newsletters, but what kind. Offer readers the opportunity to easily access detailed information if they are interested by working with teaser texts and using buttons to link to further texts.
Influence of the sending frequency
Too high a sending frequency can cause many recipients to perceive your emails as a nuisance, while for email providers very irregular mailings are sometimes a sign of spammers. Try to find a happy medium. As a rule of thumb: send regularly, but only when you really have something to say.
Use every opportunity to tailor the time of sending to the recipient, e.g. with trigger emails or automated email campaigns that are triggered by an action on the part of the recipient.
Be careful with sender addresses with an .info domain
Unfortunately, some anti-spam tools or email clients rate the delivery quality negatively if emails are sent from a domain ending in .info. It is therefore best to use domains ending with .at, .de or .com for sending.