Does this affect me?
If you have a personal email address ending in something like @gmail, @hotmail, @yahoo, etc… this won’t affect you.
What do I need to do?
Step 1 - Create your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records
Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records might sound technical, but it’s quite easy and the email platform you’re using will give you the information you need. Here’s what you need to do it in simple steps:
1. Get Code From Your Provider: Your email service (like Zoho, Gmail, Outlook, etc…) will give you the code you needed to create these records. Start by searching online for “SPF,” “DKIM,” and “DMARC” along with the name of your email service. If you can’t find the information, don’t hesitate to ask their support team for help.
2. Access Your Domain Settings: You’ll need to go to the “control panel” of your domain provider, then locate the “DNS Settings”. However, if your website is using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) then you will need to change your DNS settings there instead.
3. Add a New SPF Record: Before you add a new SPF record, check if you already have one. If there’s one, you’ll see it starting “v=spf1”. If you don’t see this then go ahead and create a new record and set the “Type” as “TXT”, then past in the SPF code you got from your email provider. In the “Host” field enter “@” and in the TTL field the lowest possible value or leave blank if allowed.
If you do find an SPF record then you will notice somewhere in it “include: domain@domain.com”, you just need to add another include statement straight after it, no special characters or comas are required, just edit the record and paste in the include text provided by your email provider.
4. Add a new DKIM Record: Next, add another TXT record and paste in the DKIM code you got from your email provider. In this case you are allowed to have multiple records. In the “Host” field enter “@” and in the TTL field the lowest possible value or leave blank if allowed.
5. Add a DMARC Record: Before you add this record, check if you already have one. If there’s one, you’ll see it starting “v=DMARC1;”. If you don’t have a DMARC record yet, go ahead and create a new TXT record with the DMARC details provided by your email service. Only one DMARC record is allowed because it’s just your policy on how your emails should be handled.
Step 2 - Register for Google Postmaster Tools
By registering for Google Postmaster Tools you’ll learn what your current spam score is and you’ll be able to keep track of it. It’s important to keep that below 0.3% or your emails will start getting automatically sent to the recipients spam folder.
Your spam score goes up if the people receiving your emails are marking them as spam. To reduce this, you can make sure your emails are relevant and of value to your audience. You can also remove inactive users from your mailing list, so only the most engaged users are getting your mail.
Step 3 - Include 1 click unsubscribe
Make sure any email campaign platforms you’re using include a 1 click unsubscribe link in the email footer. If the link takes the recipient to a page where they can choose which topics the do and don’t want to receive you will fail the test. They just need to be able to click once to be removed from your list.
The good news here is that most reputable email marketing platforms will already have this in place by default but if you’re not sure, check it out.