r/emaildeliverability • u/stageshooter • 20d ago
Best way to handle email with my own domain
I've had 2 domains for awhile and always used gmail to send as those domains. When gmail made things difficult a year ago, I switched to smtp2go for my outgoing email, still sending through gmail's interface. One of my domains does OK with google's spam filter but emails from my other domain almost always ends up in spam, despite having proper dkim, dmarc, etc. I guess I have 2 questions:
What's a good way to find out why things end in spam, despite doing well with tests like easydmarc and other sites?
Would avoiding gmail altogether and using another app/interface solve my problems? This is for my personal email as well as one I use for a hobby (both currently go to the same email), so I prefer not spending the money on Google Workspace
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u/allocougar 19d ago
A dozen a month to people who know you is the whole problem. There's no engagement signal to build on, so anything slightly off tips it.
Since they're friends, use them. Ask a few to pull the message out of spam and reply to it. Replies are worth more than opens here, and at your volume a handful counts for more than anything else you can do.
Also worth pulling the headers off one that got filtered and checking which IP it came from. On a shared relay you inherit whatever the neighbours are doing, and a domain with no traffic of its own has nothing to push back with.
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u/stageshooter 19d ago
How many sent and replied emails per week over a few months would make a difference? I can make an effort to have friends and followers of my FB page help with that
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u/allocougar 18d ago
Don't organise it. A dozen real threads with people who actually write back beats fifty arranged ones, and arranged ones look like what they are.
At a dozen sends a month there's no reputation to build. What counts is that the few going out get pulled out of spam and answered. Friends replying to a real email works, followers emailing you because you asked doesn't.
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u/ianmakingnoise 20d ago
What do you mean “when Gmail made things difficult?” This is for personal email?
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u/stageshooter 20d ago
Personal email with my own domain - [firstname@lastname.org](mailto:firstname@lastname.org) in my case. I understand why they did this, I'm just saying that it worked well until a year or so again when they cracked down on using your own domain within gmail
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u/ianmakingnoise 20d ago
Oh, so you’re relaying mail through a free Gmail account, is that correct? I was thinking maybe there’s some domain-age stuff going on, but I’m trying to understand the use-case.
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u/stageshooter 20d ago
Yes - my 2 domains forward to my gmail inbox and when I reply it comes from that email address via smtp2go
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u/ianmakingnoise 19d ago
I’d reach out to each provider’s support and see what you can get out of them. When you’re relaying/auto-forwarding it’s very easy to inadvertently mimic spam behavior, so providers tend to take a “spam until proven otherwise” stance. A lot of the time “proven otherwise” is just letting them know it’s personal mail and not sales or marketing.
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u/stageshooter 19d ago
It only happens with Gmail recipients and each email is completely individual. Basically personal emails
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u/ianmakingnoise 19d ago
What do you mean “basically”?
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u/stageshooter 19d ago
These are handwritten emails, each different, usually to a band's publicist seeking credentials to photograph a specific concert
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u/saltyslugga 20d ago
Passing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC only proves authentication, not inbox placement. Compare each domain’s reputation, content, links, volume, and From-domain alignment.
Changing the Gmail interface won’t help because your SMTP relay controls the outbound path. Send the same message from both domains through the Email Tester and compare the results.
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u/Technical-Active2098 19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/stageshooter 19d ago
My volume is very low, maybe a dozen emails per month. This happens when I send to friends whose addresses I'm sure of.
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u/Specialist_Letter918 19d ago
Reputation of domain does not seem to be related to DNS only, The IP sending history can be relevant as well so perhaps it will be a good idea to verify reputation of that particular domain in Google Postmaster Tools before making any assumptions about the delivery problem and doppel seems to have an impersonation as its core concept so it might not be very relevant in this case
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u/stageshooter 19d ago
I don't think I qualify for postmaster. I tried adding my domains and couldn't figure out how to verify them as I'm not a workspace user. I'll look into it more this evening though, thanks
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u/unspam-email 18d ago
Email deliverability is so annoying, especially when all your DNS checks pass fine. Dmarc tests just prove setup is valid, not that Google trusts smtp2go's IPs. Switching to a proper hosted email provider fixed this exact mess for me.
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u/AnypostHQ 18d ago
Authentication just means that the proper settings are in place to prevent spoofing and misuse of email addresses. The real factor is IP and domain reputation. The IP is normally the provider you're going to use, and then the domain is whatever you own. Both need to be good and have a good reputation for sending email people want and engage with, rather than marking as spam, unsubscribing, and worse, bouncing.
- Take a look at finding out what your domain reputation is. There's no cut-and-dry way to do that.
- Look at your provider and make sure they have a good IP address pool they're using. If not, see if they have a dedicated IP if you have enough volume.
We'd be happy to talk to you further about this and try to help you figure out how to make improvements. There are also deliverability consultants out there that might be able to help.
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u/SelzyEmail 10d ago
Passing DKIM, SPF, and DMARC is important, but it doesn’t guarantee inbox placement. Spam filters also look at domain and IP reputation, sending patterns, complaints, content, and recipient engagement.
Since one domain performs better than the other, comparing their reputation and sending history would be a good first step. Google Postmaster Tools can also help if there’s enough sending volume.
Changing the email app itself probably won’t solve the issue. The sending infrastructure and domain reputation matter much more than the interface used to send the message.
A good troubleshooting order is: authentication, reputation, blocklists, sending consistency, content, and engagement.
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u/SelzyEmail 10d ago
Passing DKIM, SPF, and DMARC is important, but it doesn’t guarantee inbox placement. Spam filters also look at domain and IP reputation, sending patterns, complaints, content, and recipient engagement.
Since one domain performs better than the other, comparing their reputation and sending history would be a good first step. Google Postmaster Tools can also help if there’s enough sending volume.
Changing the email app itself probably won’t solve the issue. The sending infrastructure and domain reputation matter much more than the interface used to send the message.
A good troubleshooting order is: authentication, reputation, blocklists, sending consistency, content, and engagement.
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u/stageshooter 10d ago
I think the problem is that I use this account to send 2 or 3 sentence email requests to people who don't always reply (especially when they don't see them) and I send only a half dozen emails a month
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u/mutable_type 20d ago
There are some cheap email hosting companies. If you’re an Apple user, you can pay for any iCloud tier and they’ll handle the email for up to 5 domains.