Email deliverability basics for newsletter creators

If your emails are not reaching the inbox, nothing else you do matters. You could write the best newsletter in your industry, but if it lands in spam or gets quietly dropped by email providers, nobody is going to read it.

Deliverability is the boring bit that makes everything else possible. Here is what you need to know, kept as simple as I can make it.

What we are actually talking about

Email deliverability is the measure of how successfully your emails reach your subscribers' actual inboxes. Not their spam folders, not some void in the internet, but the inbox where they check their mail.

When you send an email, it does not just fly straight to the recipient. It passes through a series of checks by the receiving email provider, things like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo. These providers look at who sent the email, whether the sender is trustworthy, and whether the content looks legitimate. If your email fails those checks, it gets filtered into spam or rejected entirely.

The frustrating part is that you often have no idea this is happening. Your email platform will show the message as 'delivered,' but that just means the receiving server accepted it. It does not mean it reached the inbox. There is a meaningful difference.

Three DNS records you need to set up

There are three records that form the foundation of email deliverability. If these are not configured, you are starting at a disadvantage. They sound technical but they are really not that bad once you understand what each one does.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) tells email providers which servers are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. Think of it as a guest list. When Gmail receives an email claiming to be from your domain, it checks the SPF record to see if the sending server is on the list. If it is not, the email gets treated with suspicion.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to your emails proving they have not been tampered with in transit. It is like a wax seal on a letter. The receiving server checks the signature against a public key in your DNS records, and if it matches, it knows the email is genuine and unaltered.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) ties SPF and DKIM together and tells email providers what to do when an email fails those checks. Should they reject it, quarantine it, or let it through anyway? DMARC gives you control over that decision and sends you reports about who is sending email using your domain.

Setting these up does involve adding records to your domain's DNS settings. But most email platforms, whether it is Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Beehiiv, or anything else, provide step-by-step instructions for their specific service. If you can copy and paste a line of text into your domain settings, you can do this. It typically takes about fifteen minutes.

Why this matters more now than it used to

In 2024, Google and Yahoo both tightened their requirements for bulk email senders. If you send more than 5,000 emails a day, you are now required to have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC properly configured. Even below that threshold, having these records in place makes a real difference to whether you reach the inbox.

This is not optional anymore. If you are running a newsletter without these records set up, you are making life harder for yourself for no good reason.

How you behave as a sender matters too

Getting your DNS records right is the foundation, but deliverability does not stop there. How you actually behave as a sender matters just as much, and in some cases more.

Send to people who want to hear from you. This sounds obvious, but it is the single biggest factor in long-term deliverability. If you are growing your list from scratch, doing it properly from the start protects your sender reputation down the line. When people open your emails, click your links, and reply to your messages, email providers notice. They learn that emails from your domain are wanted, and they route them to the inbox. When people ignore your emails or mark them as spam, providers learn the opposite. It is really that straightforward.

Clean your list regularly. If someone has not opened your emails in three or four months, they are hurting your deliverability by being on your list. Email providers see that you are sending to people who never engage, and they start assuming your other emails might not be wanted either. Remove inactive subscribers, or at minimum move them to a separate segment and send to them less often.

Stick to a consistent sending schedule. Email providers prefer senders who behave predictably. If you send one email a week every Thursday, that pattern builds trust with the algorithms. If you send nothing for two months and then fire off three emails in a day, that looks suspicious (because it is).

Watch your bounce rate. A bounce happens when an email cannot be delivered, usually because the address does not exist or the mailbox is full. A high bounce rate signals to email providers that you are not looking after your list properly. Most email platforms handle hard bounces automatically by removing those addresses, but keep an eye on the numbers.

The spam folder is not just for spam

One thing that catches newsletter creators off guard is that the spam folder is not only for actual spam. Legitimate emails end up there all the time because of technical issues, low engagement, or content that triggers spam filters.

This is also why writing honest subject lines matters for more than just open rates. Words and phrases that sound overly promotional can trigger filters. Excessive use of capital letters, too many links relative to text, and certain formatting choices can all play a part. This does not mean you need to write boring emails, but it does mean being aware that email providers are scanning your content and making judgements about it.

If you find your emails landing in spam, the first things to check are your DNS records, your engagement rates, and your list hygiene. Nine times out of ten, the problem is in one of those areas.

Keeping an eye on things

Most email platforms give you basic deliverability metrics, things like open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaint rates. These are worth tracking over time because they tell you whether things are getting better or worse.

A healthy newsletter typically sees open rates between 30% and 50%, though this varies massively by industry and audience. That said, open rates are not as reliable as they used to be, so look at click rates and replies as well. Spam complaint rates should be well below 0.1%. Bounce rates should be under 2%.

If any of these start trending the wrong way, look into it before the problem compounds. Deliverability issues tend to snowball. A small problem left alone becomes a big one within a few weeks.

The practical version

To keep things super simple, here is what to do. Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your sending domain. Use double opt-in so everyone on your list has actively confirmed they want to be there. Send on a consistent schedule. Remove subscribers who have not engaged in 90 days. Keep your bounce rate below 2% and your spam complaint rate below 0.1%. Check your metrics weekly.

None of this is glamorous. But getting deliverability right means every piece of effort you put into writing good content actually reaches the people it is meant for. And that makes everything else you do with your newsletter considerably more effective.

Cheers