Email guide
Why your business emails go to junk, and how to fix it
If customers keep finding your quotes and invoices in their junk folder, it usually isn't what you wrote. It's three settings on your domain that most people have never heard of.
The three settings that matter
When your email arrives, Gmail, Outlook and the rest check whether it really came from you. They do that by reading three records in your domain's DNS settings:
- SPF is a list of the services allowed to send email as your domain, such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, your website or your invoicing software. If a service that sends your email isn't on the list, your emails look forged.
- DKIM is a digital signature added to each email, proving it wasn't changed on the way. Your email provider gives you the record to add.
- DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with email that fails those checks, and can send you reports. Gmail and Yahoo now expect bulk senders to have it, and it helps everyone else too.
The mistakes we see most
- A service missing from SPF. You moved to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, or started sending invoices from an app, and nobody updated SPF. We found exactly this gap on our own domain in September 2026: Google wasn't in our SPF record. It took two minutes to fix.
- Two SPF records. A domain must have only one. Two means both are treated as broken.
- Too many lookups. SPF allows a maximum of 10 DNS lookups. Keep adding services and it can quietly go over the limit and fail.
- No DKIM. Many providers need you to switch it on and add the record yourself.
- A brand-new domain. Even with perfect settings, a domain a few weeks old has no reputation yet. Send small volumes to people likely to reply, and build up slowly.
How to check yours in ten seconds
Our free email check reads your domain's public settings (MX, SPF including nested includes, DKIM and DMARC) and tells you in plain English what's missing. No sign-up.
How to fix it
- List everything that sends email as your domain: your mailbox provider, website contact form, invoicing, booking and newsletter tools.
- Make sure each one is included in a single SPF record.
- Switch on DKIM in each service and add the DNS records it gives you.
- Add a DMARC record, starting with
p=noneso you can see reports without blocking anything, then tighten it later. - Send a test to a Gmail and an Outlook address and check it lands in the inbox.
Rather we just sorted it?
We can set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC properly for you, and we'll check every service that sends your email. Tell us your domain · Call 07495 384 583
Something broken, slow or worrying you?
Tell us what's happening in your own words. You'll hear back from the person who'll actually fix it.