Email deliverability guide

Email deliverability determines whether your emails land in the inbox or get filtered to spam. This guide covers everything you need to maximize your delivery rates in HoopAI.

What affects deliverability

Factor	Impact	Your control
Authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC)	High	Full — configure DNS records
Sender reputation	High	Moderate — built over time
Content quality	High	Full — write good emails
List hygiene	High	Full — clean regularly
Bounce rate	High	Moderate — remove bad addresses
Spam complaints	Critical	Moderate — send relevant content
Domain age	Moderate	Low — new domains need warm-up
Sending volume consistency	Moderate	Full — avoid spikes

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup

These three DNS records authenticate your emails and prove to receiving servers that you are a legitimate sender.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

SPF tells email servers which IP addresses are allowed to send email from your domain.

Get your SPF record

Go to Settings → Email Services → Dedicated Domain and copy the SPF record provided.

Add to DNS

Add a TXT record to your domain’s DNS with the provided SPF value. If you already have an SPF record, merge the HoopAI include into your existing record.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

DKIM adds a digital signature to every email, proving the message was not altered in transit.

Get your DKIM records

In Settings → Email Services → Dedicated Domain, copy the DKIM CNAME records.

Add to DNS

Create the CNAME records in your domain’s DNS as specified.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication)

DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.

Create a DMARC record

Add a TXT record for _dmarc.yourdomain.com with a policy. Start with monitoring mode:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com

Gradually tighten policy

After monitoring for 2–4 weeks and confirming legitimate emails pass, move to p=quarantine and eventually p=reject.

Do not set DMARC to p=reject until you have confirmed all legitimate email sources pass SPF and DKIM. A premature reject policy will block your own emails.

Domain warm-up process

New sending domains have no reputation. Sending high volume immediately will trigger spam filters.

Week	Daily volume	Notes
1	20–50	Send to your most engaged contacts only
2	50–100	Continue with engaged contacts
3	100–250	Expand to broader segments
4	250–500	Monitor bounce and complaint rates
5	500–1,000	Scale if metrics are healthy
6+	1,000+	Gradually increase to full volume

During warm-up, send to contacts who are most likely to open and click — this builds positive engagement signals with ISPs.

Sender reputation

Your sender reputation is a score that ISPs assign to your domain and IP based on sending behavior.

Building good reputation

Send consistently (not in bursts)
Maintain low bounce rates (under 2%)
Keep spam complaints under 0.1%
Get high open and click rates
Remove inactive contacts regularly

Checking reputation

Google Postmaster Tools — free tool to monitor your domain’s reputation with Gmail
Microsoft SNDS — similar tool for Outlook/Hotmail
MXToolbox — check blacklists and DNS configuration

Bounce management

Bounce type	Meaning	Action
Hard bounce	Email address does not exist	Automatically removed from future sends
Soft bounce	Temporary issue (inbox full, server down)	Retried automatically. After 3 consecutive soft bounces, treated as hard
Block bounce	Receiving server blocked your email	Review content and authentication

HoopAI automatically handles bounces — hard-bounced addresses are suppressed. You can view bounced contacts in Marketing → Email → Suppression List.

List hygiene

Remove inactive contacts

Contacts who have not opened an email in 90+ days hurt your engagement metrics. Create a re-engagement campaign, and remove those who do not respond.

Verify email addresses

Use a third-party email verification service before importing large lists. This catches typos, disposable addresses, and invalid domains.

Honor unsubscribes immediately

HoopAI handles this automatically, but make sure your unsubscribe links work and are visible.

Remove role-based addresses

Addresses like info@, admin@, support@ have higher complaint rates. Remove them from marketing lists.

Spam triggers to avoid

ALL CAPS subject lines
Excessive exclamation marks or special characters
Spam keywords: “free,” “act now,” “limited time,” “click here”
Image-only emails with no text
Shortened URLs (bit.ly, tinyurl)
Missing unsubscribe link
Misleading subject lines
Large attachments

Monitoring with Google Postmaster

Set up Google Postmaster Tools

Go to Google Postmaster Tools and verify your sending domain.

Monitor key metrics

Check regularly for:

Spam rate — keep under 0.1% (must stay under 0.3% per Google requirements)
Domain reputation — should be “Medium” or “High”
Authentication — SPF, DKIM, DMARC pass rates should be 95%+

Troubleshooting low open rates

Emails going to spam

Check SPF/DKIM/DMARC configuration, review email content for spam triggers, check domain reputation in Google Postmaster Tools, and verify you are sending to opted-in contacts.

Low engagement across the board

Clean your list — remove contacts who have not engaged in 90+ days. Improve subject lines. Send at optimal times. Segment your audience.

High bounce rate

Verify your email list before importing. Remove hard-bounced addresses (automatic). Check for typos in email addresses.

Emails not being delivered at all

Verify your dedicated domain is properly configured in Settings. Check that your wallet has sufficient balance. Review the email logs for specific error codes.

Email Marketing

Email Campaigns