Email Troubleshooting for Users

Is your mail sliding into the spam folder? Has your reputation slipped to "low" in Google Postmaster Tools? Does Microsoft SNDS think you stink like a kid who just came in from recess? Well, I have good news and bad news. 🟢 Good first: Most major mailbox providers (MBPs) provide methods of contacting them! Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo, Comcast, Apple (and more!) all offer sender support forms or publish postmaster email addresses so that you can reach out directly when you're encountering an issue delivering mail to their users. 🔴 Now for the bad: These MBPs receive a ton of submissions, most of them from spammers. They already have information on your traffic, which is why you're blocked or bulked in the first place. They're not going to just fix whatever problem you're having because you asked nicely. They're definitely not going to fix it if you're being rude. They don't care about your business model, or your bottom line, or your legal requirements. What they care most about is their own customers. And if you're sending to the right people, then those people are also *your* customers, and you should care about them, too! So, even though it's an option to ask the MBP for help, it's probably not the first (or best) one, because all the evidence they have available so far indicates that your mail is potentially dangerous, and maybe you are too. Your job now is to demonstrate that they got it wrong, ideally using your actions and not just words. Before submitting that sender contact form, review the MBP's guidelines and your own practices. After all, their playground, their rules! Each MBP has its own quirks, but the basics tend to be the same. If you're not sure where to start, it's here! 🛝 Rule 1: Keep spam complaints as low as possible. The best way to do that? Get permission, always. Maintain a healthy list by removing bounces and sending to your most-engaged subscribers. Make it easy to unsubscribe, and honor unsubscribe requests when you get them. 🛝 Rule 2: Authenticate your mail. Use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC so you earn the deliverability you deserve (and don't forget to actually review your DMARC reports!). Authentication doesn't guarantee inbox placement, but you'll be left in the dust without it. 🛝 Rule 3: Be predictably yourself. MBPs and subscribers both reward consistency, and results tend to be stronger when everyone knows what to expect, when. Send similar volumes at similar times on similar days, ensuring increases are gradual to give the filters (and the audience) time to adjust. If you're ramping up and see increased delays, blocks, or complaints, or lower opens than expected, slow down and reassess. It's possible that the segment is no longer viable, or requires a different approach. If these bases are covered, THEN you can reach out. Include your name, your company, your domain & IP, the specific outcome you're having (including the bounce reason, if applicable), and what you've done to improve. And be nice!

Last week a entrepreneur reached out and said his emails “stopped working.” Open rates dropped. Clicks were down. Messages were landing in Promotions… sometimes Spam. Someone had already told him, “Your strategy might be off.” So he came to me expecting we’d talk messaging. Or subject lines. Or a new angle. We didn’t. Because when performance drops suddenly, I always check trust before tweaking words. His email authentication was the issue. His SPF record was invalid. Not “could be better.” Not “needs optimization.” Broken. Which meant every email he’d sent for months was quietly hurting trust with inbox providers. No copy issue. No content problem. No sudden algorithm shift. Just a technical leak in the foundation. From the sender’s side, nothing looked urgent. Emails were still sending. There was no obvious alarm. From the inbox side, trust was being downgraded a little more with every send. That’s why these problems are so hard to catch. They don’t announce themselves. They show up as performance issues. And people assume the fix is creative. Before rewriting another email, or testing another subject line, it’s worth asking: What if the thing you keep rewriting… isn’t the problem at all? Some problems don’t need better ideas. They need the foundation checked.

So say, you’re sending emails to a list weekly. You know the content is delicious because the open rates are very healthy, about 20% above the industry norm. Then, overnight, the open rates TANK. Free fall. Off a cliff. 📉🚽 The content is still aces. You know because it performs quite well on other platforms. ❓ What would you do to troubleshoot? I saw this question 👆 on Threads yesterday. Here was my answer: First check authentication: (use mxtoolbox(.)com) - SPF - DKIM - DMARC Second, make sure the DMARC record has the right policy. Should be p=none for the most part. Third, check google postmaster tools. Look at spam complaints, domain reputation, IP reputation, and authentication. If everything looks good there... Fourth, check blacklists (use mxtoolbox(.)com again) Fifth, use a tool like GlockApps to test inbox placement. Can help you see if it's a domain issue or mailbox provider issue. Sixth, review new opt ins. How is the list being built? Organically? Paid ads? Recommendation engines like SparkLoop? Scraped? Seventh, review engagement. Is there a segment of the list who is unengaged, yet still receiving the content. Then because of their unengagement, damaged the domain reputation, which is now causing inboxing issues. There is more you can do, but most of time, the issue will present itself at one of those steps. What do you think... did I miss anything? #marketing #emailmarketing #emailmarketingstrategy

“Bob, my email stopped working on both my laptop and my phone!” When I got this Tech Support call earlier this week, for a moment I was puzzled. Then I realized it had to be a server-side problem. I called the client and got more details. It’s a company email account, but this small business client chooses to manage all email through Gmail (that may seem odd to you, but if you work with small business clients you’ll discover it’s not uncommon). The last email they received on either device was on April 18, and I was talking to them on April 24. The problem is that Google has a default 15 GB storage limit. It’s shared across Google Drive, Google Photos, and Gmail. When my client hit the storage limit, they stopped receiving new email on both devices. Over 10 GB of their storage was being used for Gmail. I connected remotely to their laptop. I showed them how to search for emails to get all the emails from a particular address, and then bulk delete them. After doing a few of these we had cleared up more than a gigabyte of storage. I sent a test email, and it was received immediately. Other emails started coming in, too. The problem is solved in the short term. Now it’s up the client to take my recommendation and do the following: 1) Unsubscribe from some unused email lists, and 2) Continue deleting more emails that don’t need to be saved. I invoiced the client for a half-hour tech support call, and now they have the skills they need so they don’t have to call me to assist with the same problem again. The client remains in complete control of what they save and what they delete. “But Bob, what if they really need to keep so many emails that they exceed the storage limit?” There are two options: 1) Email can be exported with Google Takeout, or 2) They can switch to a different email program. #callmeifyouneedme #fifonetworks #informationsecurity #email #storage

You hit send, but your email vanishes into thin air. No reply. No bounce notification. Just silence. What if I told you this is a common trap many fall into? Your email could be undeliverable, and if you're ignoring this, you're letting valuable leads slip away. Here’s the scoop on why your emails might not land: 1. Typos and Fake Emails: A simple error can send your message into the void. 2. Full Mailboxes: If the recipient's inbox is packed, they won't see your email. 3. Spam Filters: Certain words and multiple links can trigger these filters. 4. Blocked Domains: Too many "spam" reports can get your domain blacklisted. 5. Attachment Overload: Large files can cause issues - opt for cloud storage instead. Now, how can you fix this and boost deliverability? → Verify your email list often. → Monitor your bounce rates closely. → Authenticate your emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. → Test before you send - use inbox placement tools to ensure success. If your emails aren’t reaching inboxes, they’re essentially worthless. Once you improve your deliverability, expect heightened engagement and increased revenue. Ever faced the frustration of undeliverable emails? Share your experience in the comments.

Your inbox performance can fall off a cliff in 48 hours and your ESP dashboard has no clue what went wrong?! That’s the part that messes with marketers the most. I’ve seen teams spend days rewriting subject lines, swapping templates, blaming creative… When the real issue was something boring and invisible. A DNS change. A broken DKIM record. An unsubscribe flow that quietly pushed people to hit “Report spam.” Deliverability drops don’t usually announce themselves. They whisper. The slides below are the exact 48-hour triage order I use before touching copy: 1. Check authentication alignment (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) 2. Look at mailbox breakdowns (Gmail vs Outlook clues) 3. Audit unsubscribe friction (complaints rise fast) 4. Run an inbox placement test before your next big send 5. Freeze volume spikes until you know what changed This is the rule: Fix trust signals first. Then fix content. Want the printable 1-page checklist? Comment TRIAGE and I’ll send it over. Quick question: when performance drops, what do you check first, copy… or infrastructure? #email #emailmarketing