Why emails land in spam

Nobody at Gmail decides you are spam. A machine does, from your sending record. This page lists what that record is made of and what we do to protect it.

#1. Warm-up

A brand-new sending domain has no history. A new name that sends 40,000 emails on day one looks like a spammer, because that is what spammers do. So a new domain has to earn its volume.

Warm-up starts by itself the day your domain verifies. You can see it under Reputation → Domains & warmup: the Warmup column shows Day 12 of 42, Finished, Paused or Not started, and Daily limit shows today's cap.

• The limit starts at 50 emails a day.
• Each clean day raises it by about 16 percent. A day with a problem holds it and adds a day at the end. It never goes backwards.
• Rough guide: about 150 a day on day 8, 400 on day 15, 1,200 on day 22, 3,600 on day 29 and 10,000 on day 36.
• At about day 42 the limit reaches 25,000 a day and then comes off. After that only your complaint and bounce rates limit you.
• Mail over today's limit waits and goes out tomorrow. It is not lost.

The chart headed The warmup marks each bar as raised, held, today or planned. The card A day counts as clean when shows the rule. In short: complaints under 0.10% and dead addresses under 1.00%.

#Who gets your email during warm-up

We start with your most engaged people:

• Days 1 to 14: Active people only.
• Days 15 to 28: Active and Lapsing.
• From day 29: Active, Lapsing and Dormant.
• Quiet people are never mailed.

Anyone who waits is deferred, not dropped. Your first campaign goes to the engaged people now and to the rest later.

#2. Consent

You cannot buy your way out of this. Someone who ticked a box or typed their address on your site expects mail from you. Someone on a bought list does not, and will report you as spam. That is why imports hold people back until the file shows proof. See "Import contacts and consent".

#3. Complaints and bounces

A complaint is someone pressing "report spam". Gmail asks senders to stay under 0.10%. Its cliff is about 0.30%. We act before you get there:

• 0.10% complaints, or 1.0% dead addresses: we slow you down.
• 0.20% complaints, or 2.0% dead addresses: we stop your marketing. Receipts keep going.

We only judge once enough mail has gone out, so a handful of sends never triggers it. The Health tab of Reputation draws these lines on Complaints, day by day. The table By inbox provider shows Standing for each provider: Good, Slowed, Stopped or Too few to judge.

#4. List hygiene

Every list ages. People change jobs and close accounts.

• A dead address is removed the first time and never retried.
• A temporary bounce is retried for up to two days. The person stays.
• Someone with no opens, clicks or orders for 12 months is held back from marketing. Under Held back, the panel Recommended to stop shows who is next, 30 days ahead, and lets you keep anyone.
• Spam traps are old addresses that providers reuse to catch senders who never clean. You cannot see them. The only defence is not mailing people who ignore you.

A smaller list that engages beats a big one that does not.

#5. Three DNS records

• SPF lists the servers allowed to send for your domain.
• DKIM is a signature on every message. The matching public key sits in your DNS.
• DMARC says what receivers should do with mail that fails the other two. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft require it of bulk senders.

We publish and maintain all three. See "Set up your sending domain".

#If it didn't work

• Everything goes to spam and you just started. Check that your domain is verified. Unsigned mail from an unknown name goes to spam.
• Mail seems unsigned and you use Cloudflare. Every email record must be DNS only, the grey cloud.
• Standing says Slowed or Stopped. Stop big campaigns. Send only to people who opened or clicked recently, for a few weeks.
• The warm-up keeps holding. The card lists each hold with its reason. Mail a smaller, better group.
• You hit your daily limit. That is the warm-up working. Do not ask to lift it.
• Open rates look odd. Apple pre-loads images, which counts as an open nobody made. Clicks are the honest number.