I have been using WP Mail SMTP for several years, with hundreds of websites. Just recently I have discovered that any messages or form submissions from the websites are landing in most peoples spam / junk folder. I believe it has to do with how Gmail, Yahoo, and Aol have recently increased their spam settings.
The Setup:
• WP Mail SMTP plugin using the Google / Gmail mailer.
• A custom created gmail account with oAuth set up properly (no issue or errors when sending).
The Test:
• Test email and form submissions are being delivered properly.
• They land in the spam / junk folder.
What I Have Tried:
• I checked mail-tester(.)com and get a 9.9/10. SPF & DKIM are active.
• I tried switching a site over to FluentSMTP, where I selected “Other SMTP” for the connection provider. I then used a new domain on our server, with a new email user (10/10 mail-tester score with SPF & DKIM), and this is also being sent properly but delivering to the spam / junk folder.
Research:
• Reaching out to WP Mail SMTP was a bust, they just reminded me that the deliverability has nothing to do with them and suggested I reach out to Google (which is impossible from my understanding).
• I read on Twillo SendGrid Docs that using a system like SendGrid would work but only once I have authenticated with CNAME records.
• Here is what they say:
“When sending email via a service provider such as SendGrid, you will be asked to authenticate a domain or verify a Single Sender. However, what happens if you verify a Sender Identity using a gmail.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, or a similar address? In other words, what happens if your Envelope From address is [email protected]?
As you can guess, major mail providers such as Google, Microsoft, and others implement DMARC to protect their customers and prevent abuse. Let’s use Yahoo and the email address [email protected], as an example.
Yahoo has SPF, DKIM, and DMARC policies. Yahoo’s DNS records will approve domains such as yahoo.com and the IP addresses Yahoo controls. SendGrid domains and IP addresses will not be included in Yahoo’s approved domains and IP addresses.
When you send a message from [email protected] to [email protected] using SendGrid, a Gmail server will receive the message. Gmail will then look up Yahoo’s SPF and DKIM records because yahoo.com is the domain in the return-path message header.
The Gmail receiving server will determine that the message was sent using a SendGrid IP address and was not signed by a Yahoo private key. Both SPF and DKIM will fail, causing Gmail to employ the DMARC failure policy specified by Yahoo.
Essentially, Gmail, or any other receiving email server, has no way of knowing whether you are using SendGrid to send email for legitimate purposes or spoofing Yahoo’s domain.
This is why SendGrid recommends authenticating a domain that you do control. The SendGrid domain authentication process provides CNAME records that you place on your own domain to approve SendGrid’s IP addresses. SendGrid will automatically manage your SPF and DKIM records, protecting your domain’s reputation.”
Questions:
• Will I need to begin setting up accounts with email services, such as SendGrid, and have them CNAME verified with each domain in order for SMTP mailers to deliver the messages not as spam?
• Are the non email service mailer options within these SMTP plugins now defunct (Google & Other SMTP)?
• I have over 300 websites this is likely effecting. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions to remedy this?
I send using the domain and a Smtp.com account. I add all the recommended dns, spf, dmarc, and dkim. So far, it works great for the hundreds of sites that use it.
Will you have to configure each domain to verify it with your bulk email provider? yes
Do you have to configure each domain’s DKIM and SPF records? Yes
Who’s to blame for this? Spam creeps.