FAQ: Problem with Email Communications (Spam, Bad Email, Not Receiving)

FAQ: Why Are My Newsletters/Email Communications Sent From NonProfitEasy Going to Spam or Not Being Received or Why Are Some Emails I Know Are Good Marked as Bad in the CRM?

The short answer is - spam filtering. Watch our webinar recording and check out the tutorial below for a more in-depth explanation.

Part 1: How do we know it's not a technical glitch with the CRM?
1. Some of your contacts are receiving your emails (you have reports of people getting the email but it's in the spam folder) (so you know your emails are going out)
2. NonProfitEasy shows a sent communication in the contact(s)'s engagement history
3. For good emails marked as bad: contacts were getting your emails and then their email address changed to a bad email (so it's not a bad email from the get-go/it's not the CRM having an issue with the email)
4. We can see in SendGrid (the bulk email provider we use) that your emails went out)
5. We can see in the communication history that some emails were marked as spam or bounced (that would only happen if the emails actually went out)

So the emails are going out. There is no issue with the CRM sending the emails.

Part 2: Why are some people not getting the emails then?

1. Spam filters are set at two levels: the individual user level (covered in Part 3 of this tutorial below) and the domain/email provider level (covered here in Part 2 of this tutorial)
2. Domains preemptively filter for spam based on emails sent from known spammer IP addresses, known spammer domain addresses, and keywords that they deem to be related to spam. These emails are blocked from being received by the recipient and the recipient never even sees them.
3. There are several causes and remedies:
   • The Recipient Domain is Blocking on IP Address - an IP address is like a computer’s mailing address. It tells receiving providers/servers where an email is coming from physically. IP addresses in geographic locations where a lot of spam generates (such as Russia and Micronesia) are scrutinized more closely and, in some cases, wholesale blocked. In addition, spammers may use many different sender accounts and email addresses to make it look like the emails are coming from different places, but the IP address will show that these emails all originated from the same source, which can then be blocked to shut down a spammer who is “spoofing” or faking their sender email address.

     All emails sent from the CRM share the same IP address because they are sent from our server—which is shared by all our clients. In some cases, recipient domain providers have flagged our IP address because there are so many different sender names/sender domains all coming from the same IP address. We have had our IP address whitelisted with the major domain providers, but our IP address may still on occasion get flagged if there is anomalous behavior (a high volume of emails being sent or if there are spam complaints by recipients). An additional step that clients can take to ensure they do not get blocked on IP Address is to purchase a dedicated IP address from us. Your emails will still be sent from the CRM, but they will be sent from an IP address dedicated exclusively to you/your sender domain. This means that there will be less likelihood of your emails getting flagged for a suspicious IP address. A dedicated IP address costs a one-time set up fee of $99 plus an ongoing fee of $30 per month; to purchase one a dedicated IP address, contact us at support@fundly.com.

   • The Recipient Domain is Blocking on Sender Domain - While your emails are sent from he CRM, they come from you/your email address/your domain (we use SendGrid as our bulk email gateway/provider. We set up, within our SendGrid account, sub-accounts—one for each client. The emails you send from the CRM come from your SendGrid sub-account, so even though you are sending from NPE, the emails come from your email address). Your domain can be flagged as suspicious (and emails sent from it blocked) for numerous reasons such as too many spam complaints by recipients, sending too many emails from a non-bulk email account/provider, suspicious website, non-authenticated domain/it appears someone is sending emails from a different email address/domain and just pretending they are coming from your domain, etc.

     Recipient domains tend to block bulk emails that come from a free email account/domain (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.). It is recommended that you always list your from/sender email as an email tied to a hosted/paid domain account, but for those clients that don't have such an account, we automatically mask free domains (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) by temporarily changing the sender address of your bulk communications to show our domain (fundly.com) instead so that your emails will make it through domain level filtering.

     It is also best practice for every organization to contact the major email providers (AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) and get their domain whitelisted (or ask your recipients to contact their email/domain providers and have them whitelist communications coming from you). This is true whether you send emails from within the CRM or not. We also recommend that organizations routinely check www.mxtoolbox.com to ensure that their domain has not been blacklisted/to ensure the quality of their internet reputation and to resolve any marks against it.

     An additional step that users can take to ensure emails sent from the CRM make it through domain-level spam filtering is to undergo SendGrid’s “domain authentication” process. This is a process whereby SendGrid authenticates/verifies that your domain is a real domain (and not just a front for a spammer). The domain authentication process is a multi-step process that involves coordination between NPE Support staff, who must initiate and complete the process in the SendGrid sub-account (within our overall CRM account) for your organization, and your IT staff (whoever manages your website/email domain) who must complete some steps in the middle within a short time frame (the process involves clicking/adding links that are only good for a limited time). While the process is not difficult, it requires your IT person to know how to add CNAME records to your DNS record. However, it’s a one-time process that will help to prevent your emails from being flagged at the domain level. For those clients who do not have a dedicated web/IT manager who can do this, we can do it for you for a one-time $100 fee. More information can be found on the process for completing the domain authentication process can be found in this tutorial on setting up Domain Authentication and by contacting Fundly support.

4. You can also be flagged as a spammer at the domain level if you are sending bulk emails from a non-bulk email provider. Regular email gateways (your domain provider, gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.) send emails instantly, with no delay or "throttling" (sending in batches with a wait between batches). This allows someone (a spammer) to send hundreds or thousands of emails to the same domain or email address, flooding the recipient domain's server and crashing it (this is one form of what is known as a DNS attack). As such, domain providers have cracked down on allowing users to send bulk email from non-bulk email providers (such as SendGrid, MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc.). Bulk email senders use "throttling" - a few of the emails are sent in a batch, with a wait between batches. This prevents users from flooding recipient domain servers and crashing them. (Please Note: NonProfitEasy "send email" function is NOT a bulk email tool and you should NOT use it to send email to more than a few contacts on one email. Instead, use our newsletter or letters function).
5. You can also be blocked if your internet reputation is too low. How frequently you send emails and your open & click rates of emails can affect your internet score. It's import to prune non-openers from your recipient list and, additionally, due to changes in AppleMail where emails are marked as open/read even if they aren't opened, you should focus on "click rate"/engagement as a metric and build in to your communications opportunities for recipients to click a link. A higher click rate will result in a better internet reputation and higher deliverability rate of emails. This article has more tips and suggestions for managing internet reputation and increasing your deliverability: https://www.omnisend.com/blog/email-deliverability/
6. Please know that NPE has NO control over what happens once the emails leave us. If another domain provider has marked you as a spammer and is blocking your emails at the domain level, that is not something we can control and it's not in the realm of support we provide. That is between your internet provider and the recipient's provider and you have to work with your IT people/your domain and their domain company to resolve the issue.

Part 3: Why do some of my emails go to recipients' spam folders?

1. Could be the same reason as Part 2
2. OR it could be that individual users can mark email addresses or certain topics as spam; emails from these addresses or containing the filtered keywords will be diverted directly to the user’s spam folder (in their email system).
3. In this case, the recipient needs to adjust their spam filters and/or add your email address (that you are sending your newsletters/e-communications from) to their “white list.”
4. Here are some more tips from ninjaforms.com for adding the spam folder (read the entire article):
   • DON’T SHOUT IN ALL CAPS IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE!
   • D o n t   p u t  g a p s  b e t w e e n  l e t t e r s  a n y w h e r e !
   • One exclamation marks works fine, don’t go crazy!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!
   • Stay away from words and phrases that sound gimmicky: Buy Now, Click Here, Free, As Seen On, Double Your X, Money Making, Get Paid, Make Cash, Pre-Approved, Satisfaction Guaranteed, Low Price, Save Big, etc.
   • Encourage subscribers to whitelist/add you as a contact, and personalize your ‘To’ field with the recipient’s name.
   • Be sure your ‘From’ name is relevant to your business/site to prevent confusion.
   • Keep images minimal. Having more space in the body of an email taken up by images than by text raises lots of red flags. Aim for a high text to image area ratio.
   • Be very careful about the quality and quantity of links in the content. Keep the number of links minimized and don’t use url shorteners.
   • Give a clear and obvious opt-out feature from future emails and follow through promptly.
   • Reach out to inactive subscribers and keep your contact lists whittled down to those who want to hear from you. This can reduce the likelihood that folks that have lost interest will just mark you as spam to
   • Here is a tool you can use to check your emails/newsletters prior to sending:  https://www.mail-tester.com/  It will give you a score that will determine the quality of the newsletter and the likelihood that it will end up in spam

Part 4: Why are some emails in my system marked as bad emails when I know they are good
1. If the contact was previously receiving your emails (good address) (and has communications in their engagement history) and then becomes bad, then something happened between the last good communication and the last bad communication on the recipient's end
2. What happened/why did it get marked as a bad email? We don't know.
3. Check the last communication sent; did the email bounce? If so, that is the reason it's marked bad.
4. Why did it bounce? We don't know/we have no way of knowing.
5. How do we know it's not our system going haywire and randomly marking good addresses bad? There would be indications of something weird going on: a large number of bounces in the same communication and also those bounces would have something in common - same domain, for instance. The system isn't going to randomly mark 1 address out of 2000 bad for no reason. A glitch in the system would be more widespread. Therefore, it's not NPE. The email was undeliverable or refused on the recipient's end.
6. Furthermore, in SendGrid (the bulk email gateway we use for newsletters, letters, event notifications, etc.), we can see the email was sent and that it bounced/was undeliverable (everything that is in SendGrid is in your bulk communication metrics. You have as much info as we do about the results of each sent communication).
6. Therefore, it's not a glitch with our system. They are legitimate bounces.
7. From this point forward, we can only guess/make reasonable deductions as to why it might have bounced. The most likely scenario is a soft bounce - temporary blockage - that didn't get resolved.
8. Soft bounces only last/show up on the list for three days. After three days/attempts, either the soft bounce has been resolved and moved to the delivered list or permanently failed and is moved to the hard bounce list. So your soft bounce list will ALWAYS be empty three days after you send the communication/you won't see soft bounces beyond the 3 days.
9. Best practice is to check the metrics for up to 3 days following a sent communication so you can see the soft bounces. After 3 days they disappear and become delivered or hard bounces and then you can't see if any of the hard bounces originated as soft bounces
10. If it's a soft bounce that became a hard bounce, then reset the email and resend to the contact. Should clear the bad email and be all set.
11. If a spam complaint is received or if a domain provider flags your email as spam, SendGrid, our bulk email sender will preemptively stop all future emails you send from being sent to that recipient. These are called "drops" and for these instances, you will see the status as "Dropped" in the Email & Phone section View Contact record (click here for more information on SendGrid "drops"). In this case, you must contact the recipient's email provider and clear the spam complaint. Once you do that, contact Fundly Support and ask them to clear the "drop status" for the recipient's email address in SendGrid (this is something only CRM support can do for you, you cannot clear the drop status yourself).
12. If it's a good address that now hard bounces (without first soft bouncing) then most likely issue is recipient's domain provider has blacklisted you and is refusing emails from you. See Part 2 for how to proceed/resolve.