Why can’t I use a FREE ESP (gmail,yahoo,hotmail etc.) as Sender in my Campaigns

Free email address services have policies in place that are meant to prevent email scams but can cause delivery issues for legitimate business. Therefore, it‘s mandatory to use a business email address as a reply-to address to boost deliverability and prevent delivery problems. 

For example, if you would use bestprice123@gmail.com as a reply-to mail address, the recipients’ inbox might identify you as SPAM and move you to the SPAM section right away.

What are the problems with free email? The main restriction of an email address from a free service provider is that you don’t own the domain, therefore this limits the control over that domain’s delivery policies

How DMARC Applies to a Sender Identity

 

When sending email via a service provider such as SENDER, you will be asked to authenticate a domain. All major mail providers such as Google, Microsoft, and others implement DMARC to protect their customers and prevent abuse. Let’s use Google’s Gmail and the email address example@gmail.com as an example.

Google has SPF, DKIM, and DMARC policies. Google’s DNS records will approve domains such as gmail..com and the IP addresses google controls. SENDER domains and IP addresses will not be included in Google’s approved domains and IP addresses. 

When you send a message from example@gmail.com to customer@yahoo.com using SENDER, a yahoo server will receive the message. Yahoo will then look up Google’s SPF and DKIM records because Google is the domain in the return-path message header.

The Yahoo receiving server will determine that the message was sent using a SENDER IP address and was not signed by Google’s private key. Both SPF and DKIM will fail, causing Yahoo email to employ the DMARC failure policy specified by Google.

Basically, Yahoo, or any other receiving email server, has no way of knowing whether you are using SENDER to send an email for legitimate purposes or spoofing Gmail’s domain.

That’s is why SENDER impose authenticating a domain. The SENDER domain authentication method provides CNAME records that you place on your domain to approve SENDER’S IP addresses, plus will automatically manage your SPF and DKIM records, protecting your domain’s reputation.

Many of the popular email providers implement DMARC, including:

• AOL
• Gmail
• Microsoft (Hotmail, MSN)
• Outlook
• Yahoo

How to avoid Gmail marking your emails spam due to suspicious URLs

 

How to avoid Gmail marking your emails spam due to suspicious URLs

Gmail is careful to protect its users from phishing activities, so it classifies suspicious emails as spam. To prevent its users from unknowingly opening a phishing email, Gmail notifies recipients of the reason the mail is classified as suspicious. These reasons will help the senders to identify their mistakes and prevent repeating them in the future. If your URLs are improper, Gmail classifies the emails as spam with the following warning:

"Be careful with this message. The email contains a suspicious link that was used to steal personal information. Unless you trust the sender, don't click links or reply with personal information"

"Be careful with this message. Similar messages were used to steal people's personal information. Unless you trust the sender, don't click links or reply with personal information."

The above warnings make your contacts lose trust regarding your future emails, and might fail to open them and mark them as not spam. As this badly affects your email deliverability, we request you to take immediate actions.

How to avoid Gmail marking your emails spam due to suspicious URLs

The warning message shows that there's something suspicious in the URLs you used. So, focus on URLs and check that your sending practices follow the suggestions below:

Check for broken URLs

Always ensure your URLs work properly before including them in an email. Redirection to a non-existent page leads to abuse complaints from contacts. 

1. Blacklisted Domain
   URLs with blacklisted domains are a possible reason for the warning. Check if your URL domain and sender domain are blacklisted with anti-spam services such as Spamhaus, Spamcop, Barracuda, and others. If yes, then raise a de-list request to the service.

1. Don't include URLs with multiple redirections
   Multiple redirections are a common trick used by spammers. When contacts encounter multiple redirections, they feel insecure and mark the email as spam. So, ensure that the URLs redirect straight to the desired page.

1. Don't include shortened URLs from public services
   If the domain of a shortened URL is blacklisted, URLs are considered suspicious. So, avoid publicly available blacklisted URL shorteners.

1. Don't seek contacts' personal information 
   URLs should not be used to seek personal information such as email address, passwords, residential address, phone number, and credit card information.

1. Avoid suspicious/spammy phrases in the URL or in the page redirected from the URL.
   Phrases such as "online dating", "lose weight", "please help", "extra income", and "donate" make your contacts doubt the legitimacy your emails and mark them as spam.Send test emails to your Gmail account to identify if anything is wrong before sending the actual campaign.

1. Maintain a proper WHOIS registry for your domain
   Spam filters check the WHOIS registry for anything suspicious. The information in the registry should be original and updated regularly.

Since URLs are the gateway to your click rate, it makes sense to optimize them. If your URLs appear safe in your future emails, Gmail eventually makes your emails appropriately land in the inbox.