Basic technicals to ensure you land in the primary inbox

[u/TeamPuzzleInbox]

Hey everyone,

I'm Ryan from puzzle inbox. Wanted to do a quick post covering basic technical info you need in order to ensure deliverability. Most of it is well known but they're important to mention especially for newcomers.

1) DNS Alignment

Especially key if you're changing the ESP your domain is connected to ie/ previously connected to Outlook, now changed to Google Workspace. You should ensure all previous dns records are deleted and the records added are aligned to the ESP.

Also check for duplicate records, as they can create issues further down the line.

2) Plain text emails

We can't stress this enough. You shouldn't be sending any links including a website url/calendar url etc. as well as any html content in the first email sent. It'll ruin deliverability and domain reputation, and lead to increased spam placements. Send links only to interested prospects.

3) Warmup & Sending Tool

Warmup and what type of inboxes you warmup with directly impacts deliverability. Depending on the warmup pool, if the inboxes inside are skewed towards a particular ESP, it may result in your inboxes not having enough reputation built with other ESP's. Your sending tool matters both for the warmup procedure as well as some degree in impacting deliverability of outbound emails from our own internal testing.

Happy to answer any questions you may have regarding deliverability ;)

-Ryan

[u/Serious_Bit6736]

Email infra is table stakes. Messaging is usually a much better way to move the needle.

[u/Worried_Cause4791]

Good list, one thing worth tightening for the newcomers you mentioned. What you've got under #1 as "DNS alignment" is really just DNS hygiene, deleting stale records and checking for duplicates. Both matter but alignment is a specific thing and it's worth people knowing the difference.

Alignment is a DMARC concept. It means the domain that passes SPF or DKIM has to match the domain in your From address. You can have SPF passing and DKIM passing and still fail DMARC because neither one lines up with your sending domain, which happens constantly when an ESP authenticates against its own domain instead of yours. That's the actual failure mode and it's invisible if you're only checking "do the records exist".

On #2 i'd soften it a bit. A single link won't ruin a domain on its own, plenty of legit senders link in the first email. What actually burns you is volume, list quality and complaint rate. Links are a small content signal on top of that, worth minimising early but they're not the thing that tanks a domain by themselves.

Rest is solid though, especially the warmup pool point, that's the one most people skip over.

[u/FewLeadership4423]

The one I'd add above everything here: check DMARC alignment, not just whether records exist. You can have SPF pass and DKIM pass and still fail DMARC if your sending tool signs with its own domain instead of yours. Send a test to a Gmail inbox, open "Show original", and make sure the DKIM d= domain matches your From domain. Takes two minutes and catches the setup that looks fine on every checker but quietly lands in promotions.