Why emails go to spam

The usual causes, in order

Inbox providers do not owe you the primary tab. When cold email lands in spam, it is almost never one mysterious toggle. Work the list below in order. Skipping to "buy a new IP" is how burned domains stay burned.

1. No reputation yet. You sent campaign volume on a new mailbox. Warm it, or lease pre-warmed mailboxes. When is a mailbox ready to send?.
2. Authentication missing or misaligned. Missing SPF, broken DKIM, DMARC at none, two SPF records. How to set up DNS records.
3. The list is dirty. Catch-alls, role accounts, disabled mailboxes. A 4% bounce rate undoes warmup. Catch-alls can hide that bounce rate while still wasting the send. List verification.
4. Too many emails from one mailbox. 50 or 100/day from one identity, especially in week one. Sending limits per mailbox: 40 on plan mailboxes, 15 on pre-warmed.
5. The domain is already on a blocklist or has a rotten reputation. IP and domain blacklists, How to check and improve your domain reputation.
6. The copy looks like every other blast. Identical HTML, three tracking links, "limited time," no unsubscribe. EmailPal cannot rewrite your sequence.

The checklist version of this page: Cold email deliverability guide. Gmail/Yahoo's 2024 rules: Google and Yahoo sender requirements.

What to do today

• Pause sending on the affected mailboxes. More volume into spam trains spam.
• Confirm DNS is green on public resolvers, not only in the registrar UI.
• Confirm warming is on and not in a bounce hold or Slow-Ramp.
• Verify the next list before you resume. Drop catch-alls, disabled and full mailboxes.
• If the domain is burned, stop using it. Register new names or claim pre-warmed inventory. Pushing harder on a burned domain makes it worse.
• Turn open tracking off on the first mail. Bot opens are not engagement.

Do not rotate domains as a hobby. One clean domain with a verified list beats five panicked replacements.

Outlook-only spam

Microsoft is harsher than Gmail for new domains. A mailbox that inboxes at Gmail can still junk at Outlook. That is not an EmailPal outage. Slow down, keep warming on, and do not chase Outlook with more volume.

Yahoo and AOL are in the same family of expectations EmailPal seeds against. If Yahoo is the only provider in spam, treat it like Outlook: less volume, cleaner list, wait on the trend.

What EmailPal will not pretend

We do not run your sequencer. Copy, personalization, unsubscribe handling and targeting are on you (or Instantly, Smartlead, Plusvibe). Infrastructure cannot rescue a scraped list and a three-link HTML pitch.

We also will not tell you a new IP fixes a burned domain. Isolated IP pools keep neighbours from defining your reputation. They do not launder a name that already earned complaints.

FAQs

Will a new IP fix it?

Not if the domain is the problem. Swapping IPs under a burned domain rarely saves it.

Does SPF -all cause spam?

No. Fail-closed SPF stops spoofing. Spam is a reputation and content decision.

I claimed a pre-warmed inbox and still land in spam.

The listing's inbox rate was measured during warming, not during your first campaign. Stay at 15/day, verify the list, keep copy plain, leave warming on. If it is still junk after a clean week, open a ticket with the domain and the mailbox.

Open rate is high but nobody replies. Is that inbox?

Often bot opens. Turn the pixel off. Placement is a seed report or a human reply, not an inflated open rate.

Should I change the From name every day?

No. That looks like evasion. Fix the list and the volume.

Need more help?

Cold email deliverability guide or open a ticket with the domain, the mailbox, and whether you are on a plan mailbox or a pre-warmed lease.