Reach the inbox

An email reaches the inbox when mail services such as Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo trust the sender. They look at two things: can the sender prove who it is, and do the people who get the email want it. Postfjord takes care of most of the first part for you. The second part is your list, and Postfjord has rules that protect it.

Amazon sends Postfjord's email. Each workspace has its own sending record at Amazon, so Amazon can pause one workspace without stopping the others.

Prove who you are: SPF, DKIM and DMARC

Mail services check three things on every email:

1. DKIM is a signature on the email that shows it came from the domain in the From address and was not changed on the way.
2. SPF says which servers may send for a domain.
3. DMARC tells mail services what to do when the first two do not match the From address, and asks them to send reports.

From the Postfjord address. Until you add your own domain, your emails come from an address like yourstudio [at] mail.postfjord.com. Postfjord's domain has all three set up, and these emails pass SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Our DMARC record tells mail services to refuse any email that fails, so nobody can send as mail.postfjord.com.

From your own domain. When you send from your own domain, Postfjord shows three CNAME records to add. They are your DKIM: Amazon signs every email with a 2048-bit key for your domain. That is enough for DMARC to pass, because the signature matches your From address.

The two extra records, an MX and a TXT record on bounce.yourdomain, give you SPF on your own domain too. Bounced emails then come back to an address on your domain, which is one more sign to mail services that it is you. Without them, SPF passes for Amazon's domain instead, and your emails still pass DMARC through DKIM.

DMARC

Gmail and Yahoo expect every sender to have a DMARC record. Postfjord looks for one on your domain and on the domain above it, and shows one to add if there is none:

• Type: TXT
• Name: _dmarc followed by your domain, for example _dmarc.mail.yourbusiness.com
• Value: v=DMARC1; p=none;

The value p=none is a safe start. It says that DMARC is there and changes nothing about how your email is delivered, so no email gets lost while you set things up. The record is optional, and Postfjord sends from your domain without it.

Later, once you know that every service sending as your domain passes, you can make the policy stricter: p=quarantine asks mail services to put failing email in spam, and p=reject asks them to refuse it. Change it only when you are sure. Your website, your normal inbox and any other tool that sends as your domain must pass too.

Who you can email

Postfjord only emails people who confirmed their address: they pressed the button in a confirmation email, signed up through your signup form, or came from an import Postfjord checked. See Email campaigns for every way in.

You may never use a bought, rented, shared or scraped list. Our terms say so in section 5, Email. When you import, the owner says how the people agreed, and Postfjord checks the import before anyone on it gets an email. See Import contacts.

Bounces and spam reports are handled for you

You do not need to clean these out by hand.

• An address that does not work (a hard bounce) never gets another email from anyone on Postfjord.
• A full mailbox or a server that is down (a soft bounce) is tried again. An address stops getting email after five of these spread over at least 15 days.
• Someone who presses Spam is unsubscribed from you at once, and no workspace on Postfjord emails that address again.

Most mail services, like Outlook and Yahoo, tell Amazon when someone presses Spam. Gmail does not. For Gmail, add your own domain to Google Postmaster Tools, which shows how Gmail sees your email.

When a campaign pauses by itself

Postfjord counts what happens to every email while a campaign goes out. After 200 results it pauses the rest of the campaign and emails the owner when:

• 3% or more of the addresses do not work, and at least 6
• 0.2% or more of the people at mail services that report spam press Spam, and at least 3
• 3% or more are blocked by mail services, and at least 10

It also pauses when 2% or more unsubscribe after 250 deliveries (at least 5), and at once if Amazon refuses an email for its content. Nobody else gets the email until Postfjord has looked at it, and we write to you within one working day. People who already got it are not affected.

New senders start slowly

Mail services trust a new sender slowly, so Postfjord starts every workspace carefully:

1. Amazon's strictest setting. A new workspace starts on Amazon's strict reputation setting. If Amazon finds a problem with a workspace's email, it pauses that workspace's sending, and nobody else's.
2. A daily limit that grows. A workspace sends at most a set number of emails a day, with or without its own domain: 200 on Free, 2,500 on Solo, 7,500 on Studio and 20,000 on Agency. In the first 14 days of sending it starts lower: 500 a day on days 1 to 3, 1,000 on days 4 to 7 and 2,500 on days 8 to 14. A bigger list goes out over several days.
3. A small group first. Your first campaign goes to a small group first: 10% of the list, at least 200 and at most 1,000. The rest goes about two hours later if the small group went well, or a day later when the list has people you imported. A campaign where many people are new to you does the same.
4. A person looks at big first sends. A first campaign to more than 1,000 people waits until Postfjord has looked at it, within one working day.
5. Imported people start slowly. At most 500 imported people a day start getting your emails.

Keep your list fresh

People who never open or click make mail services trust you less. Postfjord helps in two ways:

• Campaigns leave out people who have been quiet a long time. That is 12 months after someone confirmed, or 6 months for people you imported. Pressing Keep me on the list or confirming again starts the time over.
• Ask them if they want to stay. The Do you want to stay? automation asks quiet people with a Keep me on the list button, and pauses the ones who do not answer within 30 days. See Email automations.

Your sending health

Open Email settings at the top of Campaigns, and then Sending health. It shows your workspace's own numbers from campaigns in the last 30 days:

• Sent: emails that left Postfjord.
• Did not arrive: the share of addresses that did not work. Keep it under 2%. Amazon looks closer at an account at 5%.
• Marked as spam: the share of people who pressed Spam, at mail services that tell Amazon. Keep it under 0.05%. Amazon looks closer at 0.1%.

One word sums it up, with what to do:

• Good: nothing to do.
• Watch: one number is above the line we want you under. The card says what to check.
• Act now: a number is at Amazon's line, or Postfjord paused a campaign by itself.

A single bounce on a small list can look like a big share, so the card waits for a few bounces or reports before it says Watch or Act now. Emails from automations are not in these numbers yet.

Talk to a person

Write to hello [at] postfjord.com. A person at Postfjord reads it and answers. When Postfjord pauses a campaign by itself, we write to you within one working day, before you need to ask.

FAQ