How To Improve Email Deliverability with Proper DNS Setup

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If your emails are constantly being flagged as spam, blocked entirely, or simply disappearing into the void, you need to improve email deliverability. Good old-fashioned email remains the lifeblood of online businesses, powering everything from payment and order confirmations to customer support, marketing, and everyday communication. But for them to work, they need to be seen. This guide explains the ins and outs of deliverability, how DNS settings work, the best practices you need to follow, and how Email Hosting can help your messages reach the correct recipient’s inbox every time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Understanding email deliverability through DNS settings, tracking engagement, handling complaints, and managing reputation is the foundation of email success.
• Proper SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX configuration builds trust with email providers and helps your emails arrive in your inbox.
• Better deliverability requires ongoing reputation monitoring and following email sending best practices.
• Even if you have perfect DNS settings, poor list hygiene, spammy content, or low engagement can hurt deliverability, so take a holistic approach to sending.
• Email Hosting from Hosted.com® provides all the features you need to ensure your messages get delivered consistently.

What is Email Deliverability?

High-priority transactional emails, such as password resets or order confirmations, are worthless if they are marked as spam. Likewise, even the most expertly written, beautifully designed newsletter or marketing email is a waste of time if no one opens and reads it.

Email deliverability is the ability to consistently get your messages into the intended recipients’ inboxes (spam folders don’t count) and not blocked by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) before they reach the server. A deliverability rate of 90% or above is considered excellent; rates below 85% are poor, and many businesses struggle to maintain 83-88%.

So, if an average of 85% or nearly one in five of your messages fail, your email marketing campaigns will likely lose reach and engagement, and fail.

Poor deliverability directly affects customer retention by causing people to lose confidence in you and disengage, and it reduces revenue by missing new sales opportunities and/or subscription renewals. For example, a customer who doesn’t get a reply from you because the email bounced, went to spam, or wasn’t delivered, may decide it’s not worth buying from your business again. Conversely, fast email response times can greatly boost conversion rates.

The three main indicators that your deliverability is healthy are:

1. High engagement rates with people opening emails and clicking through to your website or landing page.
2. Low spam complaint rate, meaning recipients aren’t hitting the dreaded “Report Spam” button.
3. You have a good sender reputation, because mailbox providers trust your domain and IP address.

DNS Settings for Email Explained

The Domain Name System (DNS) is essentially the Internet phonebook. When you type a website’s address into the browser,

EXAMPLE:
www.yourdomain-name.com

the DNS translates that human-readable name into a numerical IP address:

EXAMPLE:
192.0.2.1

This allows the browser to find the corresponding web hosting server’s IP address and request the site’s content.

For email, the DNS dictates where your mail should go and, more importantly, proves that you are authorized to send mail from your domain name.

To improve email deliverability, you need to understand the basics of DNS records that email clients (Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, etc.) use to verify your identity and ensure messages get sent and received. These records are in your domain’s DNS zone (the container for all specific settings and records) and operate as official authorization stamps.

MX (Mail Exchange)

The MX record specifies which mail server is responsible for accepting incoming email for your domain and where replies or bounces should be directed.

How does this work? When someone sends an email to you@yourdomainname.com, the outgoing server for the sender performs a DNS lookup for the domain “yourdomainname.com”. It finds the MX record that directs email to the correct incoming server (your mail host) for delivery.

Sender Policy Framework (SPF)

The SPF (nothing to do with sunscreen!) is a record that lists all the IP addresses and domains officially authorized to send communications on behalf of your email domain. It prevents email spoofing by blocking unauthorized people or bots from sending fake emails (usually phishing scams) that seem to be from your address.

If a message is sent from an unauthorized server or IP, the recipient’s mail provider will likely flag it as spam or block it completely.

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)

DKIM uses a cryptographic key (a digital signature, in simple terms) to confirm a sender’s identity, ensure the email content hasn’t been tampered with en route to its destination, and that it genuinely originated from your domain.

Your outgoing email server signs the email with a private key, and the recipient’s incoming server then uses your public key to verify that signature, much like an SSL certificate for a website-server connection, building trust with recipient mail servers.

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)

DMARC is the policy layer built on top of SPF and DKIM. It tells incoming mail servers how to handle mails that fail both authentication checks, e.g., by monitoring, quarantining, or rejecting them.

It provides the highest level of trust and provides you with the essential sender reports and feedback required to monitor inbox placement rates over time.

How to Improve Email Deliverability with DNS Settings

When it comes to your email campaigns, the foundation for good deliverability isn’t only well-written subject lines and content; it’s the technical setup behind it. Proper DNS setup is the single most effective way to tell inbox providers that you are a legitimate, verifiable sender. Correctly configuring your records is vital if you want to improve email deliverability and avoid spam filters.

Set up SPF, DKIM, & DMARC

Your SPF record must be comprehensive. It provides the proper authentication for all your sending sources, whether it’s your domain account, email marketing tools like MailChimp, or any other third-party service. As we mentioned earlier, without it, unauthorized senders can easily spoof your domain and damage your sender reputation immediately.

The DKIM signature ensures message integrity. Receiving servers use your public key (found in a specific DNS record) to decrypt the signature and confirm the email’s content and sending domain are authentic, protecting against Man-in-the-Middle attacks and tampering during transit.

Next, implement DMARC to centralize SPF and DKIM, providing instructions on how to handle non-compliant emails and monitor for attempted fraud. As of February 2025, only 9.7% of domains use DMARC, despite new bulk sender requirements from Gmail and Yahoo. Don’t be like them.

According to Mukesh Kumar of DemandLoft (September 10, 2025), “Ignoring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC carries a real risk that carefully composed messages will be filtered as spam or rejected, especially as major providers tighten authentication requirements”.

Correctly configure MX records.

While not strictly an authentication record, your MX records must correctly point to the servers that handle your incoming and outgoing mail. Incorrect MX records can lead to delivery failures, a high bounce rate, and, ultimately, a poor domain reputation and sender score.

Email Deliverability Best Practices

Even the best email DNS setup can be spoiled by bad habits. As we discussed, recent data shows that 16.9% of all emails never reach their intended recipients’ inboxes.

Following the right sending practices can help you avoid spam red flags and ensure your messages arrive in subscribers’ inboxes without landing in spam traps.

Dedicated IP Address

If you are sending high-volume emails, a dedicated IP address can be a lifesaver for email marketers. This isolates your reputation, ensuring that the poor sender reputations and practices of others sharing your IP address do not negatively affect you and cause deliverability problems.

Keep Email Lists Clean

Regularly remove inactive subscribers, unengaged, or invalid addresses to maintain email list quality. Sending to “dead” or invalid email addresses is a huge red flag for spam filters. Additionally, never send to purchased or unverified mailing lists.

Monitor Feedback Loops (FBLs)

Register with FBLs offered by major Internet Service Providers. This offers instant notification when recipients mark your email as spam, so you are able to remove them from your contact list and prevent further damage while helping detect phishing attempts. It’s worth noting that 36% of all data breaches start with phishing or email-based attacks.

Include Easy Opt-Outs

52.7% of consumers report feeling frustrated, losing trust, or unsubscribing when they regularly find a brand’s emails in their spam folder.

Always provide a clear unsubscribe link. Making it difficult to leave will frustrate users, leading them to hit the dreaded “Report Spam” button instead. It also helps to use double opt-in options whenever possible to ensure that only people who have actively requested to receive your emails are on your list.

Avoid identical messages across multiple mailboxes. This reveals automation, triggers spam filters, and increases unsubscribe rates.

Maintaining a Good Sender Reputation

Consider your sender reputation as a credit score for your email account that monitors your past sending behavior. Below are the factors that affect your reputation. Managing them well can improve email deliverability:

• Bounce Rates: High hard-bounce rates signal a low-quality, unmaintained list.
• Spam Complaints: The single biggest negative factor; keep this rate as close to zero as possible.
• Engagement: High open and click-through rates reveal that recipients value your email content and are keen to receive it.

Regularly use monitoring and testing tools, such as Google Postmaster or provider reputation dashboards, to track your domain and IP health to avoid potential issues.

Common Email Deliverability Issues & Fixes

Even with the best DNS setup in the world, your emails can still get lost. Most issues boil down to three things: list hygiene, spam triggers, and engagement. Understanding the causes helps you quickly solve the problems and permanently improve email deliverability.

According to Adrian Patel, CEO of MailMonitor, in a June 04, 2024, blog post: “There is a general assumption that when I send an email, that person will receive it… So, someone who is new to email marketing might create a great email with a juicy subject line, press send, and … it doesn’t work!”

High Bounce Rates & Invalid Addresses

A high bounce rate indicates that a high volume of emails is not reaching the recipient’s server or primary inbox. There are two types: hard bounces (permanent failures, like an address that doesn’t exist) and soft bounces (temporary failures, like a full inbox). Hard bounces are a major issue, as they signal to email providers that your list is outdated or poorly sourced. Sending to too many invalid addresses seriously hurts your sender reputation.

The Fix

Ruthlessly clean your mailing list. Immediately remove any addresses that result in a hard bounce. To prevent bad addresses from being added to your list in the first place, use a double opt-in process. This requires new subscribers to click a verification link in a confirmation email to prove their address is valid and that they genuinely want your mail.

Spam Traps & Spam Filters Blocking Emails

Your emails may be getting caught in spam filters or hitting spam traps. Spam traps are email addresses that mailbox providers or anti-spam organizations set up deliberately. They are never valid sign-ups and are used solely to catch spammers who scrape lists or send to old, unverified data. If you hit a spam trap, your reputation takes a nasty hit.

Spam filters may block you if your content seems suspicious (too many exclamation marks, excessive capitalization, or “get rich quick” phrases), or if your authentication fails.

The Fix

First, and this is non-negotiable, ensure your authentication is perfect. Next, avoid content that could trigger spam; write naturally, as a human being would. Finally, avoid spam traps by never sending from sketchy purchased email lists, and ensuring your existing ones are clean and updated.

Low Engagement & High Complaint Rates

Mailbox providers like Gmail track what people do with your emails. If they are consistently ignoring your messages (low open rates) or marking them as spam (high complaint rates or unsubscribe rates), it signals that your content is irrelevant or unwanted. ISPs will eventually assume that no one wants your mail, so it must be spam, and will start sending it directly to the junk folder, regardless of your DNS settings. This harms your conversion rates.

The Fix

This requires a holistic approach focusing on the customer experience. Improve content quality and use audience segmentation to send targeted, highly relevant messages. For inactive users, try a re-engagement campaign. If they still don’t open your emails after a few attempts, it’s safer to remove them from your list. This may seem counterintuitive, but sending only to engaged users is one of the most effective ways to permanently improve email deliverability.

Email Hosting from Hosted.com®

At Hosted.com®, we understand that for many small businesses, email is all they need until they’re ready to launch a website or just keep things running. Our Email Hosting provides professional, domain-based email addresses and communication, with the necessary DNS setup to improve email deliverability. All while keeping things as simple as possible with the following:

The user-friendly cPanel control panel makes DNS management much easier, including configuring SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records. The best part is that your hosting and DNS are integrated, reducing setup headaches and ensuring your authentication is set up correctly from day one.

All our plans include a free Email SSL Certificate and the award-winning SpamExperts Spam, Malware & Virus Protection. This not only keeps your inbox clean but also helps maintain your identity as a legitimate, secure sender, which boosts credibility with ISPs and builds trust with customers while adhering to industry standards and email best practices.

Our dedicated, secure Email Hosting simplifies the technical setup so you can focus on communication and conversions.

Create And Send Professional Emails with Email Hosting

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