Why Your Emails Aren't Reaching the Inbox: 3 Practical Fixes
If your emails are disappearing into junk folders, three areas are usually to blame: technical configuration, IP reputation, and how engaged your list actually is. Here's how to diagnose and fix each one.
So your emails are landing in the junk folder, or worse, not arriving at all.
When that happens, deliverability is almost always the culprit. The problem is that major providers like Microsoft 365, Gmail, and Yahoo give very little away about why a specific message gets filtered. There is no error message, no explanation, just silence or a junk folder.
Deliverability has a few distinct hurdles. Here is how to work through each one.
1. Technical Issues
Email is the oldest communication channel on the internet, and a significant amount of technology has been layered on top of it over the decades to fight spam and phishing. That means there are a lot of settings that can quietly break your deliverability without you knowing.
The fastest way to find technical problems is to use a testing tool. Two good ones:
Both work the same way. Visit the site and you will get a temporary email address. Send a test message to that address from inside your ESP platform, then go back to the site to read the report. It will flag authentication issues, missing DNS records, content problems, and more. Fix what it flags and re-test.
2. Sender Reputation
This has the biggest impact on inbox placement. Your sender reputation is essentially a track record of how recipients and mailbox providers have responded to your emails over time.
Your sending happens either on a shared IP range or on IPs assigned specifically to you.
Shared IPs: You are sharing a reputation with every other sender on that range. If someone else on the range sends bad traffic, it affects you too. If you suspect this is your problem, escalate it to your ESP. It is their infrastructure to manage.
Dedicated IPs: You own your reputation, which is both an advantage and a responsibility.
If you have recently moved to dedicated IPs, check whether they have been warmed. Unwarmed IPs will result in blocked or bounced mail. Ask your ESP to confirm the warm-up status or handle it for you.
Already sending on warmed dedicated IPs but still landing in junk? Get your IP addresses from your ESP and check your Sender Score:
Aim for a score in the high 90s. A low score points to a reputation problem, which means you need to work on list hygiene and engagement (more on that below).
Next, check whether your IPs appear on any blacklists. Blacklists are maintained by organisations that track spam sources, typically identified through complaint rates and spam traps.
Free Blacklist Check, HetrixTools
Enter your IP and HetrixTools will show you any listings along with the relevant delisting links. Keep in mind that not every blacklist carries the same weight. Some have almost no effect on deliverability; others will filter out a large portion of your mail. The safest approach is to stay off all of them.
3. List Engagement
Mailbox providers track how recipients behave toward your emails. Opens, clicks, and replies are positive signals. Ignoring, deleting, or marking as spam are negative ones. This behaviour is measured both across your entire sending domain and at the individual recipient level.
If engagement is low, here is a practical way to rebuild it.
First, clean your list.
Remove spam traps if you suspect you have any (contact us if you need help identifying them). Remove unengaged or dormant accounts, the ones that have not opened or clicked in a long time. Decluttering your list genuinely helps.
Then, re-engage the active segment.
Build a segment of your most recently engaged subscribers. Send them something worth responding to: a competition entry, a direct question, a poll, anything that gives them a reason to click or reply. The goal is to generate positive engagement signals before you go broader.
Then, slowly bring back the inactive segment.
After a successful send to your engaged group, wait before sending again. On the next send, add a small percentage of your less-engaged contacts. Keep growing that proportion over subsequent sends as your engagement rates hold up.
Remember that inbox placement is not universal. Getting into Gmail inboxes does not mean you are also getting into Microsoft 365 or Yahoo. Monitor across providers.
If you need help working through any of this, including spam trap removal, segmentation, or reputation repair, get in touch. Send us an email at solutions@touchbasepro.com and we will take it from there.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I know if my emails are landing in spam?
- Use a tool like mail-tester.com or spamscore.net. Both give you a temporary email address to send a test to, then produce a report showing technical issues, authentication gaps, and spam trigger factors.
- What is a good Sender Score for email deliverability?
- Aim for a score in the high 90s on senderscore.org. A score significantly below that suggests a sender reputation problem that will need list hygiene work and an engagement recovery plan to fix.
- What should I do if my IP address is on a blacklist?
- Use HetrixTools to identify which blacklists you appear on. Each listing includes a delisting link. Request removal and then address the underlying cause, usually spam complaints or spam trap hits, to avoid being relisted.
- How do I re-engage a disengaged email list without hurting deliverability?
- Start by cleaning out spam traps and dormant accounts. Then send an incentive campaign to your most engaged segment only. Once that performs well, gradually add back inactive contacts in small batches over subsequent sends.