Mailbox providers such as Gmail and Yahoo require senders to use proper email authentication and clear unsubscribe handling. These requirements are designed to reduce spoofing, phishing, and unwanted bulk email.
If you send campaigns through Mailcamp, the most important step is to use your own verified sending domain and keep your audience clean and permission-based.
The exact rules can vary by mailbox provider, but the main requirements are consistent:
Authenticate your sending domain: use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for the domain you send from.
Use domain alignment: the domain in your From email should align with the domain that passes SPF or DKIM.
Do not impersonate public mailbox domains: avoid sending marketing campaigns from addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or other public mailbox domains.
Make unsubscribing easy: marketing and subscribed messages must include a clear unsubscribe option.
Keep spam complaints low: send only to people who gave permission and avoid content that causes complaints.
Send valid email: use correctly formatted messages and avoid broken headers, misleading sender names, or deceptive subjects.
For high-volume senders, these requirements are stricter. Even if you send lower volume, following them helps protect your domain reputation.
Do not rely on a public mailbox address as your long-term sender identity. Set up a domain that belongs to your business or organization.
Use a domain you control, such as yourdomain.com.
Create a From email on that domain, such as [email protected].
Avoid using a free mailbox address for campaign sending.
Keep the same sender identity across campaigns so recipients can recognize you.
If you do not have an active sending domain, Mailcamp may use a Mailcamp sender domain as a fallback. This is useful for getting started, but a verified custom domain is the recommended setup.
Mailcamp provides the DNS records needed to verify your sending domain.
Go to Sending domains.
Add the domain you want to send from.
Copy the identity, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records shown by Mailcamp.
Add those records at your DNS provider.
Return to Mailcamp and click Verify Now.
Wait until the domain status is active before using it for campaigns.
DNS propagation can take time. If verification fails immediately after you add the records, wait and try again later.
Each authentication record has a different purpose.
SPF tells mailbox providers which servers are allowed to send email for your domain.
DKIM adds a digital signature so receiving servers can verify that the message was authorized and not changed in transit.
DMARC tells receiving servers how to evaluate messages that claim to come from your domain and do not pass SPF or DKIM alignment.
Use only one SPF record for a domain. If your domain already has SPF for another service, merge the Mailcamp include value into the existing SPF record instead of creating a second one.
If you are new to DMARC, start with a monitoring policy such as p=none, then move to stricter policies after you confirm all legitimate sending sources are authenticated.
Domain alignment means your visible From email domain matches, or closely relates to, the domain that passes SPF or DKIM.
Use a From email from the same domain you verified in Mailcamp.
Do not use a From email from one brand while authenticating an unrelated domain.
Use a branded tracking domain if your account supports it.
Check the campaign setup before sending to confirm the sender address is correct.
Alignment helps mailbox providers connect the message to your real sender identity.
Mailcamp adds unsubscribe handling for subscriber-based campaign sends when the unsubscribe URL is available. You should still review every campaign before sending.
Include a visible unsubscribe link in the email body.
Use Mailcamp's required unsubscribe tag when building campaign content.
Do not hide or obscure unsubscribe text.
Honor unsubscribe requests quickly.
One-click unsubscribe support is especially important for marketing and subscribed messages sent to Gmail and Yahoo recipients.
Authentication helps prove who sent the email, but reputation determines how mailbox providers treat your campaigns over time.
Send only to subscribers who gave permission.
Do not use purchased or scraped audiences.
Remove invalid, bounced, and inactive contacts regularly.
Send relevant content that matches what subscribers expected when they signed up.
Monitor campaign engagement, bounces, unsubscribes, and complaints.
If recipients frequently mark your emails as spam, authentication alone will not fix deliverability.
Before sending regular campaigns, review this checklist:
Your sending domain is active in Sending domains.
Your From email uses the verified domain.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are published correctly.
Your SPF record is merged into one record if you use multiple email services.
Your campaign includes a clear unsubscribe link.
Your audience is permission-based and recently maintained.
Your tracking domain is branded, if your account uses a custom tracking domain.
Your campaign content is not misleading and does not impersonate another brand.
Completing these steps does not guarantee inbox placement, but it puts your Mailcamp account in a much stronger position to meet modern sender requirements.