Optimize the deliverability of your mailings with your domain name

With 4 billion users, email is the most widely used communication channel — and consequently, the main target for unsolicited ads and viruses (source: Monde du mail). Email providers must rely on numerous criteria to determine which emails go to the inbox and which are sent to spam.

Among these criteria, one of the most important is your domain name and its reputation.

We asked Béranger Mercier, our Deliverability Manager, to explain how to link a domain name to your mailing campaigns. But first, let’s take a few minutes to understand why this matters.

Why correctly configure your domain name

Pass spam filters

Email deliverability is all about ensuring that your sent emails reach the inbox of your recipients. This is crucial as more and more emails end up in spam folders. This number has been rising for years, and the implementation of the GDPR in 2018 has accelerated this trend.

Email providers are becoming increasingly vigilant when it comes to protecting user privacy. Gmail, Orange, Yahoo—all use automatic anti-spam filters.

Free email addresses provided by these services are often flagged as spam when used for automated mailings. Using an address like @gmail.com or @yahoo.fr for your newsletters, hoping to appear trustworthy, is actually a poor choice.

The best solution is to use your domain name to create a dedicated email address (contact@company-name.com, hello@store-name.com, communication@brand-name.fr, etc.).

Build credibility with your customers

Getting past spam filters isn’t always enough. There’s another risk: being manually marked as spam by your own clients and prospects. In fact, 43% of recipients move emails to spam based on the sender address (source: Plézi).

Example of an address that could be marked as spam

Manual spam reports lead to automatic spam filtering. After a certain number of complaints, email providers will conclude that your messages are indeed spam.

They may then block you from reaching all of your recipients’ inboxes.

Some providers begin to take action once your spam rate reaches just 0.1%. This information can even reach email sending servers.

Spam rate = (number of emails marked as spam / number of emails sent) x 100

Using an email address tied to your own domain gives your recipients confidence that you’re truly the sender. Beyond looking less suspicious, you also boost your credibility.

Build your reputation

Between spam filters and recipient skepticism, getting into the inbox can seem daunting. Yet, with a strong reputation, these barriers are easily overcome.

 Just follow a few best practices from the start and keep them up over time. It all starts with linking your domain name to your mailings, since this configuration gives you access to the best-reputed sending IPs.

We’ve just explored why connecting your domain to your mailings is critical for deliverability. Now, let’s look at how to implement this best practice.

How to set up your domain name

Domain verification

This step is required. You’ll be asked to verify the domain used to send your emails (such as store-name.com) to confirm that it exists and is actually yours.

It’s also highly recommended that the email address itself exists (for example: contact@store-name.com) and has an actual inbox to catch any direct replies sent to that address.

Be sure to pick a consistent sender name and keep it the same for all your campaigns:

• “Store Name” if you’re sending from contact@store-name.com
• “Louise from Brand Name” for an address like louise@brand-name.fr

Authentication

Spoofing is a common technique used by spammers to steal sensitive data. To prevent this, some email servers require you to set up the DKIM standard to fight against spoofing and validate incoming emails.

This authentication digitally signs your emails with your domain name and verifies that the message hasn’t been altered in transit.

DKIM authentication places an encrypted signature in the header of every outbound email. Receivers then use DKIM to decrypt the header and check that the message wasn’t modified in transit.

Emails sent from unauthenticated domains risk landing in spam or junk folders.

Domain alignment

When you send out an email, several domains are involved:

– The sender address’s domain (your domain)

– The return domain to handle bounces

– The domain for redirected links

To optimize your deliverability, we recommend aligning these three domains—using the same root domain for all of them. This improves your reputation with spam filters. You can also choose a subdomain if you prefer.

Conclusion

These technical settings help ensure you follow email marketing best practices.

They maximize your chance of landing in your users’ inboxes—but your email reputation can’t rely on this alone.

You should also monitor other key factors, like send frequency (marketing pressure), email content, or the presence of spamtraps in your mailing lists.

For more tips, check out our article “Spamtraps: The #1 Trap for Your Deliverability”

About the author

As Deliverability Lead at ShopiMind, Béranger has a background in web technologies. He started out as an email developer and quickly specialized in deliverability.

Over the past 8 years, he has developed in-depth expertise and deepened his understanding of email marketing filtering rules.

His two main goals are to help you adopt email marketing best practices and optimize technical infrastructure to guarantee top deliverability.