Email Marketing · 29 Jul 2026 · 5 min read
The Deliverability Checklist We Run Before Every Send
SPF, DKIM, DMARC, list hygiene, and the send-time habits that keep campaigns out of the spam folder.
Most deliverability problems are invisible until open rates quietly drop over a few months. By the time it's obvious, the sending domain's reputation has already taken damage that takes weeks to repair.
Before any campaign goes out on a new setup, we check three authentication records: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Missing or misconfigured records are still the single most common cause of inbox placement issues we see.
List hygiene matters just as much as authentication. Sending to addresses that haven't opened anything in a year signals to inbox providers that your content isn't wanted, which drags down deliverability for the whole list, not just those addresses.
Send-time consistency, a working unsubscribe flow, and warming up a new domain gradually round out the checklist. None of it is exciting work, but skipping it is the reason otherwise good campaigns underperform.