HOW-TO:
NOTE: EventsAir emails are sent in bulk via SendGrid, which has authentication protocols, designed to prevent emails going into recipients’ spam and junk mail folders.
The steps below help confirm that your emails are being sent from an authentic domain for a legitimate business purpose.
Communications Panel
1. Click the SendGrid icon to the top right of the Email Status box.
Log into Send Grid
NOTE: If you don't already have a SendGrid login, please contact the EventsAir support team for help creating and linking your account.
In SendGrid
2. From the left-hand panel, select Settings and then Sender Authentication.
3. Under Domain Authentication, select the Get Started option.
NOTE: This option can also show as Authentication Your Domain if you have already added a domain through this.
4. Enter the name of the Domain Name Server host (the provider your domain was acquired through, e.g. GoDaddy, BlueHost).
5. Select if you’d like to include and track brand links in emails (enables any tracking of clicks on links to be handled by your domain and not through SendGrid).
6. Add in the domain you would like to verify (i.e. the one your event will send emails from) and click next.
7. Select the Send to Coworker tab and forward the information onto your IT Team.
8. Once your IT team has added the information into your Hosted Domain Server, select the tick box and click Finish.
NOTE: You should also make sure your IT department has an SPF record for SendGrid set up on the domain you want to send from. This will help stop emails going to junk in most cases. The information below may be helpful to your IT department:
Example SPF record
v=spf1 include:eventsairmail.com -all
You will also need to do domain authentication in SendGrid to add an additional layer of authentication. Please follow the instructions here: https://docs.sendgrid.com/ui/account-and-settings/how-to-set-up-domain-authentication#setup-steps-required-for-both-automatic-and-manual-setup
MORE INFORMATION ON EMAIL BEST PRACTICE
Although EventsAir does allow you to send emails directly (usually via SendGrid), we don’t control what happens at the recipients’ end – that’s in the control of their email provider.
Major email providers are tightening up their guidelines and definitions of ‘spam’.
There are also other organizations that may choose to flag certain email domains as ‘spam’ and again, this is outside of EventsAir’s control.
Because email marketing is a key part of promoting your event, we want to help you stay up to date with security and authentication requirements of major platforms such as Gmail and Yahoo. This helps reduce the risk of having your emails being incorrectly flagged as spam, or not delivered. It also helps ensure other people using the same domain to send emails are not incorrectly flagged as spammers.
You should also be mindful of the laws and regulations relating to bulk messaging and data privacy – not just in your own region but in your recipients’ region(s).
All of this requires regular and proactive review and updating of your email sending practices. At a minimum, we recommend:
Meet Authentication Requirements:
Ensure your email sending domain is authenticated using SPF protocols. This helps email providers verify the legitimacy of your emails and reduces the likelihood of them being marked as spam. If we’ve contacted you to suggest making these changes, please do so quickly, and contact us if you’re unsure about what to do.
Review email content and subject lines:
When you send engaging and relevant content that gives helpful information, rather anything that sounds like a ‘hard sales pitch’, your emails are less likely to be flagged by a recipient as spam. You should ensure you’re familiar with rules on ‘account related’ emails (i.e. sending essential information about an existing business account or transaction, such as confirming registration details) versus marketing emails (where you’re selling or promoting a service to customers or potential customers).
Certain phrases and words may automatically trigger a spam filter. Avoid excessive punctuation (exclamation marks, all capitals) or words such as “FREE” in either the content or subject lines. For example: “FREE TICKETS!!!!!!” may be true, but also may be flagged as spam. If you need more information, we encourage you to research further and use the resources we’ve included below.
Include Unsubscribe links:
For any marketing and promotional emails, bulk senders MUST give the option of unsubscribing with just one click directly within their email campaigns. An unsubscribe link is automatically added to your email footer when you create a Marketing Merge Doc. Be cautious using Confirmation Merge Docs for marketing, and always check the “This is Marketing” box as this will create an unsubscribe link if there isn’t already one there.
Keep your mailing lists updated:
High bounce rates and low engagement can negatively impact your sender reputation and affect deliverability. Ideally, you should only email people who’ve opted in to receive your emails. Regularly clean up your email lists to remove inactive or invalid email addresses. NEVER purchase email lists or scrape email addresses from other sites. If your audience hasn’t heard from you recently, and aren’t expecting to hear from you, there’s a greater chance they’ll mark your email as spam.
Don’t send marketing emails to people who’ve opted out:
When sending a marketing email, checking the ‘This is Marketing’ box ensures that the email won’t be sent to people who’ve unsubscribed from marketing emails from this event*.
*Email unsubscribe lists in EventsAir are event-based, so if you want an individual to be able to unsubscribe across ALL events, you should either use a contact store OR manually unsubscribe them from each event where they may be listed.
HELPFUL RESOURCES:
→ 8+ Best Practices to Improve Your Email Deliverability: https://sendgrid.com/en-us/blog/8-best-practices-to-improve-your-email-deliverability
→ 9 Reasons Why Your Emails Go to Spam: https://kinsta.com/blog/why-are-my-emails-going-to-spam/
→ A Complete Guide to 2024 Email Deliverability Updates: https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/guide-to-2024-email-deliverability-updates-what-to-expect-from-gmail-and-yahoo-mail
Need more help, or have taken all these steps and still having problems? Please lodge a support ticket.