Why are my emails going to spam?
The four things mailbox providers actually check — domain authentication, sending reputation, recipient engagement, and content — and where to look at each one.
Emails land in spam because a mailbox provider's filters scored the message as risky, and that score comes from four places: whether your sending domain is authenticated (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), whether the sending IP or domain has an established, well-behaved history, whether recipients have engaged with or complained about your mail, and what the message itself contains. There is no single "spam score" you can query — you work through these in order, starting with domain authentication, because it's the one most spam classifiers weight heaviest and the one most new senders get wrong first.
Is your sending domain verified?
Check the Domains page in the dashboard. A domain in pending or failed status means SPF, DKIM, or DMARC records are missing or misconfigured — mailbox providers use those DNS records to confirm you're authorized to send as that domain, and an unauthenticated domain is one of the strongest spam signals there is. See Domains for the exact records NevarMail asks you to add and how to read verification status.
If you're on a managed sending account (NevarMail provisioned your SendGrid subuser rather than you bringing your own), an unverified domain doesn't just risk spam placement — it blocks sending outright, with a message telling you sending is locked until the domain is authenticated. See Why didn't my email send? if that's what you're seeing.
Are you a new sender still warming up?
If you're on a managed sending account, new IP pools ramp up gradually rather than accepting full volume from day one — cold IPs that suddenly send a lot of mail are themselves a spam signal to mailbox providers. The ramp starts at 50 messages/day and increases in stages through roughly 29 days as the pool builds a sending history:
| Day | Daily cap |
|---|---|
| 0 | 50 |
| 1 | 200 |
| 3 | 500 |
| 5 | 1,000 |
| 8 | 2,000 |
| 11 | 4,000 |
| 14 | 6,500 |
| 18 | 9,000 |
| 22 | 17,000 |
| 29+ | uncapped |
This only applies to managed accounts sending through a NevarMail-dedicated IP pool. If you brought your own ESP account, you're sending from your own established (or not) IP reputation, and this ramp doesn't apply — your provider's own reputation rules do.
Are recipients marking you as spam or ignoring you?
Mailbox providers watch what recipients do with your mail — opens, clicks, deletes without opening, and spam-button clicks all feed into their reputation model for your domain. NevarMail can't see engagement signals that never reach it (a recipient marking spam inside their own mail client, for instance, isn't visible to anyone but that mailbox provider), but it does track opens, clicks, and bounces for messages sent through it. Check Analytics for delivery, open, click, and bounce rates, and see Bounces and suppressions for what happens once a recipient bounces or complains.
A low open rate combined with normal delivery rates is itself a signal worth acting on — it usually means you're reaching the inbox but recipients aren't engaging, which erodes reputation over time even though nothing is technically "failing."
Could your content be the trigger?
Spam filters also score message content: subject lines and bodies that look like classic spam (excessive urgency, ALL CAPS, link-heavy bodies with little text, mismatched display/actual sender names) get penalized independent of your domain or sending history. NevarMail doesn't score or scan your content before sending — there's no pre-send content check to point you at here — so this is a manual check on your own copy and templates, not something the dashboard will flag for you.
How do you check what actually happened to a message?
GET /api/v1/analytics/messages/:messageId returns the event timeline for one message you sent — whether it was delivered, opened, clicked, or bounced, and when. Start there for a specific "did this land" question rather than guessing from aggregate rates. See Analytics for the full endpoint reference.
- Does verifying my domain guarantee inbox placement?
- No. It removes the single strongest spam signal, but mailbox providers also weight sending reputation, recipient engagement, and content — an authenticated domain with a bad sending history or spammy content can still land in spam.
- Can I skip the IP warmup ramp if I need to send more right away?
- Not through NevarMail's dashboard or API — the ramp cap is enforced on every send to a managed, warming pool and blocks the send once you hit the day's limit, telling you the remainder goes out tomorrow. It exists to protect the reputation of a shared pool, not to gate you individually.
- Why does my open rate look low even though delivery looks fine?
- Delivery and engagement are separate signals. A message can be accepted and delivered by the receiving server (counted as delivered) while landing in a spam or promotions folder the recipient never opens — low opens with normal delivery is a common early sign of exactly that.
- Does NevarMail scan my email content for spam risk before I send?
- No, there's no pre-send content scoring today. Reviewing your own subject lines and body copy against common spam triggers is on you until that exists.
Why didn't my email send?
The most common cause is test mode blocking an unlisted recipient — here's how to tell, plus every other condition that can block a send and what each one looks like in the response.
What happens when an email bounces or someone marks it as spam?
Suppressions block future sends to an address — how they get created, when NevarMail adds them automatically versus when you have to, and how to check one before you send.