Sometimes you may receive bouncebacks from emails that you send through MC Trade, or a member may let you know that the emails you send from MC Trade are going into their spam or junk email folder. Usually this is due to an easily resolved configuration issue on your domain. Updating a few domain records, as described below, can help your recipients' email servers identify the emails you send through MC Trade as legitimate.
1. Update the SPF record on your DNS
An SPF record is used to tell a receiving mail server that the email being sent out by the MC Trade relay server is authorized to be sent on behalf of the email domain you own. Your domain should have a valid SPF record that includes the MC Trade email servers as shown below to help prevent bouncebacks from the MC Trade communicator.
An example of an SPF record if you use Microsoft Outlook Online as your email provider would be the following TXT record, using "@" as your hostname:
v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:relay1.weblinkinternational.com -all
This is strictly an example. Your exact SPF record details will depend on your email provider, and your IT provider can assist in ensuring that the correct information is included. Regardless of your specific details, the following must be included in order to validate emails you send through MC Trade:
include:relay1.weblinkinternational.com
2. Add DKIM authentication for your domain for the MC Trade communicator
DKIM is an additional form of authentication increasingly required by stricter email filtering practices, and we recommend that your email domain be authenticated for emails specifically sent through MC Trade. This requires some DNS records be added to your domain, which our support team can assist with. For frequently asked questions about DKIM and how to add it, please see this article: Custom Domain Authentication for DKIM.
3. Bouncebacks and spam filtering after you’ve put your SPF and DKIM entries in place
Your first check should be to see if your SPF record entry is valid. You can test your domain using an online validation tool such as this one: https://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html.
Some clients are still getting a small number of bounce notifications after they’ve put their SPF record in place. These emails typically include a short message detailing the reason that the receiving server rejected the message. This may include the email address not being valid, or other policies on the receiving server that are causing your messages to be filtered out. While you can't control these behaviors on your recipients' servers, your recipients can ask their IT / email admins to safelist your organization's emails if they want to receive them. We encourage you to contact clients whose domains are bouncing those emails back and see if they can safelist communications from your domain.