Google Postmaster Tools and your deliverability

Google Postmaster Tools fills an important gap in your email statistics, especially since many parents use Gmail.

In your SleepPRO™ email statistics, the column Average percentage of spam reports per opened email has a note: some email services, such as Gmail, do not report spam complaints back. Their opens are left out of the spam percentage.

Gmail has no traditional feedback loop, so you cannot see which Gmail users marked your emails as spam. Google Postmaster Tools gives you this missing data, including your Gmail spam rate.

1. Why use it

It shows:

• Your spam complaint rate from Gmail users.
• The reputation of your domain and sending IPs.
• Technical problems which hurt delivery.

To set it up:

1. Make sure your domain is authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. See How to authenticate your domain name for email sending.
2. Create a Google Postmaster Tools account with your Google account.
3. Add your domain and verify it with a TXT record.
4. Start checking your data and adjust your habits where needed.

See How to create a Google Postmaster Tool account for your domain.

2. The dashboards

Postmaster Tools has an old and a new interface. This guide covers the new one. Choose your domain at the top. Each domain has its own data.

Compliance status:

• SPF and DKIM authentication: the two basic checks protecting your domain from spoofing and phishing.
• From header alignment: whether the From address matches the domains used for SPF and DKIM, a key part of DMARC.
• DMARC authentication: Google and others increasingly require it.
• Encryption: the share of your email traffic sent securely (inbound and outbound TLS).
• User-reported spam rate: the share of your emails Gmail users reported as spam.
• DNS records: whether SPF, DKIM, DMARC and other records are set up correctly.
• One-click unsubscribe: Google recommends letting people unsubscribe in one click.
• Honor unsubscribes: whether unsubscribe requests are processed quickly.

Spam: the share of emails reported as spam, out of all emails delivered to active users' inboxes.

Feedback loop: which type of identifier generates the most spam, to help improve your campaigns.

Authentication: the traffic which passed SPF, DKIM and DMARC, out of all traffic which tried.

Encryption: the share of your inbound and outbound traffic which is encrypted.

Delivery errors: the share of rejected or temporarily failed emails, with a list of reasons under the graph.

Visit old Postmaster Tools: switch to the old interface. The categories are mostly the same, except domain reputation, which is shown differently.

3. Domain reputation

Google rates your domain based on your deliverability, your authentication and spam reports. A good reputation keeps you out of spam. A poor one can badly hurt your results.

4. What it helps you do

• Track your reputation, spot authentication problems and keep your spam rate low.
• Analyze delivery errors, bounces and blocks.
• Get signals about how Gmail users respond, even without a feedback loop.
• Follow your numbers over time and make informed choices.

The result: better deliverability, a strong domain reputation, compliance with security standards, and emails which reach the parents waiting for them.