Latest Articles
Everything on this site, organized by topic. Each article is written for people who understand email but haven't spent years inside mail server infrastructure.
SPF Records: What They Actually Contain and How to Read Them
SPF records are plain text, but the syntax isn't obvious. This walkthrough shows you how to read any SPF record, what each mechanism means, and how to tell whether your record covers all your sending sources.
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DKIM Signatures: How the Cryptography Works Without the Math
DKIM uses public-key cryptography, which sounds intimidating. This article explains the concept using a physical analogy that makes the mechanism clear, then connects it back to what you see in email headers.
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DMARC Policy: From Monitoring to Enforcement Without Breaking Your Email
Moving from p=none to p=reject is the goal, but doing it without first reading your aggregate reports can silence legitimate sending sources. This guide walks through the transition step by step.
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Spam Complaint Rates: What Counts, What Doesn't, and What Thresholds Matter
Not every spam complaint is created equal. Gmail's FBL, Apple's complaint data, and Yahoo's thresholds each work differently. Understanding what counts as a complaint in each system changes how you interpret your numbers.
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Why Buying an Email List Creates Reputation Damage That Outlasts the Campaign
The damage from purchased lists isn't just about the emails that bounced or the complaints that came in. The mechanisms that make the damage lasting are more subtle and more important to understand.
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Gmail's Promotions Tab: The Signals That Decide Where Your Newsletter Goes
The Promotions tab isn't necessarily bad for your newsletter. But understanding what puts email there, and what doesn't, gives you more control over where your messages land and what your subscribers experience.
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Open Rates After Apple MPP: What Your Dashboard Numbers Now Mean
Apple's Mail Privacy Protection has made open rate reporting genuinely unreliable as a measure of human engagement. This article explains the mechanism, the scale of the effect, and which metrics to watch instead.
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Re-Engaging a Cold List: A Staged Approach That Protects Your Sender Reputation
Sending to a list that's been quiet for six months or more requires a different approach than your regular sending cadence. The risk profile is different, the re-engagement sequence needs to reflect that, and the signals to watch are different too.
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