My emails are being rejected as spam

What to do if you are getting bounce back or undeliverable errors

Updated over a week ago

Email spam detection is a difficult battle. Spam filters try to catch all the actual spam without blocking legitimate messages.

If you are getting undeliverable errors or bounce messages when emailing a particular client or clients, here is how you can help narrow down what the problem is:

  1. If you are receiving error messages for multiple clients, are they all using the same email host? If they are all @gmail.com or @aol.com addresses, it's likely the same specific factor in your email is causing the issues.

  2. Send a plain-text message with no signature to the address. Sometimes a lot of links or images in your signature, or a lot of rich-text formatting can cause spam filters to block your messages. The best way to do this is to use our webmail.
    Send a plain message to one of the failing email addresses.
    - Login to webmail and first switch back to the Classic View by clicking the link in the upper right (if it says Updated View then you can skip this step)
    - Click Compose in upper left
    - Add a single email address in the To field that has been having issues
    - Change type to Plain Text
    - Type a message and subject similar to below. Do not add any attachments or signatures

  3. Wait 15 minutes and see if you get a bounce issue.  If not, you can try calling the client and asking if they received the email, or wait for them to reply. If you do receive a bounce message using webmail, forward it (don't copy and paste) to support@practicepanda.com and we can help you troubleshoot.

  4. Once you've confirmed that the plaintext email works, try sending a similar short test message with your signature re-enabled, or through Outlook or whichever email client you are using.

If you don't get a bounce message on the plain version of the email, then consider what else might be causing the bounce messages. Your message may be blocked if:

  • It contains too many links relative to the amount of content. Short messages that include an email signature with many links can cause this.

  • It contains too many attachments or images, or the files are suspiciously named.

  • It contains too much text formatting. Try leaving your font, color, and size at the defaults. Large amounts of text formatting are often used by spam messages and should generally be avoided.

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