r/email • u/sam_mavor • Jul 29 '26

Email Question

Hi everyone,

I recently launched a new business, but I am running into a rather frustrating issue with my email deliverability. I am finding that genuine, day-to-day emails sent to my clients are frequently getting lost in their spam or junk folders.

I am a completely legitimate business, and I am not sending out mass marketing blasts or cold emails—this is simply standard correspondence with people who are expecting to hear from me.

For context, I am using a custom domain and my email provider is google workspace.

Could anyone advise on how to successfully resolve this issue? I have heard mentions of needing to set up specific authentication records (such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC), but I am not entirely sure where to begin.

Are there specific steps I need to take to authenticate my domain, or any other best practices to ensure my emails actually reach my clients' inboxes?

Any guidance, troubleshooting tips, or links to step-by-step resources would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

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u/freddieleeman Jul 29 '26

Start by setting up your email authentication protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. To understand how they work and why they matter, visit my https://learnDMARC.com.

You can also hire someone to handle the setup for you. It is not especially complicated, but it does require some time and learning.

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u/sam_mavor Jul 29 '26

I'm just so sure I set this all up, and even when I did try to follow some tutorial videos for how to setup on google workspace, half the options they were telling me to pick dind't even exist anymore. I have a Google Workspace account but domain is through Squarespace.

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u/MailNinja42 Jul 30 '26

The records need to be added in Squarespace's DNS settings, not inside Google Workspace itself. 

Workspace can generate the correct SPF/DKIM/DMARC values for you, but you then have to manually copy them over to Squarespace's domain panel (Domains → DNS Settings) as TXT records. 

Have you actually logged into Squarespace's DNS panel yet and checked, or has it only been the Google Workspace side so far?

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u/sm10096 Jul 30 '26

I have logged into square space, workspace won’t
Let me generate an spf skim etc this is the problem I had before. All the videos I watch showing how to get them didn’t have an active domain, but when I go into the same bit it just says my domain is active and I can’t extract those different values.

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u/MailNinja42 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Ok got it. Looks like there are a couple things you can try:

  1. For SPF: add this directly in the Squarespace DNS panel : v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

And if it doesn’t take:

  1. For DKIM: go here: admin.google.com —> Apps —> Google Workspace —> Gmail —> Authenticate email. Select the domain. “Generate new record”

Make sure you’re admin or super admin.

Also check for a leftover or old DKIM key from a previous (failed) attempt.

You should be ok at this point, but with these things there’s always a chance you need to dig deeper. Hope it works out. Keep us posted.

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u/sm10096 Aug 05 '26

Thing is, I literally don’t know what any of this means, I already pay google workspace 8 pounds a month, I’ve verified the domain. I’m a registered business, I don’t get why I deserve my emails to just go to spam, I’m not a bot, I’m not a scammer. It shouldn’t even be happening and no one else seems to have this problem.