How to Improve Email Deliverability: A Practical Guide for Canadian Senders

How to Improve Email Deliverability: A Practical Guide for Canadian Senders

How to Improve Email Deliverability: A Practical Guide for Canadian Senders

Business owner configuring email authentication

To improve email deliverability, prove that your mail really comes from you (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), send only to people who agreed to hear from you, keep bounces and complaints low, and watch inbox placement instead of just delivery. Do those four things on a domain you own, and most legitimate mail stops landing in spam. This guide walks through each step, with the Canadian rules that apply to commercial senders.

TL;DR

  • Deliverability is about reaching the inbox, not just being accepted by the recipient’s server. Measure both.
  • Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Start SPF with a softfail policy, then tighten it.
  • Keep a permission-based list, remove hard bounces quickly and make unsubscribing easy. In Canada, CASL also requires proof of consent.
  • Send relevant mail on a predictable schedule, and check authentication, bounces, complaints and blocklists regularly.
  • Mail from your own domain, hosted in Canada, gives you a reputation you control. We never use AI anywhere in our service, and we are committed to your privacy.

Table of Contents

Delivery and deliverability are not the same thing

Email delivery means the recipient’s mail server accepted your message, whatever folder it then went into. Deliverability goes further: it asks whether the accepted message reached the inbox rather than spam or another folder.

This matters because the numbers can mislead you. Litmus points out that a delivery rate only shows whether servers accepted mail, so a high delivery rate can sit alongside poor inbox placement. If your dashboard says 99% delivered but customers say they never see your invoices, you have a deliverability problem, not a delivery problem.

Why legitimate email ends up in spam

Most senders who land in spam are not spammers. They usually have one or more of these problems:

  • Authentication failures. The receiving server cannot confirm that your domain authorized the sending server.
  • Poor targeting and high bounce rates. Cloudflare’s documentation notes that poorly targeted emails, high bounce rates or spam complaints can lead providers to flag a domain, which sends legitimate mail to spam or blocks it.
  • Dormant subscribers and excessive sending. Klaviyo lists repeated mail to inactive contacts, too much volume and weak sender reputation among the causes of spam placement or rejection.

Klaviyo groups the major influences into four: recipient engagement, sending habits, message content and sending infrastructure. That is a useful checklist, and the rest of this guide follows it.

Step 1: Send from a domain you own

Reputation attaches to the domain and the servers you send from. If you send business mail from a free webmail address, you share that identity with millions of strangers and cannot configure authentication for it. With your own domain, you control the DNS records that prove your mail is genuine, and the reputation you build belongs to you.

A domain also looks more credible to the person reading it. An invoice from accounts@yourcompany.ca is easier to trust than one from a free address. If you do not have a domain yet, our guide on how to get a domain for email in Canada covers the practical choices.

Step 2: Authenticate with SPF, DKIM and DMARC

Authentication is the single most important technical fix. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s quick guide to email configuration describes the three layers: SPF lists authorized sending IPs, DKIM signs messages, and DMARC tells receivers what to do when checks fail. It also advises reviewing reports and rules so that important mail is not blocked by accident.

SPF DKIM and DMARC authentication roles

SPF: who may send for your domain

SPF is a DNS TXT record listing the IP addresses allowed to send mail for your domain. According to the Cyber Centre, unauthorized senders may be labelled as spam. Include every legitimate source: your mailbox host, your invoicing tool, your website’s contact form and any newsletter service. A forgotten sender is the most common reason one system’s mail goes to spam while everything else is fine.

The Cyber Centre recommends testing SPF with a softfail policy first, then moving to hardfail. It also says domains and subdomains that do not send mail should use hardfail protection. If you have a parked domain, lock it down.

SPF: who may send for your domain

DKIM: a signature on every message

DKIM adds a cryptographic signature that the receiving server checks against a public key in your DNS. It shows the message was not altered in transit and that your domain authorized it. Your email host usually generates the key pair and tells you which DNS record to publish. Once it is published, send a test message to another mailbox and check the headers for a DKIM pass.

DMARC: the policy that ties it together

DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM. The Cyber Centre explains that it directs receiving servers how to handle failures: accept, quarantine or reject. Alignment matters here: the domain in the visible From address should match the domain that passed SPF or DKIM.

A sensible rollout:

  1. Publish DMARC with a policy of none, so you only collect reports.
  2. Read the reports and fix any legitimate sender that fails.
  3. Move to quarantine once the legitimate mail passes consistently.
  4. Move to reject when you are confident nothing real is failing.

Our service is built with DKIM and DMARC alignment in mind, so your mail is set up to pass these checks from the start.

Step 3: Keep a clean, permission-based list

Mailbox providers judge you by how recipients react. A clean list is the cheapest deliverability improvement there is.

Understand your bounces

Cloudflare separates two kinds. Hard bounces come from nonexistent addresses or domains, or permanent rejection. Soft bounces come from temporary conditions such as full mailboxes, outages, rate limiting or greylisting. The practical lesson is that permanent failures should never be retried, so remove those addresses right away. Temporary failures may clear up on their own.

Collect addresses properly

Litmus recommends double opt-in, regular list verification and avoiding purchased lists, with targeted content to protect your sender reputation. Double opt-in also filters out typos and fake addresses before they become bounces.

Retire inactive contacts

Klaviyo flags repeated mail to dormant subscribers as a risk. If someone has not opened or clicked in a long time, send one re-engagement message and then stop. A smaller, interested list beats a large, ignored one.

Step 4: Follow CASL, which also helps deliverability

If you send commercial email to people in Canada, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation applies. Government guidance says commercial messages generally need express consent or qualifying implied consent. Implied consent is limited to specified circumstances and is generally time-limited.

Each message must:

  • identify the sender;
  • include a current mailing address and another way to contact you;
  • offer an unsubscribe mechanism that is honoured within 10 business days, at no cost to the recipient.

The CRTC says the sender carries the burden of proving consent, and advises keeping evidence of consent, how it was collected, your compliance procedures and unsubscribe records. Those records help with complaints and any corrective action.

There is a deliverability benefit too. A visible unsubscribe link is better than a spam complaint, because complaints damage your reputation far more than opt-outs do. This is general information, not legal advice: for a specific situation, such as a purchased list you inherited or a complicated consent history, speak to a lawyer who handles Canadian marketing law.

Step 5: Send relevant mail on a predictable schedule

Litmus’s guidance treats recipient behaviour as central: complaints, inactivity and low engagement hurt reputation, while relevance and easy opt-out reduce risk. In practice:

  • Segment. Send each group what it signed up for.
  • Keep a steady rhythm. A list that normally gets one email a month and suddenly gets a blast of five looks suspicious to filters. Increase volume gradually.
  • Make the content honest. Match the subject line to the body, use a real reply-to address, and avoid formatting that looks like phishing: a single giant image, link shorteners, or urgent all-caps language.
  • Make unsubscribing easy. It protects you more than it costs you.

Choosing the right channel is part of sending well too. If a message is time-sensitive or very short, a text may serve better than another email, and this comparison of SMS marketing versus email marketing helps you decide which fits each type of message.

Step 6: Monitor, then fix

You cannot improve what you do not watch. Litmus advises tracking delivery rate and bounces separately from inbox placement, using deliverability tools or pre-send spam testing, checking blocklists and authentication, and monitoring engagement and complaint signals.

A simple monthly routine:

  1. Send a test to a few mailboxes at different providers and see which folder it lands in.
  2. Review your DMARC reports for unknown senders or failing sources.
  3. Check bounce and complaint counts, and remove hard bounces.
  4. Search for your domain and sending IP on public blocklists.
  5. Confirm your SPF record still lists every system that sends for you.

Interpret engagement numbers with care. Klaviyo cautions that opens and clicks can include automated activity, such as Apple Mail Privacy Protection and bot clicks. Replies, conversions and complaint rates are firmer signals.

A quick diagnosis table

Symptom Likely cause First fix
Everything from one system goes to spam That system is missing from SPF or does not sign with DKIM Add it to SPF and enable DKIM for it
Mail rejected outright Failing authentication or a blocklist listing Check headers and blocklists, then correct DNS
Mail reaches inboxes at first, then slides to spam Rising complaints or dormant subscribers Prune the list, segment, slow the sending
High bounce rate after an import Old or purchased addresses Remove hard bounces, verify with double opt-in
Replies land in spam for one colleague Rule or filter on the recipient side Ask them to mark as not spam and add you to contacts

Our perspective

Deliverability is mostly reputation, and reputation is mostly honesty: sending as who you say you are, to people who asked to hear from you. That is why we think business mail belongs on a domain you own, with DKIM and DMARC alignment set up properly from day one.

We host all customer email in Canada and design the service around PIPEDA compliance. Privacy is a commitment for us, not a feature we tack on. We do not use AI anywhere in our service, and we believe your data is safe with us because it stays in Canadian hosting and out of foreign reach.

Our pricing is annual and plain, so you can set up your mailboxes, authenticate your domain and get on with your work without surprise fees.

Aaron Manfred

Put it into practice with Tinymail

If you want your business email on your own domain, hosted in Canada, we can help you set it up. Our plans are billed yearly: Solo is $19.99 per year, Startup $39.99, Business $59.99, Business Plus $99.99 and Team $179.99. Each includes spam and malware protection, an integrated calendar and contacts, IMAP/SMTP sync and webmail access, and we can support optional domain registration.

Tinymail

Your mail stays in Canada, we do not use AI anywhere, and we are committed to your privacy. Compare the plans on the Tinymail plans page and choose the mailbox count and storage that fit your team.

FAQ

What is a good first step to improve email deliverability?

Start with authentication. Publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for the domain you send from, and make sure every system that sends on your behalf is covered. Then check that a test message passes all three in the headers.

Why are my emails going to spam even though I am not a spammer?

The usual causes are failed authentication, high bounce rates, spam complaints, mail to inactive contacts or a sudden jump in volume. Check your authentication first, then look at your list quality and sending pattern.

Generally yes. Under CASL, commercial messages need express consent or qualifying implied consent, and the sender must be able to prove it. Each message also needs sender identification, contact details and a working unsubscribe. For a specific case, consult a Canadian lawyer.

Should I move DMARC straight to reject?

No. Begin with a policy of none to collect reports, fix any legitimate senders that fail, then move to quarantine and finally reject. This prevents your own genuine mail from being blocked.

Sources

This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.