Is your email actually arriving? A five-minute check
If nobody replies, the copy may not be the problem. Five steps to find out whether the mail arrives at all.
updated · 2026-09-20
How do you check whether your emails are being delivered?
Five checks cover it: whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC exist on your domain, whether the domain or sending server is blacklisted, your bounce rate, your open rate, and whether your actual copy trips spam filters. All five can be measured with free tools. The most common finding is not a missing record — it is sending from several systems while only one of them is listed in SPF.
In short
- Before rewriting copy, confirm the mail is arriving at all.
- Three records are required: SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Sending is not safe without all three.
- The most frequent fault is sending from multiple systems with only one listed in SPF.
- A bounce rate above two percent means the problem is the list, not the message.
Step 1: confirm the three records exist
Your domain needs three DNS records. SPF lists who may send on your behalf. DKIM signs outgoing mail as genuinely yours. DMARC states what receiving servers should do when the first two fail.
Free lookup tools show all three for any domain. Anything missing gets added wherever your domain's DNS is managed; changes typically propagate within a few hours.
Step 2: count how many systems send as you
This is where most problems actually are. Company mail goes through one provider, newsletters through a second tool, invoices from accounting software, sales email from a fourth.
All of them must appear in the SPF record. If only one is listed, mail from the others fails authentication and lands in spam. Count every system that sends under your domain.
Step 3: check the blacklists
Your domain or sending server may be on a blocklist, usually from a past bulk send to an unverified list.
Blacklist lookups are free. If you are listed, delisting requests exist, but the real work is removing the cause: stop sending to unverified lists.
Pocufy
Three agents run the part of these steps that repeats every week: defining the audience, building the list, writing each email for the person, and following up on the reply.
Step 4: look at two rates
Bounce rate should sit below two percent. Above that, the problem is your list — the addresses were never verified — and working on copy before fixing that is wasted effort.
Open rate is an indirect signal of arrival. Below roughly twenty percent with business recipients, look at delivery before you look at the message.
- Is bounce rate under two percent?
- Is open rate above twenty percent?
- Is the complaint rate under one in a thousand?
- How many people got an identical body on the same day?
- How old is the sending domain, and how long has it been warming?
Step 5: send yourself a real test
Open accounts on several different providers and send yourself the same message. See which land in the inbox and which land in spam — providers treat identical mail differently.
Test with the real copy. An empty message saying 'test' will never trip a filter; the message you actually send might.
Fix in this order
Add the missing records, then list every sending system, then verify the list, then look at the copy. Reversing that order means rewriting the message repeatedly while nothing changes.
Pocufy checks these settings during setup and warns before sending if a record is missing. Daily sending pace is capped inside the flow as well.
Common questions
Look up the three DNS records, run a blacklist check and send test messages to addresses on several different providers. An open rate below twenty percent with business recipients is also a delivery signal.
Providers treat identical mail differently, and the recipient's own corporate filter may be involved. Opening test accounts on several providers makes that difference visible.
Yes, but slowly at first. A new domain has no sending reputation: ten to twenty a day in the first week, increasing gradually, is the safe pattern.
Wherever your domain's DNS is managed — usually the registrar's control panel or your hosting provider. Changes normally take effect within a few hours.
Pocufy
Rather than doing all of this by hand, try it: paste your website link and get your first customer list in ten minutes.
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related pages
- Why emails do not arriveWhether your email gets read depends on three DNS records set up before it is ever sent. This page covers those three records and Pocufy's sending rules.
- Why do my emails go to spam?Why do the emails I send land in spam?
- How do you set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC?How do you add an SPF record?
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