Why Constant Contact emails go to junk (and how to fix it)

1. 1
   Send yourself a test email from Constant Contact to a personal Gmail address.
2. 2
   Open it and click the small arrow under the sender’s name.
3. 3
   Look at the address it came from. If you see ccsend.com anywhere in it, you haven’t self-authenticated yet. Replies still come to you, which is why most people never notice.

Hank owns a hardware store and emails a weekly deals list from hank@millerhardware.com. When customers open it, the sender address shows a long ccsend.com address instead of his. Gmail sees bulk email that isn’t from his own domain, and more of it goes to junk each month. Hank self-authenticates his domain. Two days later his emails go out from his own address again.

1. 1
   Log in to Constant Contact, click your name in the top right and choose Settings.
2. 2
   Open the Advanced settings tab and click Add self-authentication.
3. 3
   Pick the option with CNAME records (the first one) and click Continue. Choose your domain and click Continue again.
4. 4
   Click Copy information and send it to whoever looks after your website. They add those lines where your domain is managed (often GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Squarespace, Wix or your web host).
5. 5
   Wait a day or two, then go back to the same page and click Check status. When it’s ready, click Activate.

Then it’s usually what you send or who you send it to:

1. 1
   Old or bought lists. People who never signed up mark email as spam, and every report hurts. Remove anyone who hasn’t opened anything in a long time.
2. 2
   Sending from your everyday mailbox too. Big sends from Outlook or Gmail hurt your normal email. The newsletter guide explains why.
3. 3
   Your other tools. Your invoicing app or website form may still be sending without your domain’s name on it, which drags everything down. See the guide to tools that don’t send as you.