My emails keep going to spam. Here is how I fixed it

spam_survivor · 2026-03-12 · 2,870 views

Spent three weeks trying to figure out why my cold emails were landing in spam. Reply rate dropped to 0.8% across all campaigns. I was ready to scrap everything and start over. Turned out it was four separate issues stacked on top of each other, and fixing them took my reply rate back to 3.5%. Here is what I found.

Issue 1: DMARC was set to p=none. I thought having DMARC at all was enough. It is not. A p=none policy tells receiving servers to accept emails even if authentication fails. Changed it to p=quarantine and saw immediate improvement in inbox placement. If your DMARC is set to none, change it today.

Issue 2: Domain was on the Barracuda blacklist. I had no idea until I ran my domains through a blacklist checker. One of my four sending domains was listed on Barracuda, which is used by a huge number of corporate email servers. I submitted a removal request, and it was cleared within 48 hours. Lesson learned: check blacklists monthly, not just when things go wrong.

Issue 3: Tracking pixels were enabled. I had open tracking turned on in Instantly because I wanted to see open rates. Bad move. Tracking pixels are invisible images embedded in your email. Spam filters detect them and use them as a spam signal. I turned off open tracking completely and switched to tracking replies only. Reply data is more useful anyway.

Issue 4: Sending volume was too high. I was pushing 40 emails per day per inbox. Google Workspace inboxes should stay at 15-20 max. I dropped to 15 per inbox and added more inboxes to maintain total volume. The per-inbox volume drop alone made a noticeable difference.

Results after fixing all four: Inbox placement went from roughly 45% to 88% within 10 days. Reply rate climbed from 0.8% to 3.5% over the following two weeks. Same email copy, same prospect lists — the only changes were infrastructure and settings.

If your campaigns are underperforming, run through these four checks before you blame your copy. Nine times out of ten, it is a deliverability problem, not a copywriting problem.