Improving System Email Delivery

Dave Carr
Dave Carr
  • Updated

In this article we’ll explain how to improve the delivery of your system generated emails. System emails consist of Order Confirmation, Print at Home/E-Ticket, Gift Vouchers, Password Reset, New Account, Auto Renewable Membership, scheduled Reports.

TIP: An email Subdomain is linked to your main email domain. To set up a Custom Domain for your website, read Custom Domains for more information.

 

What are system emails?

System generated emails are automatically sent or when requested from your Spektrix system whenever an interaction takes place:

All emails except Report Schedules are known as transactional emails. They are sent to Customers and Users to fulfil a purchase or to send information. You can read more about System Emails in our article: System Emails.

TIP: System emails are sent separately from Integrated Emails, which are delivered using Dotdigital.

 

Why do some emails end up in Spam/Junk folders?

There are several reasons why an email might end up in a Customer’s spam/junk folder. We’ve listed some of these below:

 

Print at Home Ticket Delivery

When a Customer purchases a Ticket and selects Print at Home as a delivery method, an email is sent to the Customer containing their Tickets as a PDF attachment.

Some email providers class emails with PDF attachments as marketing/spam and will deliver the email to the Customer’s spam/junk folder, or in a very small number of cases, refuse to deliver the email.

TIP: Whether an email is delivered or not is decided by the recipient’s email provider and their policies for email delivery. To help reduce spam and spoof emails, email providers will not share their policies.

If a Customer can’t find emails containing their Print at Home Tickets, we recommend asking customers to check all their sub-folders and if possible to filter these into their main inbox.

TIP: If you receive any queries from Gmail users who haven’t received their Print at Home/E-Tickets, ask them to check their Promotions folder.

 

How are system emails delivered?

When an interaction takes place in Spektrix, for example, a sale, a request is sent from Spektrix to deliver emails as part of that interaction. 

The email address system emails are sent from is specified within your system settings. If you want to change the sending address, contact Support

We send emails using one of two methods:

 

What is a Fallback domain?

A fallback domain is a domain that is owned by Spektrix. We’ll send your system emails through the fallback domain if you don’t have a fully authenticated email subdomain.

We use the fallback domain so that emails can be sent from the system with all the required domain verification as specified by all major email providers

When a Customer receives an email, it’ll look like it’s been sent by your organisation, however it will display as delivered via another email address.

In the example below, the domain appears to be spektrixtheatre.com, and the sending address is boxoffice@spektrixtheatre.com

You can also see that it says via eu.boxoffice-email.com. Emails using the fallback domain will display in this way as they can’t be sent directly from your domain. 

 

WARNING: A DMARC prevents anyone other than your organisation from using your domain to send email. This is commonly known as spoofing.

If you have set a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject against your root email domain, we won’t be able to send emails by impersonating your domain. You will need to set up an email subdomain.

 

What is an email Subdomain?

Within our organisation you’ll have a root domain. Your root domain may be the same name as your website and is usually used for your business activities.

An email Subdomain is an additional domain which sits under your root domain. You can use email subdomains for specific purposes such as sending Marketing emails through Dotdigital.

For example, if your root domain is spektrixtheatre.com, you could create a subdomain called tickets.spektrixtheatre.com.

The Subdomain sits within your root domain, however it has a separate IP address. Internet Service Providers and email servers will treat your subdomain separately to your root domain. If a Subdomain has a poor sending reputation, it won’t affect your root or other subdomains. This means email delivery on other domains won’t be affected. Read the next section for more information.

 

What is Email Sender Reputation?

An email sender reputation is a score that an ISP (internet service provider) or email provider assigns to every organisation that sends emails. A high sender reputation means emails are more likely to be delivered to recipients.

If a sender reputation falls below a certain score, the ISP may send emails to the recipient’s spam/junk folders, or reject delivery altogether.

A sender reputation score can drop if an email bounces, a Customer makes a complaint to their ISP, or marks an email as Spam.

 

What can I do to improve System email delivery?

The best method to improve system email delivery is to set up an email subdomain. A fully authenticated email subdomain proves to email providers that the emails sent from your system are legitimate.

TIP: Whether an email is delivered or not is decided by the recipient’s email provider according to their policies for email delivery. To help reduce spam, email providers will not share their policies.

 

Why do I need an email Subdomain?

Email subdomains are vital as they play a part in your sender reputation. Your domain reputation will impact your email deliverability. Sending emails from your subdomain instead of your root domain protects the integrity and sender reputation of your root domain and vice versa.

Setting up a fully verified/authenticated subdomain means that when an email is sent from Spektrix to a User or Customer, the email is sent as if it originated from your organisation due to the authentication we ask you to add to your subdomain.

A fully authenticated email subdomain proves to email providers that the emails sent from your system are legitimate.

 

How do I set up an email Subdomain?

To set up an email subdomain, speak to whoever owns your domain. This may be your  I.T team or web developer. You should consider the name of your subdomain. For example, if your root domain is yourorganisation.com, a subdomain would look like:

  • tickets.yourorganisation.com
  • boxoffice.yourorganisation.com

TIP: The email subdomain should not be used for any other purposes, for example, sending and receiving emails through Outlook, or used with any other providers such as Mailchimp.

Once you’ve decided on your subdomain, contact Support and request to set up an email subdomain. Our Support Team will add this to Mailgun, which we use to send system emails. 

Once we’ve set up your email Subdomain, we’ll ask you or your IT to add the following records against your subdomain. The values to set against these records will be sent by email:

  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework) Specifies the servers and domains that you authorise to send email on behalf of your organisation
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) Adds a digital signature to every email you send which lets the recipient’s email servers verify the email came from your organisation
  • MX Records: A standard part of email delivery. An MX record specifies the email server responsible for accepting emails on the recipient's domain
  • CNAME: A CNAME record enables opens and click tracking.

TIP: SPF, DKIM and MX Records are mandatory and must be added to ensure Spektrix is fully authenticated to send emails from your email subdomain.

Once you’ve added these records, we’ll verify everything is set up correctly, this can take up to 24 to 48 hours. Once our Support Team has verified the records have been added, the final step is to choose an alias to send from.

If, for example, your subdomain is tickets.yourorganisation.com, you could choose an alias of booking@tickets.yourorganisation.com

Once you’ve chosen your alias, we’ll add this to your system. This will take immediate effect. If you want to set a Reply To address, go to the next section.

 

How to set up a Reply To Address

As system emails are sent through Mailgun, your email subdomain will not have an email inbox. This means you won’t be able to see sent emails or receive any replies to the system emails that are sent out from your subdomain.

You can request to add a Reply To address to direct any replies to a monitored email inbox. To set a new Reply To address, let our Support Team know when the email subdomain is added to your Spektrix system.

This article should give you the information you need to help improve email delivery. To learn more emails, go to the Spektrix System Emails section of the Support Centre.