Ensuring Your Emails Are Received and Do Not Go Into Your Customer's Spam Folder

Overview

When using your existing company domain or external email address (e.g., support@[yourcompany].com) instead of using the Kayako email address (e.g., support@[yourcompany].Kayako.com) as your email channel in Kayako, at times, your messages may end up being caught in your customers' spam filters. This is a common reason why it may seem that emails you are sending in Kayako are not reaching your recipient's inbox.

Diagnosis

There are several reasons why an email could end up in the recipient's spam folder. If they have implemented rigorous spam filtering rules, and if your email has been marked as spam, then there's a likelihood that your email will end up in the spam folder. You may wonder why an email could be marked as spam even if it's a legitimate one. Well, there are also several reasons why this could happen.

One of the most common reasons is email spoofing, which is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. Another reason is your IP address may have been used by someone else for spam. So even if you did not send spam emails, your emails could get flagged as spam if you are using the same IP address that was used for sending spam messages.

When using your own domain or email address in Kayako, there are several steps you can take to ensure that your messages do not get caught by your customers' spam filters. We strongly recommend setting up two authentication tools on your email server to ensure that your emails are delivered successfully: SPF and DKIM.

When working with your customers or clients in fixing this issue, they might ask you for the sending IP addresses that Kayako uses. The following is the list of IP addresses that Kayako uses for outgoing emails for your reference:

• 168.245.111.175
• 149.72.140.4
• 168.245.101.125
• 167.89.67.6
• 167.89.49.25
• 167.89.42.72
• 192.254.121.229
• 167.89.80.79
• 167.89.80.78
• 167.89.80.77
• 167.89.80.213
• 167.89.102.105
• 167.89.102.104
• 167.89.1.155
• 52.201.201.236

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Prerequisites

• Administrative access to your email server is required to enable SPF.
• Administrative access to your DNS provider is required to enable DKIM.
• To edit your Email Channel settings in Kayako, you will need an administrator account with the 'Manage channels' permission.

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Solution

Adding SPF Protection

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an anti-spam technique used by some modern email services to ensure the email they are receiving is really coming from your email server. To enable it, you need to add an entry or two to your domain's DNS (Domain Name Service) records. This tells your customers' email servers that the emails they receive from you really originate from you. The specific steps to set up SPF vary depending on your host, but we'll go through the general process below.

1. Sign in to the DNS provider for your domain.
2. Open your DNS records for editing.
3. We must add Kayako to the list of approved senders, which can be done one of two ways, depending on your needs:
   • If you are only going to use your email address via the Kayako instance, then add a new TXT record that says:
     

     [yourcompany].com. IN TXT "v=spf1 mx include:email1.kayako.com ~all"

     Note: Replace [yourcompany] with your domain name.

   • If you are going to use the email address to send mail outside of the Kayako instance, add a new TXT record that says:
     

     [yourcompany].com. IN TXT "v=spf1 mx ip4:[IP address] 
     include:email1.kayako.com ~all"

     Note: Replace the [yourcompany] with your domain name and [IP address] with the IP address for your mail server.
4. Save your changes.

NOTE: After updating your DNS records, it may take up to 24 hours for your changes to take effect. Once they do, your SPF will be enabled.

Enabling DKIM Authentication

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an authentication mechanism to help protect both email receivers and email senders from forged and phishing emails. For any address at your default Kayako domain, all you need to do is click a checkbox to enable DKIM in the Email Channel settings.

However, If you want to enable it for a custom domain or your own company's email address, you need to add some CNAME entries to your DNS records first.

1. If you are adding DKIM for a custom domain, start by signing in to your domain's DNS provider.
   Note: For help enabling DKIM for your default Kayako domain (e.g., support@[yourcompany].Kayako.com), skip to step 5.
2. Go to your DNS records.
3. Add three new CNAME records that read as follows:    
   • email.[YOURDOMAINNAME].com, pointing to email.kayako.com
   • s1._domainkey.[YOURDOMAINNAME].com, pointing to s1._domainkey.kayako.com
   • s2._domainkey.[YOURDOMAINNAME].com, pointing to s2._domainkey.kayako.com
     NOTES:
     • Replace [YOURDOMAINNAME] with your custom domain.
     • We recommend that you wait for 24 hours to allow your updated DNS records to propagate. If you enable DKIM in Kayako before the changes have taken effect, your emails may not send correctly.
     • If any of the required CNAME records are already in use by other services, you need to contact the Kayako support team asking to set up sender authentication manually via our SendGrid account.
4. Once your changes have taken effect, sign in to Kayako and go to the admin area.
5. Click Email on the sidebar and switch to the 'Settings' tab. (see screenshot below for steps 5-7)
6. Check the Use DKIM to authenticate box.
7. Click the Save button to enable DKIM.

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Confirmation

Once you have completed the SPF and DKIM authentications, your email should be delivered to your customers' inbox instead of getting caught in their spam folders.

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