Why your customers aren’t getting your emails

You send the email, nothing bounces, and the customer says it never arrived. That gap has a short list of causes, and most of them you can rule out yourself in a few minutes. This guide walks the list in order, cheapest check first.

First, find out where the message went

Before touching any settings, narrow it down:

1. Ask the customer to check their spam or junk folder, and in Gmail the Promotions and Updates tabs. A message parked there was received, just filed badly.
2. Confirm the exact address. One wrong letter can point at a different mailbox that still exists, so nothing bounces back to you.
3. Ask them to search their mail for your domain name, not just your name. Some providers hide messages from unfamiliar senders in an “all mail” view.

If it is in spam, or in a tab they never open, the cause is almost always on the sending side. That is the DNS half, below.

The silent drop

Mail servers filter quietly. When a message arrives without proof it is really from your domain, the receiving server has two options: file it in spam, or drop it entirely. The drop is the painful one, because you see a normal sent message and the customer sees nothing, and neither of you is told.

The proof the big providers ask for lives in three public DNS records: SPF, DKIM and DMARC. We explain what each one does in our guide to emails landing in spam; the short version is that SPF lists the servers allowed to send for you, DKIM signs each message, and DMARC tells receivers what to do when those two fail. If any of the three is missing or broken, your mail is on the fast path to the silent drop.

Record problems that stop delivery outright

• No DMARC record at all. The most common gap we see on small business domains.
• An SPF record that misses a sending tool. Your inbox provider sends mail fine, but the system that sends your invoices or estimates does not, so those messages are the ones that vanish.
• DKIM never switched on in the mail provider’s admin, so nothing signs your mail.
• A missing or broken MX record. This one is rarer, and more serious: it means the domain cannot receive mail either, so replies to you disappear as well.

Reasons that are not DNS

Not every missing email is a records problem, and we would rather say so than sell a fix:

• Their mailbox is full, and the server quietly holds or discards new mail.
• They have a filter rule that archives your address.
• Bulk mail without an easy unsubscribe gets bulk-filtered, even with perfect records.
• An attachment type their provider blocks.

Records are the one half you control completely, which is why they are the first thing to fix.

Check your domain

Type your domain below. We read the public records for MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and your host, and show each one in plain words. It takes about 10 seconds. No sign-up, nothing installed, and we never ask for a password.

What to do about it

If the check shows Missing or Broken rows, the step-by-step fix is in why your business emails go to spam, and the Fix Kit gives you the exact record values to paste at your host, where to click, and a Recheck for every step. One honest limit again: fixed records make your mail verifiable, which is what the big providers ask for. They do not promise every message reaches the inbox.

Northvale, the business behind this check, is itself built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how we keep the guide matched to what the check reads today.