The Deliverability Playbook

What You'll Learn

A sending service can report that a message was accepted even when a recipient finds it in spam. To investigate that result, you need to know which stage was checked and which message the evidence describes. This playbook explains the message journey, the domain checks and the records you'll use to review your own sending setup.

What's Inside

• Start With One Message: learn what an address, mailbox, domain and sending service each do.
• Follow The Message: distinguish a sending attempt, receiving acceptance and the recipient's folder observation.
• Begin With Wanted Mail: record the audience, list source, recipient expectations and opt-out rules.
• Read Authentication In Context: understand SPF, DKIM and DMARC, then compare DNS evidence with a specific message's results.
• Practice Before Your Own Setup: work through passing authentication with spam placement, a failed result and an incomplete screenshot.
• Build Your Check And Response Routine: create a sending inventory, preflight decision, monitoring record, example Monday review and step-by-step incident review.

Included Resources

The expanded guide includes self-check questions with explained answers, a message-journey map and glossary, a blank and worked Sending Setup Inventory, and a Preflight And Incident Record with a monitoring example. You'll also get an AI evidence-review doc. The guide links to Gmail's sender requirements and the public GTME Deliverability Scan, with their limits explained. The doc downloads as a ZIP with the guide and its matching resources.

Who It's For

Founders and outbound operators who need to understand delivery evidence and work with the administrator responsible for their sending system. The examples don't require a live send or a DNS change.

Need help reviewing your sending setup? The Deliverability Audit reviews your sending identities, authentication and sender health, with a prioritized fix list.