Judge.me sends emails on your behalf via a third-party service provider for emails: Postmark. Here are some recommendations that we collected from Postmark that might be helpful if you want to improve your emails’ reliability:

1. Add DKIM

DKIM, short for Domain Key Identified Mail, is a digital signature that’s added to every email sent from your domain. The DKIM can be added to your domain’s DNS records. This signature is a set of characters that are not visible under a normal view from recipients’ normal view but often hidden in the source code of the emails. The recipient’s server will send a public key to your domain’s DNS to verify the records. Once it’s successful, the message is then considered to be reliable. 

Adding DKIM, while not required, DKIM records increase the legitimacy of your emails and help them to be less likely in spam folders as it makes it harder to spoof emails from your domain.

DKIMs can also be used to build up your emails’ reputation with internet service providers such as Yahoo and Google so that your emails are more likely to be delivered.

2. Add return-path

Return-path is the address where email feedbacks are sent, especially bounces. The return-path is visible in a recipient’s normal view (header) and is helpful if you want to increase your domain’s reputation.

The default return-path for emails sending through Postmark is pm_bounces@pm.mtasv.net.

To set up the return-path, you need to do the following steps:

  1. Add a CNAME record to your DNS that points to pm.mtasv.net
  2. Enter Hostname as pm-bounces
  3. Wait for 24-48 hours to receive an email from Postmark to verify the changes

3. Add SPF

SPF records are automatically handled by Postmark so you don’t have to add this information anymore. 

Postmark’s videos with instructions:

  1. How DKIM & return-path works and some FAQs 
  2. Setting up DKIM, return-path and DMARC in Google domains 
  3. Setting up DKIM, return-path and DMARC in Gandi 
  4. Setting up DKIM, return-path and DMARC in GoDaddy 
  5. Setting up DKIM, return-path and DMARC in Cloudflare

Why do you need to set up DKIM for your emails?

If you haven't set up DKIM in Judge.me (or other third-party apps that are allowed to send emails on behalf of you), the receiver (e.g. Gmail) may misunderstand that your emails are sent from a malicious program without your permission, and your email will be marked as spam.

After you have set up DKIM, the receiver will check if the DKIM signature encrypted in your email matches the DKIM stored in your domain. If the two DKIM values are matched, the receiver understands that this email is sent by you and not by a malicious program.

*Note: Any emails which have a "via xxx" next to the email address don't have their DKIM set up. Once DKIM is set up correctly, the "via xxx" next to your email address will be gone.