If you are sending marketing emails, you run the risk of occasionally having your organization's—or your target organizations'—firewall outright reject delivery of your email. Firewalls are set to monitor for and protect against abusive or fraudulent emails, such as spam and phishing. Marketing emails can and do run afoul of those firewalls despite their non-abusive intention.
When sending marketing emails through Feathr, you are using email servers Feathr contracts with through AWS (Amazon Web Services), which may be unknown to your organization's—or your marketing prospect organizations'—firewalls.
This article will guide you through the steps to request whitelisting of your Feathr email IP ranges to avoid deliverability problems caused by firewalls.
What "delivered" means
When Feathr reports an email as delivered, the recipient's mail server accepted it. What happens next is up to the recipient's email provider or their organization's security filters. The email may land in the inbox, the spam folder or the Gmail Promotions tab, or it may be held in quarantine. Feathr can't see that final placement, but the steps below fix most cases.
Step 1: Ask the recipient to check where the email went
- Spam or junk folder
- Gmail's Promotions or Updates tab
- Any inbox rules or filters that move or forward email
- Their organization's quarantine. Usually only IT can see this; see Step 3.
Step 2: Ask the recipient to safelist your sending address
If the email is in spam or Promotions, the recipient should move it to the inbox and add your From address to their contacts or safe senders list. That tells their provider to trust future emails from you.
| Email client | What to do |
|---|---|
| Gmail | Open the email and click "Not spam." Add the sender to Contacts. For Promotions, drag the email to Primary and choose to do this for future messages. |
| Outlook (desktop) | Click "Not Junk." Right-click the sender and add them to Outlook contacts. |
| Outlook.com | Click "Not Junk." Go to Settings → Mail → Junk email → Safe senders and add the From address. |
| Yahoo Mail | Click "Not Spam," then "Add to contacts" next to the sender. |
| Apple Mail | Move the email from Junk to Inbox. Right-click the sender and add to Contacts. |
If the recipient uses desktop security software (such as Norton or McAfee), they may need to add your address there too.
Tip: Ask new subscribers to add you to their contacts in your first or welcome email. One line works: "To make sure our emails reach your inbox, add [from address] to your contacts."
You can also check out our User Guide to Email Deliverability for best practices when sending emails from Feathr.
Step 3: If a whole organization isn't receiving email, request IT allowlisting
Some organizations, especially businesses, universities and government agencies, run firewalls or email security gateways that block or quarantine bulk email outright. Safelisting in a personal inbox won't help in that case. Their IT team has to allow Feathr's sending servers.
This can happen in two directions:
- Internal: Your own staff aren't receiving your Feathr emails, including test sends. Contact your IT department.
- External: Recipients at another organization aren't receiving your emails. Contact that organization's IT manager or webmaster.
Signs this is the cause: Several people at the same domain are missing the email, none of them find it in spam, and Feathr still shows it as delivered.
What to give IT
Share all of the following. IT teams often prefer to allow a sender by authenticated domain, not just by IP, so giving both makes approval easier.
-
Feathr's sending IP ranges. Each entry is a CIDR range, a block of addresses, not a single IP.
*Last updated 9.28, IP ranges can change
199.255.192.0/22 199.127.232.0/22 54.240.0.0/18 69.169.224.0/20 23.249.208.0/20 23.251.224.0/19 76.223.176.0/20 54.240.64.0/18 76.223.128.0/19 216.221.160.0/19 206.55.144.0/20 24.110.64.0/18 98.77.0.0/16
- Your From address and sending domain, for example news@yourorg.org and yourorg.org
- An example email they can trace: the subject line, the recipient's address, and the date and time it was sent. IT can use these to find it in quarantine or filter logs and release it.
Note for IT teams: In Microsoft 365, Microsoft recommends the Tenant Allow/Block List or a mail flow rule on the sender domain that also requires dmarc=pass, rather than the IP Allow List alone. In Google Workspace, admins can use the email allowlist (IPs) or an approved senders list (addresses or domains).
For information about authenticating domains in Feathr, check out How to Add an Email Sending Domain
Sample request to IT
Subject: Allowlisting request for email from [your organization] Dear [Organization] IT team, My name is [name], and I am the [title] at [your organization]. Emails we send to staff at [their organization] are being blocked or quarantined by your email security filters, even though the recipients opted in to receive them. Could you allow our emails through? Do you have a formal process or form for this kind of request? The details: - From address: [from address] - Sending domain: [sending domain] - Sending IP ranges (CIDR): [paste the ranges above] - Example message: subject "[subject]", sent to [recipient address] on [date/time] If it helps, please also check your quarantine for the example message above. Thank you, [name]