topic Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF in Email Deliverability

Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

PlanetPluto — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 09:37:43 GMT

I'm brand new and using hubspot free.

At the moment my delivery on a few one-on-one emails is not good. I'm not using linked inboxes at moment while I am testing so emails are going out directly from within crm from a single user. The delivery success has not been good but I wanted to confirm a possible reason.

The visible 'sent' email address is from our company domain. The sending IP address which is hidden in the email header is Hubspot's. So the email address is spoofed (with good intention).

If left like that, my understanding is that many ISP's which are now becoming increasingly wary, will reject the mismatch and the email won't be received. Would I be correct in saying that a solution would be to edit the SPF record in my DNS to include Hubspot's details. This means that my DNS record authorizes Hubspot to send emails with our domain in the 'sent' field. No spoofing.

But here is the rub. On the free plan, they won't give out the spf details needed to clear this up. You have to be on a paid plan. I would ask the Hubspot people if this is wise? Surely it is better to give us a great experience for us to want to progress to the higher plans than give a free product that is broken.

Please comment in case I am missing something or have got this completely wrong. Thanks

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

jennysowyrda — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 18:36:00 GMT

Hi @PlanetPluto,

Welcome to the Community and to HubSpot!

Because 1:1 emails are sent through your connected inbox, the SPF records that you'll want to obtain are those of your email provider. While emails are sent through HubSpot, the packaging and delivery of the emails are handled by your email provider.

Thank you,
Jenny

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

PlanetPluto — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 00:58:49 GMT

Hi Jenny, I don't have a connected inbox.

The ISP (Telstra) will check emails from Hubspot IP address hidden in the email against the lookup DNS record of the domain in the "send" box (eg. jeff@goreal.com.au). If the @goreal.com.au DNS record does not contain the Hubspot IP address as an authentic source of goreal emails, it risks rejection.

My understanding is that it can be fixed by updating the goreal SPF record with details provided by Hubspot. I am advised this is only available on a paid plan. So unless we have got this wrong, the free email from Hubspot is broken if they can't get through our national Telco. It is no good getting a free ticket to a game if you have to sit in the foyer. I'm hoping they will look at providing this. Thanks.

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

PlanetPluto — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 14:48:51 GMT

By the way, the recipient contact xxx@bigpond.com (my personal address on Telstra) which is not getting the Hubspot user @goreal.com.au emails, is getting emails directly from Hubspot no-reply@hubspot.com regarding confirming subscription. Obviously the DNS lookup between sender and hidden IP address match so the emails go through.

MXtools has confirmed that the domain @goreal.com.au has no blocklist issues. Emails between goreal.com.au and bigpond.com are fine.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to get tech advice from Hubspot. Is it different on a paid plan?

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

jennysowyrda — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 18:00:42 GMT

Hi @PlanetPluto,

Thank you for the additional information! If you can provide examples of this occurring when you are sending emails to contacts outside of HubSpot, that would be great!

In regards to Support options, the Community is the Support channel available for free users. Other plans include access to HubSpot technical Support.

Thank you,
Jenny

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

PlanetPluto — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 13:51:41 GMT

Hi Jenny, having no issues sending or receiving emails to contacts outside of Hubspot.

Can you provide the necessary SPF information?

Thanks

Jeff

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

jennysowyrda — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 21:15:19 GMT

Hi @PlanetPluto,

Thanks for the information!

SPF records are only available with Marketing starter and above subscriptions.

Thank you,

Jenny

Re: Hubspot free - We are spoofing emails which will affect delivery right?

PlanetPluto — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 22:58:32 GMT

Hi Jenny, that is a shame. It means that the free Hubspot is broken for me and presumably for those in Australia that need to communicate with people using our largest ISP (Telstra). I hope that you will escalate.

It is like being given a free ticket to a game and being told told to sit in the foyer after you get there. You can listen but not see. So you go home very disappointed. Thx Jeff

E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

mrlim — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 20:50:53 GMT

I just found this thread while spending the last hour and a half in a live chat with Alexander from Hubspot, to no avail.

All our inbox email conversation replies are getting spam filtered, with no resolution in sight. This has turned into a dealbreaker for our growing business and Hubspot, unfortunately.

Please allow all users, including free ones, access to SPF and DKIM entry info.

Even for free users, it's needed for some very basic functionality. Here's our situation:

1) We have a Google Group (eg "info@ourdomain.com") forwarding to a Hubspot hosted inbox. (see: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/conversations/connect-a-hosted-email-to-your-conversations-inbox)

2) Hubspot is set to send replies as "info@ourdomain.com"

3) All Hubspot replies are failing DMARC header.from mismatch: "ourdomain.com" vs "hubspot-inbox.com"

4) We would add SPF and DKIM entries to allow Hubspot to send on behalf of "ourdomain.com" - except the information isn't available unless you're on certain plans

5) Even when we try and switch Hubspot back to send as the default hosted email address, we get this error:

We've basically reverted to copy and pasting, then replying in Gmail until we find a solution.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

SPF and DKIM entry info would really make my day right now 😃

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

jennysowyrda — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 21:42:59 GMT

Hi @mrlim,

Would you be able to collect a har file when you are trying to switch back to the HubSpot hosted email address? You shouldn't be stuck without a solution, and the error you are encountering is not expected.

You can direct message me the file.

Thank you,
Jenny

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

sabbit — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 23:29:25 GMT

I'm having emails to my cleints sent to spam or rejected becuase of this issue. If the email address being sent from is spoofed (which it is by HubSpot when sending on my behalf), what is the point? My customers can't receive my emails, so it's doing more harm than good. To circumvent, I can send directly from my own mail domain but then the emails are not logged or tracked in HubSpot, defeating the purpose.

Was this fixed? Can we get the mail record information we need to make the product work as it was intended please? If not, I may need to switch to another CRM provider, negating all the work I invested to build this CRM. Unhappy.

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

jennysowyrda — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 21:39:23 GMT

Hi @sabbit,

Are you sending emails through the conversations tool or are you sending 1:1 emails that are getting sent to spam?

If you are sending through the conversations tool, the solution will be to use a HubSpot hosted email inbox.

Thank you,
Jenny

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

sabbit — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:06:07 GMT

Hi Jenny,

I go to contacts, emails, create email. That's it. HubSpot spoofs my email address/domain so it can send on my behalf. Sending on my behalf is good. But, those mesages then going to my clients/recipients spam folder is very bad. I'm guessing it goes to recipeints spam, and Google puts a red question mark by it, because the IP used as the sender is not listed on my domain record, specifically I'm talking about an SPF and DKIM record. If those two were listed, it would literally be no problem, the IP would match and all would be fine. I saw posts that those records are only available with paid plans, but that seems impossible - it would mean that free plans are known not to work and no appempt is made to help. That can't be correct, right?

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

jennysowyrda — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 22:19:54 GMT

Hi @sabbit,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns! While we care very much about ensuring all HubSpot users have a good experience with our free products, due to the demand and popularity of our free tools, the ability to resolve individual issues for email sending will be better resolved through the tools and services included in a higher subscription.

For more information on expectations of sending emails through HubSpot, I wanted to share this resource.

Thank you,
Jenny

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

sabbit — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 01:03:35 GMT

Let me make sure I understand this absurd answer. "You care very much about users having a good experience", yet this problem, which is shared by many users who have posted numerous times complaining of the same issue and including detailed fix instructions remains unfixed and unaddressed by HubSpot. HubSpot as a company knows what the cause of the problem is because it is so well documented and community managers, including you, have agreed that it's a known problem. Your response, to resolve a known problem with your product, is for customers to pay for a higher plan.

That is ridiculous and speaks volumes about your company. It shows a clear lack of dedication to customer satisfaction, a lack of concern and willingness to solve a KNOWN PROBLEM your product has. This gives everyone more of a reason NOT to upgrade and more of a reason to move to a different product with a different company.

I'll leave you with this same ridiculous example,.....you test drive a car made by Toyota. As you drive and you're 10 miles away from the dealership, the wheel falls off. Turns out, it's a known problem. The sales person and Toyota admit it's a known problem. You say, "I'd like to drive this car to see how it is without the wheel falling off." Toyota says, "no, you can either test drive the broken car with 3 wheels or simply go buy a more expensive Toyota and you won't have the problem. By the way, we know you've just driven 10 miles away (loaded HubSpot with all my data), but if you don't want to buy a more expensive Toyota, you can walk home." Great, thanks for the incredible inconvenience and broken promises Toyota, and HubSpot. Fortunately for Toyota, that is just a silly example. For HubSpot, it's reality.

Jenny, please escalate this to someone else and have them contact me.

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

PlanetPluto — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 07:05:50 GMT

This is not good Hubspot and not what we expect from you.

I understand that in using the free version to trial we will have only the basic tools. But it is a huge difference and not acceptable for this version to be BROKEN.

If you don't show care about your subscribers, they will leave.

Jeff

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

PlanetPluto — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 07:07:44 GMT

I can offer a workaround. Which is unnecessary.

If you push for a 14 day trial of the basic paid version, you can get the neccessary records. Then pull out.

Worked for me

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

pm1 — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 19:52:30 GMT

Thanks for tip, will probably try that, if I don't decide to dump HS because of this.

Just wondering, is the SPF record value generic, or account-specific? Seems to me it might be the former in which case would you share it here please?

Thanks.

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

GGodwin87 — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 06:42:13 GMT

Hi Jenny,

whilst I understand the need for HubSpot to push people to a paid tier - some organisations like ours are not yet large enough to justift what is a very significant expense. My understanding is that HubSpot's approach is to let organisations like us use these features until we grow enough to need the ones in the paid version - this is a perfectly OK business model.

What's not OK, is to have a tool that doesn't work at all. Even worse, when we look for answers we find there's a very simple fix that we simply have to pay hundreds of dollars per month for. This really makes me want to go back to mailchimp and move to another CRM - surely Hubspot can hand over some basic details about an SPF record even if customers need to log a ticket to ask for them?

Re: E-mail Conversation Replies Won't Pass Spam Filter Without DKIM/SPF

murray — Mon, 11 May 2020 00:22:35 GMT

hey Planet Pluto,

I am in a v similar situation, also AU based and currently on the free plan while I evaluate my needs and Hubspot.

Currently I am preparing to send my first marketing email campaign via them, though UX and delivery tests to various friendly recipients (including myself) indicate a high risk of being sent to spam, especially for MS Outlook accounts.

Like you, the answer seems to be to apply an SPF record to my domain server...which seems to be a feature only available on a paid plan.

So yes, it seems their upsell model in this case it a little **bleep**-about: try it for free, have a great experience, then upgrade when you need more bells and scale. however in this case it's 'have a broken experience, and pay to fix it.'