Why Are My Emails Landing in Spam or Gmail's Promotions Tab?

When you send appointment confirmations, bids, and other automated emails through Contractor Accelerator, the emails are sent through Contractor Accelerator's email infrastructure.

While we take steps to maintain strong email deliverability, no email provider can guarantee that every message will land in a recipient's Primary inbox. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and other providers use their own filtering systems to determine whether an email appears in Primary, Promotions, or Spam.

These decisions can also vary from one recipient to another.

This guide explains what affects email placement, what Contractor Accelerator monitors on our side, and what you can do to help improve deliverability.

Understanding How Email Filtering Works

Email providers evaluate many different signals when deciding where to place a message, including:

• Sending domain and IP reputation: Is the technical source of the email authenticated and trustworthy?
• Email content and design: Does the message contain very little text, excessive images, multiple links, or language commonly associated with promotional or spam messages?
• Recipient engagement: Does the recipient normally open, click, reply to, or interact with messages from the sender?
• Recipient-specific filtering: Has the recipient previously marked similar messages as Spam, moved them to Primary, or added the sender to their contacts?
• The visible sender: Does the sender appear familiar and trustworthy to the recipient?

Because many of these factors are controlled by the recipient's email provider, an email can be properly authenticated and sent from a reputable server and still occasionally be placed in Spam or Promotions.

What Contractor Accelerator Does to Help With Email Deliverability

Contractor Accelerator manages the technical sending infrastructure for emails sent through CA.

Emails are sent from:

Sending Domain: mail.contractoraccelerator.com
Sending IP: 69.72.37.54

Contractor Accelerator maintains the authentication required for our sending domain, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

We also monitor our sending IP and domain reputation and check for blacklist/blocklist issues. If we identify an issue with the sending infrastructure on our side, our team investigates and addresses it.

These measures help establish that messages sent by Contractor Accelerator are legitimate, authenticated emails.

However, successful authentication and a healthy sending reputation cannot guarantee inbox placement. The recipient's email provider ultimately determines where each message appears.

What Can I Do to Improve My Email Deliverability?

1. Test Your Email Content

The content you add to your Contractor Accelerator email templates can affect how an email provider evaluates the message.

We recommend testing important email templates using a free email deliverability testing service such as Mail-Tester.com:

https://www.mail-tester.com/

Mail-Tester allows you to send your email to a temporary test address and provides a deliverability score along with recommendations for potential improvements.

This can help identify content-related issues such as:

• Too little text compared with images
• Excessive links
• Spam-related wording
• Formatting or HTML concerns
• Other content that may increase the likelihood of filtering

Important: A high deliverability score does not guarantee that every recipient will receive the message in their Primary inbox. It is simply another tool for identifying potential issues with your individual email content.

2. Keep Your Emails Simple

Whenever possible:

• Include enough meaningful text to explain the purpose of the email.
• Avoid emails made up primarily of images.
• Avoid unnecessary links.
• Use clear, natural language rather than overly promotional wording.
• Keep the message focused on one primary purpose or action.

3. Talk to Your Customers Early

Let customers know that Contractor Accelerator will be sending appointment information, bids, and other important communications.

Ask them to watch for those messages and, if necessary:

• Check Spam or Promotions.
• Mark the email as Not Spam.
• Move the message to their Primary inbox.
• Add the sender to their contacts or safe sender list.

Interacting with your emails can also help email providers recognize that the recipient wants to receive them.

4. Follow Up on Important Communications

Email delivery should not be the only method your team relies on for important customer communications.

If a customer hasn't responded to an important bid or other communication, we recommend following up by phone or text.

Customers can also access their bids and other project information through the Customer Portal.

The Customer Portal link is included in customer communications throughout Contractor Accelerator, but your team can also copy the Portal link directly from the Customer page and send it to the customer.

For example, if you're following up on a bid by text, you can include the Customer Portal link so the homeowner has another way to access it without relying on the original email.

5. Whitelist Contractor Accelerator When Needed

If a customer or their IT team uses stricter email filtering, they can whitelist both the visible sender and Contractor Accelerator's technical sending information.

Sending Domain: mail.contractoraccelerator.com
Sending IP: 69.72.37.54

They can also add your visible email address to their contacts or safe sender list.

6. Encourage Customer Engagement

Email providers consider how recipients interact with messages.

Encourage customers to:

• Open important emails.
• Click links when appropriate.
• Reply when a response is requested.
• Add the sender to their contacts.
• Mark legitimate messages as Not Spam if they were incorrectly filtered.

7. Understand Gmail's Promotions Tab

Gmail's Promotions tab does not mean an email was rejected or identified as Spam.

Gmail automatically categorizes messages based on its own criteria, and legitimate business emails may be placed in Promotions rather than Primary.

Contractor Accelerator cannot control which Gmail tab a recipient's email appears in.

Still Having Trouble?

If multiple customers suddenly stop receiving Contractor Accelerator emails, please contact our Support Team so we can investigate whether there is an issue affecting email delivery.

If emails are being successfully delivered but individual recipients are finding them in Spam or Promotions, we recommend:

1. Testing your email template with Mail-Tester.com.
2. Reviewing and simplifying your email content.
3. Asking the recipient to mark the message as Not Spam and add the sender to their contacts.
4. Following up on important communications by phone or text.
5. Sending the Customer Portal link directly when a customer needs immediate access to a bid.

Contractor Accelerator will continue monitoring the technical sending infrastructure, authentication, IP reputation, and blacklist status on our side. Inbox placement, however, is ultimately determined by each recipient's email provider.