Gmail is the most popular email provider in the U.S., and due to the volume of emails sent from Slate to Gmail addresses, this article will provide a few tips to getting emails sent through Slate delivered and opened.
Hiding via Technolutions.net
Gmail may display a via technolutions.net label to the side of the From address when messages are sent from an @university.edu domain through Slate. This is a normal behavior for all off-campus email delivery systems and does not necessarily affect deliverability. Institutions may prefer to remove this designation for aesthetic and marketing reasons, as well as for deliverability reasons. To remove the via label, add DKIM configuration records in Database → DKIM Configuration.
📖 Find more information on the via label from Google.
Avoiding the promotions tab
You may find that your automated emails arrive in recipients’ Promotions tab. This happens because of a Google algorithm that identifies emails that appear promotional in nature.
Google does not provide any way for senders to avoid this tab, nor do they provide any feedback as to which tab the message is delivered. The tab selection is made by Google on a message-by-message basis and may be different for different recipients and different messages.
Here are some general guidelines that may be helpful, but as with all modern message routing, there is no guaranteed way to direct a message to the Primary tab, since that is based upon an individual recipient's engagements with each message sender.
Configure DKIM (as detailed above).
Limit the number of links in the message.
Personalize the message using merge fields, like
Dear {{Preferred}}Plain text messages have a better chance of being delivered to the Primary tab as opposed to HTML messages. When using HTML, try not to use complicated tables, large images, etc.
Keep the text conversational instead of promotional.
As always, test. Send test messages to a personal Gmail address to test the behavior of certain messages.
Consult with your marketing or communications office to ensure you are following institutional guidelines and best practices.
Additional resources
Database → Recipient Deliverability lets you enter an email address to view messages previously sent to that address along with a log of email-related activity and suppression list information.