The Inbox Fix

Answer three questions before touching anything:

1. What sends your emails? The platform where you write your newsletters (Squarespace Email Campaigns, Kit, Flodesk, Mailchimp, MailerLite, or maybe ManyChat itself). That's your "email platform" for the rest of this guide.
2. Where does your domain live? Probably Squarespace. Check: log in at account.squarespace.com/domains. If your domain is listed there, perfect, this guide matches your setup exactly.
3. What's your From address? Look at a recent email you sent. If it says something like you@gmail.com, that has to change. Inboxes cap deliverability hard for newsletters sent from free addresses, and you can never verify a domain you don't own. You want you@yourdomain.com. You don't need a paid mailbox for this in most email platforms, you'll set the From address inside the platform once your domain is verified.

Your email platform generates a short list of DNS records that are unique to your account, usually 2 to 4 of them (mostly the CNAME type). Your job here: find that list and keep the tab open. Pick your platform:

Now you'll add each record from Step 2 to your domain's DNS. In a new tab:

1. Go to account.squarespace.com/domains and click your domain.
2. Click DNS → DNS Settings and scroll to Custom records.
3. For each record from Step 2: click Add record, pick the Type (CNAME or TXT), paste the Host into the Name field and the value into the Data or Text field. Save.

Smaller gotchas, worth 20 seconds now:

• If a record's host is blank or shown as "@", type @ in the Name field.
• SPF records (values starting with v=spf1): if you get a "Custom records not saved" error, delete any existing SPF rows first, then re-add them one at a time. Squarespace merges multiple SPF rows behind the scenes, so add each as its own record and never try to combine them by hand.
• If a value came wrapped in quotation marks and won't verify after a day, edit the record and remove the quotes.
• Paste values exactly, with no spaces before or after.
• Don't delete records you don't recognize. The MX rows are what make your actual mailbox receive mail.

Records usually go live in 15 to 60 minutes, occasionally up to 48 hours. You don't need to wait here, keep going.

DMARC is the third piece, and Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook all expect it. It tells inboxes "here's my policy when something claims to be me," and without it you fail their minimum bar.

First, check if you already have one. In the same Custom records list, look for a TXT record named _dmarc. If your platform included a DMARC record in Step 2 (Flodesk does) and you added it, that counts. Squarespace also sometimes adds one automatically, for example when you set up email forwarding. If it's there either way, you're done, skip to Step 5.

If not, add it: click Add record, choose TXT, type _dmarc in the Name field (no domain after it, Squarespace appends that automatically), and paste this in the Text field:

In plain English that means "watch and report, don't punish anyone yet." It satisfies the providers' requirement while you get everything else clean. Down the road, once things run smoothly for a month or two, a stricter policy is a nice upgrade, but p=none is the correct starting point.

Give the records 30 to 60 minutes, then run these checks:

Five changes inside your ManyChat flow, each one small:

1. Collect email with the email question type, never a free-text question. The built-in email field rejects junk formats automatically.
2. Echo it back before saving. Add a message like "Just to double-check, is {{email}} correct?" with Yes and Let me fix it buttons. Typos become hard bounces, and bounces are one of the fastest ways to look like a spammer.
3. Deliver the freebie by email, not by DM link. Say "Sent! Check your inbox." This quietly filters out fake addresses (they get nothing and never enter your list's bloodstream) and creates an immediate open, which is the first trust signal the inbox records for you. In the DM, add: "If it's not there in 2 minutes, check Promotions or Spam and drag it to your inbox. That tells Gmail we're friends."
4. Send all email from one place. Chat leads should flow straight into your email platform so everything sends from the domain you just verified. If you're on Flodesk: ManyChat has a built-in Flodesk action (on ManyChat's Pro plan). In your flow, right after the email is confirmed, add an Action step → Flodesk and pick the segment to add them to. Not on Pro? A simple Zapier connection does the same job. One domain, one reputation, every good signal compounds. Keep ManyChat for chat, your email platform for email.
5. Tag the source. Tag chat-collected subscribers something like src-manychat as they come in. You'll watch this segment separately and prune it harder (Step 8), because it will always run colder than people who sought out your website.

A reply is the single strongest signal an inbox can record about you. Once someone replies, Gmail treats the relationship as a two-way conversation, and your future emails get handled like personal mail instead of promotions. So the first email's whole job is to earn a reply, and it should go out instantly when someone subscribes. In Flodesk, that means a Workflow triggered by the segment your ManyChat leads land in, with this email as the first step and no delay before it.

Ground rules: send it from a person (Sarah at YourBrand, never a no-reply address), make the Reply-To an inbox you genuinely read, keep it mostly plain text with one link.

Here's a template, swap the highlighted parts:

The math that rules everything: Gmail wants your spam-complaint rate under 0.1% and treats 0.3% as the point of no return. On a 1,000-person list, that means three spam clicks put you at the ceiling. Small lists have zero margin, so these rules matter more for you than for the big senders:

• Set a sunset rule today. No opens or clicks in 90 days? Send one honest "should I stop emailing you?" note. Still nothing? Stop emailing them. Keeping cold subscribers on the list feels harmless and is actually the classic way good senders drift into spam. (Opens are fuzzy since Apple's privacy changes, so trust clicks and replies most.)
• Be consistent. Pick a rhythm you can keep, weekly beats daily-then-nothing. A domain that goes silent for two months and then blasts 5,000 emails looks exactly like a hacked account.
• Make unsubscribing effortless. Your email platform adds the one-click unsubscribe header and footer link automatically, so never hide, shrink, or bury it. People who can't find unsubscribe in one second press the spam button instead, and that costs you 100x more.
• Never import a purchased or scraped list, and never re-add addresses that bounced. Either one can undo everything in this guide in a single send.

Google runs a free dashboard that shows how Gmail sees you, including your exact spam rate and whether you pass their requirements. Set it up once:

1. Go to postmaster.google.com and sign in with any Google account.
2. Add your domain. Google gives you a TXT record.
3. Add it in the same Squarespace Custom records panel from Step 3 (same rules apply), then click Verify.

What to watch: the Compliance status page (everything should say OK) and the spam rate chart (under 0.1%). Small lists often show "no data yet" at first, that's normal, it fills in as your volume grows. Peek weekly for the first month, monthly after that.

Two small habits to go with it: run a mail-tester check before any big or unusual send, and if you set up the free DMARC report in Step 4, skim it Mondays for senders you don't recognize.

Set a reminder for 30 days out. Reputation doesn't reset overnight: verification helps within days, but full recovery takes 2 to 4 weeks of consistent, engaged sending. During that window, resist the urge to blast, and let the welcome flow and sunset rule do their quiet work.

At the 30-day mark, run through this:

• Gmail "Show original" still shows SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all PASS.
• Postmaster Tools spam rate is under 0.1% and compliance shows no issues.
• The sunset rule is actually running, and the coldest chunk of your list is gone or leaving.
• New ManyChat subscribers get the welcome email instantly, and some are replying.

All true and you're still seeing spam placement? The fastest lever left: email your most engaged 20% (recent clickers and repliers) a short plain-text note with a question in it. A burst of genuine replies is the strongest medicine there is. If things are still stuck after that, the problem is almost always a cold segment you're still mailing, so cut deeper.