What To Do To Ensure Email Deliverability with SendGrid

Introduction

If your emails don't get delivered, even the best campaign is meaningless.

To maintain high email deliverability, there are surprisingly many things to do, such as domain authentication, reputation management, and unsubscribe mechanisms. Building and operating these yourself can be challenging, but with SendGrid, most of these can be completed with just console settings.

This time, I've compiled the settings that should be completed before sending your first email, following the actual SendGrid console screens.

Overview

Why Settings Are Necessary

Email recipients (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) make these judgments about incoming emails:

1. Is this sender legitimate? (Domain Authentication)
2. Does this sender have a good reputation? (Reputation)

Data shows that when domain authentication is properly configured, inbox placement rates significantly improve compared to unauthenticated domains.

With SendGrid, you can complete most of the domain authentication by simply following the screen flow.

Initial Setup (Complete Before Sending Your First Email)

By completing the following steps in order, your email sending foundation will be ready.

Domain Authentication (Steps 1-2)

First, complete domain authentication.
This ensures that emails from your domain are recognized as "from a legitimate sender" by recipients.

Step 1. Domain Authentication

References:

• Official Documentation
• Previously written article: Trying SendGrid's Domain Authentication and Single Sender Verification

Configure this from Settings > Sender Authentication.

By following the screen flow, SendGrid will automatically generate the records that should be added to DNS.
Add them to your DNS provider (Route53, Cloudflare, etc.), and click "Verify" on the SendGrid side to complete.

Keep "Automated Security" ON (default). SendGrid will automatically manage and rotate domain authentication keys.

Note that the Domain Authentication screen flow also generates DMARC records (anti-spoofing policy). Since Gmail and Yahoo require DMARC for bulk senders, it's helpful that SendGrid incorporates this as part of domain authentication.

Step 2. Link Branding

Reference: Official Documentation

Configure this from Settings > Sender Authentication (same screen as Step 1).

This replaces click tracking links in emails from SendGrid's domain to your domain.
Since spam filters also evaluate link destinations in emails, using your own domain ensures you're not affected by other SendGrid users' sending quality.

If an option like "I would also like to brand the links for this domain" appears during Step 1, you can set it up simultaneously by checking it.

Step 3. Dedicated IP + IP Warm-up

Reference: Official Documentation

Configure this from Settings > IP Addresses.

With SendGrid's shared IP, other users' sending quality might affect your emails. With a dedicated IP, your reputation is determined solely by your sending behavior.

After adding an IP, enable "Automated warmup." SendGrid will gradually increase the sending volume and automatically build trust for the IP.

Separating IPs for marketing and transactional (order confirmations, etc.) emails is even more effective.

Step 4. Subscription Tracking

Reference: Official Documentation

Configure this from Settings > Tracking > Subscription Tracking.

This feature automatically adds unsubscribe links to marketing emails and newsletters that recipients have "subscribed" to.
Gmail and Yahoo require one-click unsubscribe for bulk senders. For marketing emails, enabling this setting alone satisfies the requirement.

One thing to note: Tracking Settings has multiple items, but only Subscription Tracking directly affects deliverability. Open Tracking and Click Tracking are ON by default, but Subscription Tracking remains OFF. This is easy to miss, so be sure to check it.

Note that this setting is not required if you're only sending transactional emails like order confirmations or password resets.

Step 5. Suppression Groups

Reference: Official Documentation

Configure this from Marketing > Unsubscribe Groups.

Create unsubscribe groups for each type of email.
If recipients can only choose "unsubscribe from all," they tend to hit the spam report button. By allowing category-specific choices, they can unsubscribe from just the unwanted categories. This reduces spam reports, protecting your sender reputation.

By the way, SendGrid automatically handles suppression for addresses that bounce or report spam, so no configuration is needed for that.

Initial Setup Complete

At this point, you have established the following foundation:

• Domain Authentication (including DMARC) → Recognized as a legitimate sender
• Link Branding → Manage reputation with your own domain
• Dedicated IP + Warm-up → Build your own reputation
• Subscription Tracking → Automate unsubscribe mechanisms
• Suppression Groups → Provide options to reduce spam reports
• Automatic Suppression → SendGrid automatically handles bounces and spam reports

Continuous Improvement (Recommended)

After completing the initial setup, you can further improve deliverability and gain operational visibility with these tools.

Event Webhook

Reference: Official Documentation

Configure this from Settings > Mail Settings > Event Webhook.

You can receive events for email delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, etc. This allows you to detect delivery anomalies early and respond quickly to list quality issues.

Email Validation API

References:

• Official Documentation
• Official API Sample

Sending to invalid addresses increases bounces and lowers your reputation. You can prevent this by validating at signup or bulk validating existing lists.

Deliverability Insights

Reference: Official Documentation

View this from Stats > Deliverability Insights.

This is a deliverability dashboard built into SendGrid that you can use without additional configuration.

You can check various metrics, so it's recommended to check periodically to catch signs of problems early.

Conclusion

What you need to do to ensure email deliverability with SendGrid is actually very simple.

Step	Action	Overview
1	Domain Authentication	Configure domain authentication (including DMARC)
2	Link Branding	Convert email links to your own domain
3	Dedicated IP + Warm-up	Build independent reputation with dedicated IP
4	Subscription Tracking	Automatically add unsubscribe links
5	Suppression Groups	Provide category-based unsubscribe options

SendGrid automatically handles bounce processing and domain authentication key rotation, so your daily task is simply to occasionally check Deliverability Insights.

With other email delivery services, you need to build and operate each of these mechanisms yourself. With SendGrid, once you complete the initial settings, you'll have an environment where emails arrive in the inbox rather than the spam folder.