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Let's call my server "example.com". I send transactional emails via Amazon SES and am not aware of any problems there.

For email campaigns (newsletters to 12k+ contacts) though, I use SendPulse.com.

Their settings page shows green checkboxes, claiming that my SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc are all configured correctly. (I followed their instructions in my CloudFlare DNS settings.)

However, I see a high error rate in my campaigns. 2%. Most of them say "Delivery failed for other reasons".

I keep receiving emails with DMARC reports. After I anonymize them (by replacing my own domain with "example.com") and upload them to dmarcian.com, the reports say "SPF DMARC: fail-unaligned".

When I look at a raw email campaign I sent via SendPulse, I see suspicious bits like smtp.mailfrom=postmaster@sendpulse.email;, Return-Path: <postmaster@sendpulse.email>, Errors-To: postmaster@sendpulse.email, and X-Complaints-To: abuse@sendpulse.email (instead of using my own domain).

But I also see lots of encouraging bits like dkim=pass, spf=pass, and dmarc=pass, and I don't see "fail" anywhere.

SendPulse Support told me:

Since we are a mass mailing service in the technical headers of mailings which send via our service will be our technical addresses like postmaster@sendpulse.me

We don't provide dedicated servers and total white label in email service.

Am I correct that 2% error rate is insanely high?

Is there anything else I can test or reconfigure to reduce my error rate when relying on a third-party email campaign service?

My worry is that I might be "out of luck unless the vendor can change something", given their unhelpful support response.

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Ryan
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    I can't answer whether or not 2% is a high error rate. I guess a lot of times it has to do with the quality of your list, specific SPAM filters etc. A `fail-unaligned` message in your aggregate reports only tells you that the email has been sent (or forwarded) by a service that put its own bounce address as return-path. It is common practice to do so, although many services such as Sendgrid offer you a way to align the SPF domain as well, via a dedicated subdomain. DMARC requires you to authenticate your FROM domain either by SPF **or** DKIM. – Reinto Nov 25 '19 at 13:59
  • @Reinto I see in the "Marketing Campaigns Plans" tab of https://sendgrid.com/pricing/ "Dedicated IP Included". For providers that do *not* offer a dedicated IP, will return-path always be misaligned? Thanks. – Ryan Nov 25 '19 at 17:08
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    No, you can have alignment on SPF as well for shared IP spaces. For example, Sendgrid lets you use a subdomain, let's say send.example.com, for bounce handling. They will require you to publish a CNAME record that points send.example.com to a Sendgrid.net subdomain where they'll host an MX and SPF record, specific for your account. You'll still be able to have a `FROM` address in the example.com domain, while bounces will be directed to `bounces@send.example.com`. This will be in alignment for DMARC when you have a policy that says aspf=r (for "relax alignment", which is assumed if omitted). – Reinto Nov 25 '19 at 17:41

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