Google Postmaster

Google Postmaster Tools Setup

Purpose

Google Postmaster Tools is a bulk email reporting tool that provides deliverability statistics from a university's domain to Gmail. This data includes delivery errors, spam reports, and reputation scoring. The CNAME setup below is required so Waybetter can work with you to ensure optimal deliverability and mitigate potential issues.

Note: Please contact your Waybetter account manager for specifics on your account.

CNAME Setup

SUBDOMAIN/HOST: GOOGLEVALUE1

CNAME DESTINATION/POINTS TO: GOOGLEVALUE2.dv.googlehosted.com

This CNAME gives Waybetter co-administrator access to the Google Postmaster Account, allowing them to add and remove read-only accounts and troubleshoot access issues. It does not allow them to add, change, or remove other Postmaster administrator accounts or affect other Google accounts.

Technical/FAQ:

We use “administrator” for clarity; Google Postmaster refers to them as owners.
For Google Postmaster accounts, CNAME verification is typically easier and faster than a TXT record. Contact your account manager if you prefer TXT.
Revoke Waybetter’s access at any time by removing our CNAME record.
Do not remove or change other TXT or CNAME records.
Google Postmaster accounts only grant access to bulk delivery reporting dashboards; they don’t have access to Google Suite/Gmail for Education, Google Webmaster, or any other Google product.
Once approved, Waybetter will have access to the following dashboards, which show traffic that passed SPF or DKIM:

Spam Rate
Domain and IP Reputation
Feedback Loop (FBL)
Authentication
Encryption
Delivery Errors

If you aren’t subscribed to Google Postmaster reports, ask your IT department to:
Set up an administrator service account at postmaster.google.com
Grant read-only permission to various bulk email stakeholders

Example Postmaster Dashboards

Domain Reputation

Domain give a sense of whether the Gmail spam filter might mark emails from that Domain as spam. Keep in mind that spam filtering is based on thousands of signals, and that Domain & IP reputations are just two of them.2

Bad: A history of sending a high volume of spam. Mail coming from this entity will almost always be rejected at SMTP or marked as spam. Its not uncommon for other Postmaster reports to stop working if your domain reputation is bad or low.
Low: Known to send a considerable volume of spam regularly, and mail from this sender will likely be marked as spam.
Medium/Fair: Known to send good mail, but has occasionally sent a low volume of spam. Most of the email from this entity will have a fair deliverability rate, except when there’s a notable increase in global spam levels.
High: Has a good track record of a very low spam rate, and complies with Gmail's sender guidelines. Mail will rarely be marked by the spam filter.

IP Reputation

IP reputation shows which SPF authenticated IP addresses are sending from your domain and their reputation. This is helpful in understanding the reputation of a shared email service providers like Slate or MailChimp.

User Reported Spam

Shows the volume of user-report spam vs. email that was sent to the inbox. Only emails authenticated by DKIM are eligible for spam rate calculation.2

Spam Feedback Loop

Your email service provider needs to set up the Gmail Spam Feedback Loop (FBL) specific to your domain.

Authenticated Traffic

Shows traffic that passed SPF, DKIM & DMARC, overall received traffic that attempted authentication.2

SPF graph: Shows percentage of mail that passed SPF vs all mail from that domain that attempted SPF. This excludes any spoofed mail.
DKIM graph: Shows percentage of mail that passed DKIM vs all mail from that domain that attempted DKIM.
DMARC graph: Shows percentage of mail that passed DMARC alignment vs all mail received from the domain that passed either of SPF or DKIM.

Encrypted Traffic

TLS Inbound: Shows percentage of incoming mail (to Gmail) that passed TLS vs all mail received from that domain.
TLS Outbound: Shows percentage of outgoing mail (from Gmail) that was accepted over TLS vs all mail sent to that domain.

Delivery Errors

Rate limit exceeded: The Domain or IP is sending traffic at a suspiciously high rate and temporary rate limits have been put in place.
Suspected spam: The traffic is suspected to be spam by our systems.
Email content is possibly spammy: The traffic is suspected to be spammy specifically because of the content.
Bad or unsupported attachment: Traffic contains attachments not supported by Gmail.
DMARC policy of the sender domain: The sender domain has set up a DMARC rejection policy.
Sending IP has a low reputation: The IP reputation of the sending IP is very low.
Sending domain has a low reputation: The Domain reputation of the sending domain is very low.
IP is in one or more public RBLs: The IP is listed in one or more public Real-time Blackhole Lists (RBLs). Work with the RBL to get your IP de-listed.
Domain is in one or more public RBLs: The Domain is listed in one or more public Real-time Blackhole Lists. Work with the RBL to get your domain delisted.
Bad or missing PTR record: The sending IP is missing a PTR record.

Footnotes

“Gmail Postmaster Tools Overview.” Return Path Help Center, help.returnpath.com/hc/en-us/articles/224779267-Gmail-Postmaster-Tools-overview.
“Postmaster Tools” Help Marks. Google Postmaster Tools, postmaster.google.com

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