Business email questions, answered plainly.

There are several reasons why emails get flagged as spam. The most common causes are:

• Suspicious keywords in subject or body — phrases like "special promotion", "order now", "risk free", or "great offer" trigger spam filters. Use neutral, professional language.
• Poor formatting — big fonts, flashy colours, excessive punctuation, or ALL CAPS make filters suspicious. Keep your email clean and well-drafted.
• Too many links or images — especially masked/shortened links. Most email clients block images by default; convey your message in text.
• Embedded code — JavaScript, CSS, or dynamic HTML in email bodies is blocked by most providers as a security measure.
• Missing email elements — marketing emails must include a sender name, identifiable address, subject line, unsubscribe link, and company contact info.
• Technical misconfigurations — SPF, DKIM, or DMARC not set up correctly, or your sending IP/domain being blacklisted.

We configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly from day one for all our customers. If you're still landing in spam, contact us — we'll diagnose and fix it.

Both are email protocols from the 1980s, but they work very differently.

POP3 downloads emails to one device and deletes them from the server. Good for offline access on a single machine, but different devices will show different email states.

IMAP syncs your emails across all devices and keeps them on the server. Your inbox looks the same on your phone, laptop, and tablet. This is what we recommend — and what we provide by default.

POP3	IMAP
Single device access Deletes from server after download Works offline Good for poor connectivity areas	Multiple device access Keeps emails on server Syncs across all devices Requires good connectivity

Our recommendation: use IMAP. We'll set it up correctly for all your devices.

Configure each device — phone, tablet, laptop — to use IMAP for email access. IMAP syncs your inbox, sent items, and folder structure across all connected devices and the server in real time. Every device shows the same state.

If you're still seeing sync issues after switching to IMAP, contact us and we'll resolve the configuration on each device.

DNS email records tell the internet how to route and authenticate your emails. The critical ones are:

• MX (Mail Exchange) — points to the servers responsible for receiving email for your domain. Without correct MX records, email won't be delivered at all.
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) — a text record listing servers authorised to send email on your behalf. Prevents your domain from being spoofed and improves deliverability.
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) — adds a cryptographic signature to outgoing emails, proving they genuinely came from your domain and weren't tampered with in transit.
• DMARC — combines SPF and DKIM into a unified policy that tells receiving servers what to do when checks fail (quarantine, reject, or allow). Also sends you reports on who's sending email using your domain.

We configure all four records correctly during setup. No guesswork, no missing steps.

Email protocols were designed decades ago when security wasn't a priority. They were built for a small, trusted network — not billions of daily users with malicious actors among them.

The main threats your business faces via email:

• Malware — viruses, trojans, and spyware delivered via attachments or links that can compromise your systems and data.
• Spam and phishing — unsolicited emails designed to trick your staff into revealing credentials, making payments, or clicking malicious links.
• Social engineering — targeted emails that manipulate people into taking actions that benefit the attacker.
• Spoofing — forged sender addresses that make emails appear to come from trusted contacts or your own domain.
• Human error — staff accidentally sending sensitive data or clicking dangerous links without proper training.

We implement enterprise-grade spam filtering, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, and server-level monitoring for all customers. Contact us to understand what's protecting your business right now.

Common methods spammers use to harvest email addresses:

• Web crawling — automated tools scan websites and social media for the "@" symbol and common email patterns.
• Username guessing — tools generate common name combinations (firstname.lastname@yourdomain.com) and test them.
• Purchased lists — companies exist solely to harvest and sell contact databases to anyone willing to pay.
• Offline collection — business cards collected at events, scanned, and added to databases.

It's nearly impossible to keep your address completely hidden, but our spam filters block the vast majority before it reaches you. Contact us if your inbox volume has increased significantly.

Phishing emails impersonate legitimate organisations — banks, suppliers, government bodies — to trick you into revealing passwords, payment details, or other sensitive information.

How to spot them:

• Generic salutations: "Dear Valued Customer", "Dear Network User"
• Spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors
• A sender address that doesn't match the claimed organisation's domain
• Links that look legitimate but point to a different URL on close inspection
• Urgency or fear: "Your account will be suspended in 24 hours"

Before clicking any link in an email — verify the sender, check the URL, and if in doubt, call the organisation directly on a number you know to be real.

Email spoofing is when an attacker forges the "From" field of an email to make it appear to come from someone you trust — a colleague, your bank, or even your own domain.

Why it works: SMTP (the protocol that sends email) has no built-in authentication. Anyone can claim to be anyone.

Reasons attackers spoof emails:

• Hide their real identity
• Bypass spam filters that block their own domain
• Impersonate someone the recipient trusts
• Conduct financial fraud (e.g., fake invoice from your supplier)
• Damage someone's email reputation

The defence is SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — configured correctly, these make it extremely difficult to spoof your domain. We implement all three for every customer from day one.

A masked email is a pseudo address that forwards received emails to your real inbox — without revealing your actual address to the sender.

Useful for:

• Signing up for newsletters or services you're unsure about
• Protecting your real address from being sold or harvested
• Isolating marketing email from business email

If the masked address starts receiving spam, you simply disable it — your real address is never exposed and your normal email flow is unaffected.

Emails travel through multiple servers and networks before reaching the recipient — each hop is a potential point of vulnerability.

How we protect your email in transit and at rest:

• TLS encryption — encrypts email in transit between servers, preventing interception.
• SPF / DKIM / DMARC — verifies sender identity and prevents tampering.
• Server-level spam and malware filtering — blocks threats before they reach your inbox.

We also recommend enabling MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) on all email accounts. This is the single most effective step you can take to prevent unauthorised access. Contact us and we'll help you enable it.

Attachments are the most common way malware enters a business. Before opening any attachment or clicking any link:

• Verify the sender — call them directly (not using contact info from the email itself) to confirm they sent it.
• Never send sensitive data by email — bank details, card info, passwords. Use secure alternatives.
• Don't click embedded links — go directly to the website by typing the address. Hover over links first to see the real URL.
• Use reputable security software — antivirus, anti-malware, and email scanners that monitor incoming messages in real time.
• Avoid public Wi-Fi for business email — if unavoidable, use a VPN and keep your firewall active.

Staff training is as important as technical controls. Contact us if you'd like guidance on email security practices for your team.

Not through your standard business email account — and doing so risks getting your domain blacklisted, which would affect all your normal email too.

For bulk email campaigns, use a dedicated service like MailChimp, SendGrid, Brevo (formerly SendinBlue), or MailBluster. These are built for high-volume sending with proper unsubscribe handling, deliverability tracking, and list management.

We provide your business email — the address you use for day-to-day correspondence with customers, suppliers, and partners. Want advice on which bulk email tool suits your volume and budget? Contact us.

Yes — but be selective. Every subscription is a potential source of inbox clutter or spam.

Our recommendations:

• Only subscribe to newsletters or services you genuinely use
• Verify the credibility of the subscription provider before signing up
• Use a masked email for lower-trust subscriptions (see "What are masked emails?")
• Unsubscribe promptly from anything you no longer need

We don't restrict what you subscribe to, and our spam filters protect you from the worst of it. But a clean inbox starts with discipline on sign-ups.