Troubleshooting Emails in the Recipients' Spam/Junk Folder

If recipients are marking your Bullhorn emails as spam or they're landing in spam folders, the issue is usually one of three things: your sender authentication isn't configured, your domain is sending too much volume, or recipients are manually marking your emails as spam.

Check Your SPF Records

The most common reason emails from Bullhorn end up in spam is missing or misconfigured Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records. SPF records tell recipient email servers that Bullhorn has permission to send emails on your behalf.

What to do:

  1. See Updating Your SPF Records for detailed setup instructions.

  2. If this sounds outside your wheelhouse, forward that article to your IT support team—they can handle the configuration.

Once SPF is set up correctly, recipient servers will recognize your emails as legitimate.

Review Your Email Content

Recipients can manually mark any email as spam, and spam filters may flag messages that look suspicious or contain certain keywords or formatting.

What to check:

  • Ensure your emails comply with the CAN-SPAM Act (see the FTC's compliance guide for details).

  • Avoid excessive formatting, all caps, multiple exclamation marks, or spammy language.

  • Use clear sender information and unambiguous subject lines.

  • Keep your recipient list clean—don't send to bounced or invalid addresses repeatedly.

If a recipient marks your email as spam, they'll need to remove the mark themselves or you can ask them to whitelist your email address.

Check if Your Domain Is Blacklisted

If you send large volumes of emails, your domain might end up on a third-party email blacklist, which causes spam filters to block your messages.

What to do:

  1. Check your domain's blacklist status using a tool like MXToolbox or SendGrid's Blacklist Checker.

  2. If your domain is listed, contact the blacklist operator directly to appeal for removal—provide context about your sending practices.

  3. Your email domain support team may be able to assist with the appeal process.

Once your domain is delisted, emails should start reaching inboxes normally.