When you send invitations, reminders, and updates through RSVPify, your goal is simple: reach your guests' inboxes so they actually see and respond to your event. This guide walks through how email reaches (or misses) the inbox, gives practical recommendations for sending through RSVPify, and covers whitelabeling, an upgraded option for sending from your own domain. It's written for anyone, whether or not you've managed email before.
đĄ RSVPify handles the technical setup for you. Things like email authentication and unsubscribe links are managed automatically on your behalf. Your job is to send relevant emails to people who want them, and this guide shows you how.
How email reaches the inbox
Every email you send passes through the recipient's mailbox provider, such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, or Apple Mail. Before showing an email to the recipient, the provider decides two things: whether to deliver it at all, and where to put it. That could be the main inbox, a secondary tab (like Gmail's Promotions tab), or the spam folder.
Providers look at three things to decide:
Your sending reputation, which works a bit like a credit score for email. Providers track how your past emails performed and whether people complained.
The content of the email, meaning whether it looks like a real, useful message with clear text, a sensible mix of words and images, and working links.
How people respond, such as whether recipients open, click, and reply, versus ignoring or marking as spam.
These decisions are made per person. A guest who often opens your emails is more likely to have them delivered to the main inbox, while someone who never opens them may, over time, have your emails routed to another tab or the spam folder. The biggest factor in reaching the inbox is simply sending emails people want to receive.
Where your email lands: inbox, Promotions tab, or spam
Getting "delivered" and landing in the main inbox aren't the same thing. Picture a package: "delivered" means it reached the building, while good placement means it was handed to the right person rather than left in a mailroom or returned. An email can arrive and still be sorted into a secondary tab or spam.
The Promotions tab is not a bad thing. In Gmail, promotional emails such as invitations, announcements, and offers often land there, and that's usually fine. Trying to trick your way into the main inbox backfires, because Gmail decides placement by how each person behaves. Send emails worth opening, and regular openers will start seeing you in their main inbox.
Staying out of spam is mostly about trust: your reputation and how often people mark you as spam. The technical protections (authentication and the unsubscribe link) are handled by RSVPify. What's left to you is emailing a clean list of people who want to hear from you, on a steady schedule. Keeping spam complaints low is the most important thing you can do.
Best practices for sending emails
Send meaningful, relevant content so recipients know why they got the email and what to do.
Write like a human and personalize using merge tags to address people by name, writing as if to one person.
Keep formatting clean and balanced: real text (not one big image), alt text on images, compressed images (~100 KB), and buttons or links instead of long bare URLs.
Avoid things that look like spam: no excessive punctuation, ALL CAPS, high-pressure sales language, or typos. Proofread every send.
Use a clear subject line and recognizable From name. No clickbait, and never put an email address in the From name field.
Include a physical mailing address in the footer. (RSVPify adds a compliant unsubscribe automatically.)
Don't over-message your audience. Segment, space out sends, and lead with value each time.
Never send payment or financial details. Use the Stripe integration instead.
â ď¸ Prohibited content. Never send sexually explicit content, illegal offers, or anything violating CAN-SPAM. Violations result in immediate account suspension.
Making sure your emails get delivered
The technical setup is handled for you. Providers want proof an email really comes from who it claims to (email authentication, using standards named SPF, DKIM, and DMARC). That's set up automatically when you send through RSVPify, so there's nothing to configure. RSVPify also adds a working unsubscribe link and processes opt-outs. You only handle authentication yourself if you send from your own domain (whitelabeling, below).
Keep spam complaints low. Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple all enforce rules for high-volume senders, and Gmail now blocks mail that fails them. RSVPify covers the technical requirements, so the part in your hands is complaints. Providers want them under 0.3%, and the strongest senders stay below 0.1%. You influence that through who you email and how often.
Protect your reputation by emailing only people who expect you, removing bounced and long-inactive addresses, starting slow with a new list, and sending on a consistent schedule.
Keep your list clean and test. Validate new lists, never buy or scrape addresses, and send yourself a test across Gmail and Outlook before a big send.
Corporate email security filters
If you invite people at companies, universities, or government offices, many of their inboxes sit behind an extra layer of protection called an email security gateway (common ones include Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Mimecast, Proofpoint, Barracuda, and Cisco). This layer scans email for phishing, scams, and malware before it reaches the person, separately from normal Gmail or Outlook filtering.
You may notice these systems:
Hold or quarantine messages for review, delaying an email or waiting for the recipient or their IT team to release it.
Rewrite your links so they can be re-checked when clicked. The link may look different in the delivered email, which is normal.
Scan or block attachments, treating anything unusual with suspicion.
The same fundamentals help here (RSVPify's authentication, a clean list, legitimate-looking content), plus:
For important corporate events, ask IT to allowlist the sender. If invitations to a company are being quarantined, their IT team can add RSVPify's sending domain (or your whitelabel domain) to trusted senders.
đĄ Whitelabeling helps with corporate filters too. Sending from your own recognized, authenticated domain is easier for a security team to trust and allowlist than a shared sending address.
â Give this to your IT team. To make sure RSVPify invitations aren't blocked, ask your IT or email administrator to allowlist RSVPify's sending addresses and IP ranges:
Sender address:
IP range:
If you use whitelabeling, ask them to allowlist your custom sending domain instead.
If a guest didn't receive your email
If someone tells you they never got your invitation or reminder, walk through these steps. Most missing emails are found quickly.
Check for a typo in the address. Confirm the guest's address is spelled correctly, and resend if needed.
Ask them to check spam or junk. If they find it, they should open it and mark it Not Spam, which helps future emails reach the inbox.
Ask them to add your sender address to their contacts. This tells their mailbox provider your emails are wanted.
For company or school email, loop in their IT team. Corporate inboxes often sit behind a security filter that blocks outside email. Share the IT allowlist details above so their team can let RSVPify through.
Feel free to copy these steps into a message to your guest.
Find and close your deliverability gaps
Quick self-check. Each "no" is worth fixing before your next big send:
List quality: is everyone someone who expects your email?
Engagement: are you removing people who haven't opened anything in months?
Complaints: are you emailing only people who want to hear from you?
Content: real text, compressed images with alt text, no wall-of-image, honest subject?
Schedule: spaced out and consistent, not bursty and repetitive?
Sender identity: recognizable From name, honest subject, footer address?
Corporate recipients: inviting people at companies? Link to documents instead of attaching, and be ready to ask their IT to allowlist the sender.
Own domain (optional): sending high volume? Consider whitelabeling.
Plan: fix list and engagement first, since they have the biggest impact, then content and schedule, then decide whether whitelabeling is worth it. Re-check after a send or two.
Email whitelabeling (upgraded option)
Whitelabeling lets you send RSVPify emails from your own domain (for example, [email protected]) instead of RSVPify's shared address. Guests see your brand as the sender, and you build your own sending reputation over time.
â Upgraded, enterprise option. Contact your RSVPify account manager to add a custom sending domain.
Why: brand trust, your own reputation, and stronger authentication alignment that corporate email systems reward.
How it works:
Tell RSVPify the domain or subdomain you want to send from (for example, send.yourcompany.com).
RSVPify gives you a set of DNS records to add.
Your IT or DNS administrator adds those exact records at your domain host.
RSVPify verifies them and confirms your domain is ready.
Set your custom From address and start sending.
đĄ The records are unique to your account. Add them exactly as provided, or verification won't complete.
Before you start: have access to your domain's DNS settings, consider using a subdomain, and allow anywhere from a few minutes to 24 or 48 hours for changes to take effect. Keep the records in place while you send from that domain.