Gmail is the largest inbox provider for most B2C audiences. This guide covers how to set up Google Postmaster Tools, what each dashboard tells you, and how to act on the data, including what changed in Postmaster Tools v2 where the Domain and IP reputation dashboards no longer exist.
What is Google Postmaster Tools?
Google Postmaster Tools is a free diagnostic service from Google that lets senders monitor their domain health and compliance with Gmail’s sender requirements. It shows you how Gmail sees your sending, the data behind why your messages reach the inbox or get filtered to spam.
Why set up Google Postmaster Tools?
Gmail introduced its Email Sender Guidelines in February 2024, alongside the Compliance status dashboard, giving senders a direct view of where they stand. In November 2025, Gmail began ramping up enforcement on non-compliant traffic: messages that don’t meet the requirements now face temporary and permanent rejections.
Postmaster Tools is how you monitor your standing before it becomes a delivery problem.
Key benefits
• Domain performance data: How your email performs across Gmail, authentication rates, spam rates, delivery errors and encryption, all in one place.
• Your spam rate as Gmail measures it: Gmail doesn’t share recipient-level spam complaints with senders. Postmaster Tools is the only place you can see your aggregate spam rate as Gmail calculates it.
• Campaign-level signals: The Feedback loop dashboard ties spam complaints to specific campaigns using the Feedback-ID header Iterable automatically includes in every marketing send.
Please note, Gmail decides which identifiers it reports on, so not every campaign that gets complaints will appear in the Feedback loop dashboard. When one does, Iterable’s Feedback-ID includes the template, campaign and channel, so you can trace those complaints back to the exact send.
• Compliance monitoring: See the same compliance signals Google uses to flag violations, before those violations affect your delivery.
• Plain-language guidance: The new Deliverability analysis gives you a verdict on how Gmail users respond to your mail, plus a recommended next step.
• No cost: Postmaster Tools is free to use.
The critical risk
Failing Google’s requirements doesn’t just affect placement (and in some cases, delivery); it limits the help you can get. While your user-reported spam rate is above 0.3%, you’re ineligible for delivery mitigation from Google Support. You only become eligible again after staying below 0.3% for 7 consecutive days.[1]
The competitive edge
Postmaster Tools gives you direct visibility into data that many programs are flying blind on, spam rates, compliance status and delivery errors, updated daily.
Getting started
All Postmaster Tools users are now on v2. Google originally planned to retire the legacy v1 interface on September 30, 2025, then paused it after sender feedback. It lifted that pause and phased v1 out domain by domain from around August 2026, so today everyone is redirected to v2, which is also where new features such as Deliverability analysis live.
Prerequisites
• A Google account: A Gmail or Google Workspace account works.
• Access to your domain’s DNS settings: Via your registrar or hosting provider (for example GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap or Route 53).
• Your sending domain: You must own and control the root domain you’re configuring (for example yourcompany.com).
Tip: You may not have direct access to your company’s DNS manager, that’s normal. If an infrastructure team controls your domain, follow the steps below to generate the TXT or CNAME record from Google, then send those exact values to your IT, DevOps or web team in a ticket, email or Slack message. Once they confirm the record is saved, come back and complete verification.
How to set up Google Postmaster Tools
Step 1: Add your sending domain
- Click the select a domain drop-down (Top) and select the manage domains button.
- Enter your sending domain, for example, yourcompany.com. Enter just the root domain, not a subdomain or full email address.
- Click Create
Step 2: Verify your sending domain
- Navigate back to the Managed domains or the Back button
- Click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right of your domain and select ‘verify domain’
- Add the DNS record Google provides to confirm you own the domain.
How to add it to your DNS:
1. Copy the full verification string Google gives you.
2. Log in to your DNS provider (Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Route 53, Namecheap, etc.).
3. Find the DNS management section and add a new record:
Type: TXT
Name / Host: @ (represents your root domain)
Value: paste the full verification string
TTL: leave as defaultORType: CNAME
Name / Host: CNAME label
Value: paste the full CNAME destination
TTL: leave as default
4. Save the record.
Wait for propagation. DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours, though most providers update within 15–30 minutes.
Step 3: Complete verification
Once you’ve added the TXT record:
- Return to the Managed domains page.
- Click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right of your domain and select verify domain
- Click Verify next to your domain.
Pro Tip: To see dashboards for subdomains independently from the primary domain, add the subdomains to Postmaster Tools in the same way you add a primary domain. We recommend you add subdomains after adding and verifying the primary domain. If the primary domain is verified, you don’t need to verify its subdomains.
Managing permissions and granting access
Postmaster Tools access is tied to individual Google accounts. To let teammates or external experts see your domain data, add them as users on a verified domain.
Prerequisites for adding users
• You can only add users to domains that are verified.
• Anyone you invite needs a valid Google account or Google Workspace email address.
How to grant access
1. On the Manage domains page, click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right of the domain.
2. Select Manage users.
3. Click Add in the bottom-right corner.
4. Enter the Google email address and confirm.
Granting Iterable access
Follow the same steps with this address: delivery-team@iterable.com. Access is read-only, we can see your domain data, but can’t change your account or DNS configuration.
Granting access means our team can see your data directly: no back-and-forth, no screenshots, just faster answers.
• Shared visibility: Iterable’s support and deliverability teams can see your domain data without you sending manual updates.
• Faster triage: When issues come up, we can go straight to the data instead of spending time on discovery.
• Better service: For Deliverability Services engagements, our consultants always have current data, so the engagement stays focused on action, not setup.
How to use Postmaster Tools
Once data starts flowing, Postmaster Tools v2 gives you these dashboards:
A note on data volume: To protect Gmail users’ privacy, dashboards may show no data on days when your volume to Gmail is low. This applies to every dashboard below. Google doesn’t publish an exact threshold, in practice, expect to need a few hundred messages a day to personal Gmail addresses.
Checking domain health at a glance
The Manage domains page shows every domain you monitor, each with a Status and a Health indicator.
Status shows whether domain ownership is confirmed:
• Verified: DNS verification is complete and dashboards are active.
• Unverified: Verification hasn’t completed, so no dashboard data will appear. See the setup steps above.
Health shows how the domain is performing:
• No issues: The domain is authenticated, compliant and running smoothly.
• Issues detected: Action is required. The domain has deliverability or compliance problems to investigate.
• Not enough data: Your daily volume to Gmail is too low to calculate health. This is common for new domains, low-volume transactional mail, or after a drop in volume. Data will populate once you send consistently above the threshold.
Click into any domain to investigate further.
Compliance status dashboard
The Compliance status dashboard shows whether your sending domain meets Google’s Email Sender Guidelines. It’s available to all senders, not just bulk senders, and checks two sets of requirements depending on your volume.
What it checks
• All senders: SPF and DKIM authentication, DNS records, message formatting, encryption and user-reported spam rate.
• Bulk senders (5,000+ messages to Gmail in 24 hours): additionally DMARC authentication, one-click unsubscribe and honoring unsubscribes.
Reading the dashboard
Each requirement shows one of three statuses:
• Compliant: Your setup meets the requirement. No action needed.
• Needs work: Action required, the status column tells you what to fix. After making changes, allow up to 7 days for the dashboard to update.
• No data found: Not enough volume to evaluate this requirement yet. Check back once volume increases.
Deliverability analysis (new in v2)
Deliverability analysis sits within the Compliance status dashboard and is the closest thing v2 has to a replacement for the old reputation scores. Instead of a High/Medium/Low/Bad rating, it gives you a single plain-language verdict on how Gmail users are responding to your mail, with a recommended next step.
A key point: you can pass every technical requirement and still get “Users signal that they don’t want to get your email messages.” Compliance gets you through the door; recipient engagement decides where your mail lands.
Things to keep in mind
• Data covers personal Gmail accounts only, not Google Workspace.
• Changes aren’t real-time. Updates usually appear within 24 hours but can take longer.
• If you’ve added a subdomain, this dashboard still reports compliance for the root domain, using data across all subdomains. It doesn’t report per-subdomain compliance.
Troubleshooting
The dashboard hasn’t updated after I made changes. It uses a rolling average gathered over several days. Check back after 7 days.
Promotional messages have one-click unsubscribe, but it still shows Needs work. If recipients mark other messages (without one-click unsubscribe) as spam, that can affect this status. Use the Feedback loop dashboard to find which messages generate complaints.
Honor unsubscribe shows Needs work. This usually means unsubscribe requests aren’t processed within 48 hours. Check your logs for processing errors and make sure your infrastructure receives and acts on every unsubscribe request. Each mailing list should have a unique List-ID or From: address.
Spam rate dashboard
This dashboard tracks how many of your messages land in Gmail inboxes and are then manually marked as spam. That last part matters: it only counts user-reported spam. Messages Gmail routes to spam automatically, without the recipient ever seeing them, aren’t included.
That shapes how you read it. A low spam rate can mean your sending is healthy. It can also mean Gmail is already filtering so much of your mail that few messages reach inboxes to be reported. Knowing which situation you’re in is the difference between a clean bill of health and a serious problem going unnoticed.
Postmaster Tools calculates the rate from DKIM-authenticated messages only. No DKIM, no data.
Reading the dashboard
What your spam rate is actually telling you
Because only user reports count, some readings look counterintuitive:
• A low rate after a period of high spam probably means Gmail is now filtering most of your mail automatically. Fewer messages in inboxes means fewer reports. This isn’t recovery; it’s suppression.
• A rate near zero with normal Gmail volume is the same warning sign. Check whether your messages are actually reaching inboxes.
• No data usually means your daily volume to Gmail is below the reporting threshold. This is common for transactional or low-frequency senders.
After making changes, allow up to 7 days for improvements to show.
Spam reduction best practices
If your rate is elevated, start here:
• Only send to recipients who have clearly opted in.
• Confirm email addresses before subscribing people.
• Periodically check that recipients still want to hear from you.
• Remove or suppress recipients who aren’t engaging.
• Make unsubscribing easy, friction here turns into spam complaints.
• Use the Feedback loop dashboard to find which campaigns generate the most complaints.
• Meet Google’s Email Sender Guidelines.
Troubleshooting
My messages have a high spam rate. Recipients are reporting your messages after they reach the inbox. Work through the best practices above, starting with list quality and your opt-in process.
My spam rate seems very low. Gmail is likely filtering a large share of your mail to the spam folder before it reaches inboxes, so the low rate reflects smaller inbox volume, not healthy sending. Check the Delivery errors dashboard and your Deliverability analysis verdict for signs of filtering.
A high spam rate suddenly dropped to zero, or disappeared. Your sending history triggered automatic filtering: Gmail is routing most messages straight to spam, so there’s nothing in inboxes left to report. The problem hasn’t gone away. Apply the best practices above and expect a slow recovery.
My spam rate is high, but my Deliverability analysis looks fine. The verdict uses a rolling average, so it can lag behind a recent spike. Treat the spam rate as the early warning and act now, recovery is slow once Gmail starts filtering.
My spam rate is low, but I’m still seeing filtering or delivery errors. Gmail may still be filtering based on your recent history, even though fewer complaints are coming in. Keep sending consistently to clean, engaged lists, and watch the Delivery errors dashboard and Deliverability analysis for improvement.
My spam rate doesn’t match Iterable’s spam reports. Gmail don’t have a traditional FBL in place. Rather, they use signals Iterable doesn’t have access to, including user behavior and suspicious sending patterns, so the rates will differ. Use both: Iterable for campaign-level visibility, Postmaster Tools for how Gmail actually classifies your mail.
Feedback loop dashboard
The Spam rate dashboard tells you your overall spam rate. The Feedback loop dashboard tells you which specific identifiers are being picked up in sends that generate spam complaints, and you can’t fix a spam problem until you know where it’s coming from.
How it works
Every marketing send from Iterable automatically includes a Feedback-ID header. When a Gmail recipient marks a message as spam, Google reads that header and ties the complaint back to the campaign it came from. There’s nothing to set up on your end.
The ID encodes four values in this order: Template ID, Campaign ID, Channel ID and iterable. For example:
X-Feedback-ID: 4591509:3359647:33886:iterable
So any spike in complaints on this dashboard maps directly to a template or campaign you can open in Iterable.
What it shows
• Average FBL spam rate: Your spam rate across all identified campaigns, averaged per day. Click any data point to break it down by campaign. A rate near zero can reflect a delivery problem rather than clean sending, if messages aren’t reaching inboxes, there’s nothing to report.
• Identifier volume: The number of unique campaign identifiers per day. A sudden drop usually means fewer campaigns were sent, not a data issue.
Aggregated views
• From header domain: Complaints for messages with your domain in the From: header. The right view for most use cases.
• All signed domains: Messages where your domain is one of the DKIM signers. Switch to this if you send from subdomains or the From header view looks incomplete.
This dashboard and the Spam rate dashboard use slightly different datasets, so minor differences are normal. Allow up to 7 days after making changes for improvements to show.
Troubleshooting
A specific campaign has elevated spam. This is the dashboard doing its job, you now know where the problem is. In Iterable, check who was on that campaign’s list, when they subscribed, and whether the content matched what they signed up for. Stale lists, unclear opt-ins and mismatched content are the most common causes.
There are fewer Feedback-IDs than I expected. A campaign only appears once it reaches a minimum volume of complaints, so a missing campaign may simply not be generating much spam. If that campaign’s engagement is also low, check whether it’s being filtered to the spam folder.
This shows a different rate than the Spam rate dashboard. That’s expected. The Spam rate dashboard covers all DKIM-authenticated mail; this one covers only mail with a Feedback-ID. Use them together rather than treating one as the source of truth.
Authentication dashboard
Authentication is the foundation. Gmail won’t reliably deliver your mail, or show useful data in Postmaster Tools, unless SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up correctly. This dashboard shows how well your authentication is working and surfaces configuration problems before they affect delivery.
When set up correctly, expect DKIM and DMARC pass rates of 95% or higher. SPF rates are typically lower, usually because third-party senders authenticate SPF with their own domain rather than yours, which is correct behavior.
Two ways to view the data
• From header domain: Results for messages with your domain in the From: header. This is the DMARC-focused view: it tells you whether mail that appears to come from your domain is actually authenticated by it.
• DKIM and SPF domains: Pass rates for any message your domain signed, whatever the From: header says. Useful for diagnosing specific SPF or DKIM issues. This view doesn’t show the DMARC rate.
What’s outside your control
• Recipients forwarding your messages, which often breaks DKIM signatures.
• Mailing lists that modify message content or headers.
• Malicious actors spoofing or replaying your messages, which show as failures even though they aren’t your sends.
Best practices
• Configure all three: DKIM, SPF and DMARC. Partial setups leave gaps.
• Use a reputable, stable DNS provider. Failures caused by DNS instability are hard to diagnose.
• Check your DNS records regularly with a tool like Google’s Admin Toolbox.
• Use a unique DKIM key for each third-party service that sends for you, so one compromised provider doesn’t affect the rest.
Troubleshooting
Low DKIM pass rate. Usually a DNS configuration issue, auto-forwarding or a DKIM replay attack. Check that your DKIM TXT record is correctly formatted and has the right key. If you suspect replay, add an expiration time to your DKIM signatures and set up SPF as an extra layer.
Low SPF pass rate. Usually a DNS error, a third-party sender not authenticating with its own domain, or spoofing. Make sure your SPF record includes every IP and domain that legitimately sends for you. If spoofing is a concern, a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject will help.
Low DMARC pass rate. DMARC fails when both SPF and DKIM fail, or when neither aligns with the From: domain. Fix SPF and DKIM first. If you use strict alignment and send from subdomains, switching to relaxed alignment usually resolves it without weakening protection.
For a full breakdown, see Google’s Postmaster Tools dashboards guide.
Encryption dashboard
TLS encryption is a baseline Gmail requirement. This dashboard shows what percentage of your authenticated mail travels over a secure TLS connection. Aim for close to 100% on both metrics; anything meaningfully lower is worth investigating.
• TLS inbound: The percentage of messages from your domain that reached Gmail over TLS, out of all messages Gmail received from your domain.
• TLS outbound: The percentage of messages sent from your domain over TLS, out of all messages sent from your domain.
Troubleshooting
TLS is enabled, but the dashboard shows less than 100%. Some messages are probably being handled by a server without TLS support after leaving your infrastructure. The two usual causes are recipients auto-forwarding to a server without TLS, or a DKIM replay attack, where someone resends your old signed messages. Check your TLS logs to find where the failures come from.
TLS is enabled, but the dashboard shows 0%. That points to a configuration problem. Check your TLS certificates first, invalid, expired or revoked certificates cause every connection to fail. Also confirm you’re on a current TLS version, as older versions may no longer be accepted. See Google’s guidance on sending email over a secure TLS connection for version requirements.
Delivery errors dashboard
This is your diagnostic tool. When messages are rejected or failing, it tells you what’s happening and why, so you fix the right thing instead of guessing. It shows the percentage of authenticated messages that were rejected or temporarily failed, with volumes and the reason for each error.
If the rate here is higher than your own sending logs show, there are two usual causes: recipients auto-forwarding your mail, with the forwarding server generating the errors, or someone replaying your signed messages. Neither is caused by your sending, but both inflate the number.
Where reputation still shows up: v2 no longer shows reputation scores, but Gmail still uses domain and IP reputation to decide how to handle your mail. The two “low reputation” error reasons below are now the only place Postmaster Tools tells you reputation is the problem.
Troubleshooting by error
Remember that while your spam rate is above 0.3%, Google Support won’t offer mitigation, so the escalation form won’t help until you’ve fixed that first.
Troubleshooting by error category
If your error doesn’t match one of the above, it likely falls into one of these categories.
Temporary failures. Temp fails are Gmail’s throttling mechanism, a signal to slow down. Keep sending at the same rate and permanent failures usually follow. Pause briefly, then resume more slowly. When retrying, use exponential backoff: start with a short delay and increase it with each retry.
Abuse-related permanent failures. Possible causes include message content, low IP or domain reputation, or ignoring temp fails. Follow the formatting recommendations in Google’s Email Sender Guidelines, pause, then resume at a slower rate.
Generic permanent failures. These usually point to a problem on Google’s side rather than your sending. Pause briefly and retry at a slower rate.
What happened to Domain and IP reputation?
The Domain and IP reputation dashboards are not part of Postmaster Tools v2, and Google has already discontinued the v1 dashboard. Google’s reasons for removing them:
• Reputation data isn’t easily actionable for most senders.
• Changes in sender behavior are slow to show up in the scores.
• Reputation is only one of many factors that affect deliverability, so the scores could be misleading on their own.
Gmail still uses reputation internally, you just can’t see a score any more. Instead, v2 gives you Deliverability analysis: a plain-language verdict on how Gmail users respond to your mail, with a recommended next step.
In practice, shift from asking “what’s my reputation?” to “do my sends meet Gmail’s requirements, and do recipients want them?” The dashboards that answer that are Compliance status (with Deliverability analysis), Spam rate, Feedback loop and Delivery errors.
Tips for getting the most out of Postmaster Tools
• DKIM unlocks the data. The Spam rate and Feedback loop dashboards only count DKIM-authenticated mail. Without DKIM, much of Postmaster Tools goes dark. Set up SPF and DMARC alongside it.
• Check your spam rate and Deliverability analysis regularly. Gmail requires you to stay below 0.3% and recommends staying below 0.1%. Postmaster Tools is the only place you can see this metric as Gmail measures it.
• Low volume means no data. On days when your Gmail volume is low, data is withheld to protect user privacy. This is common for new domains, low-frequency senders, or days without campaigns.
• Monitor every domain you send from. Add and verify each domain separately; each appears as its own entry, so you can track your whole sending setup in one place.
