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Question

Sudden deliverability issues

  • June 22, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 7 views
Selected Car Group

Hi everyone,

We have used ActiveCampaign for newsletters for many years without major deliverability issues. Since Wednesday, our test emails and campaigns have suddenly stopped reaching inboxes properly.

ActiveCampaign shows the emails as sent, but recipients mostly do not receive them or few they land in spam/junk. We have not made any changes to our usual templates, sender domains, content style, or list setup.

What we have checked:

  • Our sending domains show as authenticated in ActiveCampaign.
  • Recent campaign performance has been strong.
  • We tested with link tracking disabled, but the issue remained.
  • Personal Gmail did not receive the test.
  • Work Outlook-email did not receive the test.
  • Personal Outlook received it in spam/junk.

From the original Outlook message details authentication appears to pass:

  • SPF: pass
  • DKIM: pass
  • DMARC: pass
  • compauth: pass

However, Microsoft classified the message as high-confidence spam:

  • SCL: 9
  • BCL: 0
  • Delivery: Junk / spam

The email appears to be sent via ActiveCampaign infrastructure and an ActiveCampaign sending IP. 

Because authentication passes and link tracking disabled did not solve it, this does not look like a normal SPF/DKIM/DMARC or tracking-link issue.

Has anyone else experienced this recently with ActiveCampaign emails suddenly going to spam or not being received, despite authentication passing?

Could this be related to an ActiveCampaign sending IP/pool reputation issue, and has anyone had support move their account to a different sending route or pool?

Any advice would be appreciated, as we need to send a campaign. Thank you. 

    1 reply

    Alanna Hurley
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    • Alanna Hurley
    • Community Manager
    • June 22, 2026

    Hi there!

    Thanks for sharing all of that detail, and yes, based on what you’ve described, this does sound more like a deliverability/reputation issue than a basic authentication setup issue.

    If SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and compauth are all passing, but Microsoft is still assigning an SCL of 9 / high-confidence spam, the filtering decision is often being driven by reputation, content, or URL analysis rather than a simple domain-authentication failure. We’ve also seen cases where Microsoft/Defender flags ActiveCampaign-hosted links or otherwise treats the message as suspicious even when authentication passes. Check your domain reputation with Google Postmaster ActiveCampaign's deliverability guide to Gmail

    A few thoughts based on what you’ve already tested:

    • Because disabling link tracking did not help, this likely is not just a tracking-link issue

    • Because multiple mailbox types are affected, this does not sound like a one-off recipient problem

    • Because this changed suddenly without template or list changes, I would want Support/Deliverability to review both domain reputation and the sending route/IP history before you send your next campaign

    If you have not already, I would open a support ticket and include:

    • Your account URL

    • A recent campaign ID or test email example

    • Full headers from a spam/junked copy

    • The exact timing of when this started

    • The fact that Gmail, work Outlook, and personal Outlook all showed placement issues, with Outlook returning SCL 9

    That will give the team the best chance of confirming whether this is tied to reputation, content fingerprinting, or a sending infrastructure issue.

    On the shared IP question specifically: it is possible for shared IP reputation to affect placement, but that usually needs to be confirmed by the deliverability team rather than assumed from headers alone. In general, IP changes are not the first fix unless the issue is clearly tied to IP reputation or bounces. How to Avoid Email Blacklists | ActiveCampaign

    If you need to send urgently, I would be cautious about sending a larger campaign before Support reviews it, since continued sends during a sudden spam-placement issue can sometimes make reputation signals worse!

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