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Part of Dental email marketing: the practical version
Dental email marketing checklist: sender and delivery checks
A dental email marketing checklist for the technical half of a send: SPF, DKIM and DMARC alignment, seed tests, unsubscribe and a saved delivery record.
What to take away
- A send is ready only when the sending domain is authenticated: SPF, DKIM and DMARC alignment for the From address.
- Check the receiver's published sender rules against the practice's actual volume, because requirements differ by volume and can change.
- Send a seed test to a Gmail account you control and read the authentication result before the real list receives anything.
- Test the unsubscribe and preference action on the live message, across all senders.
- Save the delivered message and its headers, then compare them with the approved version.
A dental email marketing delivery checklist is a release gate for the technical half of a send. Each item should point to evidence: a configuration report, a test result or a named decision. A blank or assumed field stops the send.
Sender and delivery release checklist
- Sender, subject, preview, and reply address are accurate
- Authentication and sending domain are approved
- Every destination works on mobile while signed out
- Personalization passes empty and extreme-value tests
- Unsubscribe and preferences work across all senders
- Reply and urgent escalation coverage are ready
- Success, safety, and stop measures are defined
| Delivery check | Owner | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Sending domain | Technical owner | Approved domain and the platforms allowed to send |
| SPF, DKIM, DMARC | Technical owner | Configuration report and seed-test headers |
| Unsubscribe and preferences | Operations owner | Test on the live message |
| Replies | Operations owner | Inbox, scripts, and escalation |
| Rendering | Editor | Rendered tests and rights |
Approval Ownership and Evidence
- Audiencelist owner, saved source
- Clinical factsqualified reviewer, current support
- Privacyprivacy owner, fields and safeguards
- Creativeeditor, rendered tests and rights
- Deliverytechnical owner, authentication and seeds
- Responseoperations owner, inbox and escalation
Check receiver requirements
Google's email sender guidelines describe authentication, DNS, TLS, formatting, spam-rate, alignment, unsubscribe, and sending practices for mail to personal Gmail accounts. Google's bulk-sender rules, which add DMARC and one-click unsubscribe, start at 5,000 or more messages a day to personal Gmail accounts.
Requirements differ by volume and can change, so verify the current page against the practice's actual stream.
SPF, DKIM and DMARC in plain terms
Three records prove that mail from the practice's domain really comes from the practice. Each answers a different question, and the checklist needs all three to pass.
- SPF is an authentication protocol that lists the IP addresses in a DNS TXT record that are authorized to send email on behalf of a domain.
- DKIM adds a digital signature to email headers, so a receiver can check that the content has not changed.
- DMARC uses SPF and DKIM to validate the sender, and lets the domain owner set a policy for unauthenticated messages.
When a platform sends on the practice's behalf, the From domain is still the practice's own. That means an SPF record listing every host that sends for the domain, a DKIM key the practice controls, and a DMARC record that passes alignment for the From address.
Alignment fails when the domain that passed SPF or DKIM is not the domain in the From header. A seed test sent to a Gmail account you control shows the result.
Run the seed test
Send the approved message to a Gmail account you control before the real list receives it. Open the original headers and read the SPF, DKIM and DMARC results. Save the headers with the campaign record.
A fail on any of the three stops the send until the technical owner has fixed the record and the test has been repeated. Do the same after any change of sending platform or domain.
Unsubscribe, preferences and reminders
Unsubscribe and preferences must work across all senders, so test them on the live message and not the template. For marketing messages, any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message.
For Canadian recipients, CASL consent is a separate gate from the delivery checks above.
The ADA's HIPAA 20 Questions advises discretion in appointment reminders and discusses reasonable requests for alternative communication. It notes that email or text can be accessible to third parties. Apply current law and qualified guidance to each message. A library of dental email marketing examples shows how reminder messages are written.
After release, capture and compare
After release, capture the delivered message, headers, links, preference action, volume, errors, and incident checks. Compare it with the approved version.
A campaign is not complete until suppression, reply routing, and destination behavior have been verified. Compare any surprise in the capture with the known dental email marketing mistakes.
Log pass, fail, and exceptions with evidence
For every checklist item, record pass, fail, not applicable, or accepted exception. Add the evidence location, reviewer, decision date, and next review. A checked box without proof cannot protect a release.
Stop the work when a mandatory privacy, security, data-quality, accessibility, or correction condition fails, even if the remaining score looks favorable.
A worked log entry reads: delivery, pass, no exception, /evidence/2026-03/seed-headers.txt, technical owner, 2 March 2026, review before the next send. The evidence path names a file or export, not a tool's home screen.
The checklist verdict and the evidence behind it stay together, so a reviewer can reproduce the reasoning without anyone's memory. The campaign-level gate sits in the launch approval checklist.
Common questions
Does a template need review every time?
Review any changed audience, data, claim, offer, destination, sender, timing, or platform behavior, even when the layout is reused.
Who can approve the final send?
Use the named owners required by the message's clinical, privacy, legal, technical, accessibility, and business risk.
What stops a campaign?
Unclear authority, wrong audience, exposed information, unsupported claims, failed opt-outs, failed authentication, unsafe routing, or unexplained technical errors should stop it.
