Using email marketing is a common tool used in advertising campaigns all around the world. It’s an easy and fast way to reach your existing recipients and these potential ones. Find out, which filters are being used and make a practice of creating spam-free emails.

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Contents

1. What is SPAM?
2. Why do emails get to spam?
3. What do you need to do to prevent it?

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WHAT IS SPAM?

Spam is the greatest enemy of a marketer who works on Email marketing channel. Spam is defined as a series of unwanted advertisement emails, overloaded with information the addressee considers needless. These are the emails that the addressee neither ordered nor permitted to receive. It is said that an e-mail is considered spam when the complaint rate (the ratio of complaints to the number of sent emails) exceeds 0.2%.

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WHY DO EMAILS GET TO SPAM?

• filters in inboxes – from the technical point of view the main reason why mass mailing gets to the spam folder is connected with filters; they protect the inbox from unwanted and intrusive mailing. The pushy mailing may cause the irritation of a user and in consequence, the user can report the mailing as spam or set up filters to prevent it. ISPs are able to check how many recipients the same email was sent. In case of the huge number of contacts receiving the same message, ISP may qualify it as spam. What’s more, if too many users report this email as spam, there is a huge possibility that the other messages from the same sender will be automatically reported as spam as well. 
• buying up the contact base – when you decide to take such a step, you need to take into consideration the fact that many other people have done the same, and the email addresses from such contact bases are flooded with spam excessively. ISPs can easily detect when the sender sends messages to the bought contact base. ISPs analyze contacts’ activity according to the messages they receive. The lower interest of the emails the contacts receive, the bigger the probability that the next messages will get to the spam.   
• the lack of data hygiene – it is crucial to keep the data refreshed and reduced by deleting inactive email addresses. Apart from that, you can receive bounces or your emails can be captured by spam traps. These are email addresses set up in order to detect and block people who send spam. It can lead to a drastic decrease in the delivery of emails and even blocking your emails as they are considered spam. The maximal recommended ratio is 6:4 in favor of text is a sensible guideline, although taking into account the attractiveness of the visual aspect, 5:5 is acceptable as well.
• sending emails from or to generic email addresses – sending out emails to the contacts from the contact base that consists of addresses that most of them come from the same domain may in effect considered spam.
• emails sent too frequently – irritated and overwhelmed users may report your mailing as spam.
• the unpersonalized content of an email – the same content directed to the mass recipient usually includes typical slogans and words which are classified by the filers as spam. You shouldn’t use in the content of your emails expressions convincing to shopping, such as: “buy now”, “promotion”, “special price”.
• a misleading subject of the email or the subject typical for spam – using specific words such as ‘wow’, ‘extra’, ‘great’ or those connected with uncensored content is most frequently qualified as spam.
• the absence of opt-out link – the email may be qualified as spam because of the lack of the opt-out link or if it is undetectable ( in SALESmanago wizards you can’t create an email without the link). The ISPs often automatically change its color to the more visible, when they detect not visible opt-out link.
• emails overloaded with graphics – including large images that are not connected with the content of the emails, the lack of image alternate text or the descriptive titles of images, attachments increase the size of the image and in the effect it is directed to the spam folder. The messages shouldn’t contain only images and be very heavy. The heavier email, the bigger the probability of reporting as spam. 

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WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TO PREVENT IT?

• Contacts’ database

• • data hygiene – delete regularly inactive email addresses, get rid of wrong email addresses which are used as spam traps. It is also important that email addresses come from various domains and they are not generic (e.g. office@, info@).

• • contact database segmentation – put your database in order; careful segmentation based on scoring and tags (thanks to tags you can segment contacts according to their interest, sex or the source of acquisition) will provide you with satisfying sales results on the Email marketing channel. Create such emails that will hit the spot.
    >>basic rules for granting scoring to a contact
    >>assigning and using tags
  • include CAPTCHA to prevent spam bots signing up to your list – CAPTCHA, other words speaking – a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. Thanks to applying this solution spambots won’t be able to attack your sign-up, resulting in filling up your email list by artificially created email addresses.
  • send emails only to the users, who have opted-in – resign buying contacts’ databases, in the result your contacts’ database will contain only contacts from a trusted source. If the customer confirms their interest, the likelihood of their reporting your email as spam significantly decreases. Use double opt-it, thanks to that your messages will be sent to the contacts, which open the links in emails.
  • don’t send emails to users who have not opted-in – GDPR prohibits you to do so. In addition, it would significantly drive up spam complaints and destroy your sender reputation.

• Message creating

• • add the opt-out link – always include the opt-out link to the template of the email; before you send the email, check whether the link works properly. In the SALESmanago wizard you can’t finalize creating the template without the link, the system will always remind you to include it. 
  • don’t overload the email with attachments – the more you include, the greater the risk you take. Large images that are not connected with the content, attachments – filters treat them as spam.
  • ensure that your email renders well on all main email apps and devices make sure that the contact of your email displays correctly on various email services (for ex. yahoo, hotmail, outlook, interia). Bad message’s appearance may cause a drop in the recipients’  interests of your emails. 
  • test emails – in the SALESmanago system, before you send the mailing, you can spam test the email. It lets you see how the emails will be delivered to the inboxes and how they will present.
    >>creating emails
    >>sending emails
    >>spam test
    >>adding a spam testing account
  • check blacklists – it is recommended to check whether you are to be found on a blacklist. That would prevent your emails from reaching the inbox of the customer.
  • check the sender guidelines of your ISPs  – they may include many concepts already mentioned here, but it is recommended to go through them and make sure you comply with them. Every ISP may have slightly diverse guidelines that are taken into consideration while classifying emails. Examples:  Gmail guidelines or Yahoo guidelines.
  • verify your domain – It is recommended to verify your domain by adding DKIM and SPF. This will not directly help your email deliverability, but it is very helpful for identifying deliverability issues and for troubleshooting. Through this kind of verification of your domain, the ISPs will be ensured, that you can send messages using the given domain. Thanks to this, the probability of reporting your emails as spam is lower. 

• Sending messages

• • marketing automation – utilize the data you possess about the contacts to personalize the content in emails, adjust the frequency of the mailing according to the expectation of the individual. In effect, recipients will receive emails that they expect and need. Avoid keywords that are sifted through by antispam filters; avoid suspicious subjects of emails that may be recognized as spam.
    >>personalized emails and statements on a website
    >>content personalization for Landing pages

• • quality over quantity – it is vital to prefer the quality of emails in your list over their quantity. Even though it may seem counterintuitive, the approach of sending emails to as many addresses as possible will result in lower click/open rates, therefore decreasing your sender reputation.

• • review your campaign reports for analysis – monitor complaint rates, other words speaking soft and hard bounces, and also CTR value; analyze how OR and CTR value change in time. It is recommended to delete from your base the contacts, which as the result of frequent qualification as a hard bounce are marked as invalid. When you notice the drop in OR and CTR value, take into consideration the quality of the content sent to your contacts. 

• • don’t send emails too rarely – you are not the only one person that takes advantage of email marketing; it means that the users receive a lot of other offers. If you send yours too rarely, users will forget that they ever subscribed to your newsletter.

• • avoid spam traps – spam traps, other words speaking inactive email addresses. They can be created by spambots or they can be just addresses that are not used anymore. Sending emails to these addresses extremely damages your deliverability reputation.