📝 How To Prevent Emails From Going To Spam
Open and click rates two of the variables many digital marketers stress over when they create campaigns. But spam filters ought to receive the same level of concern, if not more so.
Understanding what is spam and why spam filters exist is important if you are a digital marketer looking to maximize your results for your own business or that of a client. Read on to find out how it all works and what to do.
What is spam?
Online spam is defined as unwanted and unsolicited messages that are sent to a bunch of email addresses. In 2020, spam accounted for more than 50% of mail traffic, with Google blocking as many as 100 million phishing emails daily. In addition, spam reportedly costs American consumers and businesses $20 billion dollars, on average, every year.
Often, the contents of spam emails are of a commercial nature and can be linked to scammers and/or malicious websites. Spam can lead to many negative outcomes, including overflowing inboxes, abuse, identity theft, and hacking. This is where spam filters come in.
Spam filters exist across all major email service providers, including Google, Yahoo, and Outlook. They were invented to identify and screen out messages that appear to be spam based on a number of factors. These factors include:
Past engagement (opens, replies, etc.) of email recipient with sender’s messages
Whether recipient has moved sender’s last message from the inbox to the junk folder
Messages being deleted straight away by the recipient without being opened
If recipient reports a message from the sender, whether opened or not
Sender’s overall reputation with all their subscribers
Sender’s identity based on domain and ISP address
Unfortunately, these factors can filter out totally legitimate emails as well.
How can you prevent emails from going to spam?
As a digital marketer, sending email campaigns is one of the practices you will likely carry out to stay in touch with your target audience. But if your emails are getting blocked by spam filters, preventing them from reaching the intended inboxes, your efforts to reap the expected rewards will be in vain. Thankfully, there are some effective strategies you can practice to keep your emails from going to spam.
1. Use a “from” name people recognize
One of the reasons subscribers may not open an email is because the “from” name is not one they recognize. You may think attaching a real person’s name will make the email appear friendlier but that’s not necessarily the case. If the contact signed up with the company name, the email from name should indicate that’s where it is being sent from, not from the owner’s or writer’s email address. If you want to use someone’s name that is not a part of the business name, it ought to be mentioned on the company signup page or subscription box. For example, “Sign up to receive news and updates from our Mary Brown, CEO at XXXXcompany.”
2. Send emails only to contacts who agreed to receive them
If you are starting email marketing for a brand new company, it might seem tempting to purchase or rent an email list. But this tactic can hurt your open and click rates while putting the brand’s reputation at risk. A high perception of spam can lead to your emails being blocked altogether, especially if there are complaints from recipients.
Instead of seeking a shortcut, you should follow best practices to grow your email list organically. This includes getting signups through subscription forms and landing pages, and even through referrals. People signing up through these methods would automatically be giving you permission to send them emails and, therefore, would be expecting to receive them.
3. Use your own domain
Spam filters are designed to look at the domain sending an email and check its online reputation. The part of an email address that comes after the “@” symbol is the part used to identify the domain. If you are using a third party domain, it is hard to know what reputation they already have with spam filters. You may get bad results if the domain being used is linked to a high complaint rate or to shady activities. By using your own domain name, this not only identifies that the emails are coming from your brand/company, it also means you have the power to control your own online reputation.
4. Ensure you are using a trusted IP address
The IP address of an email sender is another thing that spam filters pay attention to. That’s because people who send spam try to beat the system by sending messages from many different IP addresses. In the case of a shared IP address, which allows multiple users, there are certain pros and cons to consider before using one. For instance, many emails being sent by the different users can send the signal that the IP address is an active one and, therefore, can be trusted, especially if people are opening and interacting with the messages.
On the other hand, the IP address can become blacklisted if other senders are using it to broadcast spammy messages or other unscrupulous activity. With that said, it is often best to practice sending your emails from one dedicated IP address, instead of a different one each time, especially if you plan to send a large amount of emails monthly.
5. Use segmented send lists
It is highly unlikely that all your emails will be useful to everyone on your mailing list. For example, an email with tips relating to women’s fashion will not be appreciated by most men and vice versa. An email addressing iPhone users would not be wise to send to Android or PC users (or vice versa) either. You want to get to know your audience, so you can create segmented, targeted lists that will allow you to send messages that recipients will find useful. This will help to increase your open rate and prevent future emails from going to spam.
6. Clean up your contact list
No matter how relevant your emails are, there are likely to be subscribers who hardly ever interact with your emails. Over time, these people could cause spam filters to start penalizing your emails. To prevent this, go through your mailing list to find contacts who haven’t been opening your messages.
If your emails are infrequent (say once per month), you can check which subscribers have not opened within the last six months or so and remove them from your send list. If you send emails on a more regular basis, you can remove subscribers who have not opened the last 10 emails you sent. Be careful not to delete contacts from your mailing list, however, as they can become subscribers again or you can use them for other marketing strategies.
7. Be aware of spam trigger words to avoid
There are certain spam words and phrases that spam filters look out for, whether in the subject lines or body of your emails. There are quite a few to be aware of, such as “earn xxxx weekly,” “$$$$,” “totally free,” “big sale,” “lose weight,” etc., which are commonly used in phishing and other spam-related emails. However, the main thing to keep in mind is that your emails should not sound too sales-y or like you are writing an ad. Once you keep your wording natural, conversational, and free or grammar errors, you should be fine.
If your emails are getting sent to spam, there is next to a 0% chance of them being read by your intended recipient. Even worse, your email could get blocked altogether. Follow the above best practices to ensure your email marketing efforts produce the best results.
Until next time!
Casey
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