Email marketing is known as an excellent strategy for promoting business, improving reputation, and attracting customers. Nonetheless, many things depend on the rules there, spam rules.
You may have great offers and exciting subject lines, but they will be useless if your letters are subject to the spam email filters.
Read on to know how to prevent email from going to spam and improve your chances of having a great campaign.
How Do Spam Filters Determine Which Emails Are Likely to be Spam?
First of all, email marketing spam is about offering recipients something that they do not desire and have not agreed to. Moreover, it often has harmful links or documents leading to computer circumvention or cyber-attacks. That’s why many companies and email providers have an anti-spam policy.
Usually, the receiving party has either a cloud system, the filters integrated by the provider, or a separate software on the computer. They define the spam filters identifying some aspects within the email or sender domain.
If something is wrong with a text, subject line, IP, or domain, the email will likely go to spam. In this case, content spam filters would look for specific words or content usually applied by the spammers, while a filter for the subject line would check whether the heading is accurate and reflects the text.
Certain filters will stop you at the gateway if your files relate to the known spam techniques or a low domain score. Lastly, some of the emails would go to the inbox only if pre-approved
As a result, email filters would focus on the contents of the email and look for patterns defined by the internet service providers or gateways that describe the behavior and set the rules to be followed.
Thus, spam email filters see what to block with the help of providers’ commands, knowledge on email marketing spam, specific patterns or information, like domain score, and recipient’s reports.
How to Reduce Email Spam Score
When doing an email marketing campaign, marketers should think of different things. They may want to organize a healthy email list for greater deliverability. In this regard, an email locator can help find valid emails. Yet, they should as well think of the domain and its email marketing spam score. Choosing the wrong tactics from the beginning would mean your campaign goes in vain.
Pick your domain and address wisely
To start with, if you decide to use a web client, like Gmail or Outlook, it may be a mistake. The explanation is that it has a bad rating. Thus, you would need to use an internet sender provider with a good one.
Are email campaigns sent with, for instance, Mailchimp going to spam? Yes, they can, if they have broken links or spammy words. Yet, usually, Mailchimp domains are credible, as Mailchimp is used for email marketing worldwide.
Besides, ensure that your email address reflects your name and a company name. It is a question of credibility. Any anti-spam policy would determine that long shady addresses with numbers and nicknames in their name refer to spam.
Check your domain rating regularly
Sometimes, recipients do not like the messages and mark your emails as spam. Thus, try to identify whether your domain was reported. In this regard, you have such parties as Spamhaus, that would help you identify your status. If you found your domain in the lists, you can write to the database and prove that you are credible.
Make sure your lists are valid
When you send emails to invalid addresses, it will increase your email marketing spam rating. Why? If too many emails fail to find the address, the provider will lower your reputation. It is their responsibility as well.
In this regard, you can have all your contacts in Google Sheets, and with some tools, like the email finder Google Sheet extension, find the valid ones. Such programs allow showing whether they are true or not.
Improve Credibility
It is an excellent thing to include the contacts and the factual information about you in the emails. It may refer to the names, contact information, even links to social media. Besides, respect your subscribers and leave them a chance to unsubscribe from the email you would be sending.
Similarly, if a person has previously agreed to receive emails, it improves the chances for your emails not to be marked as spam. As a result, to reduce the spam score, you need to constantly check whether you are reported, keep your list healthy, and show your credibility.
How to Avoid Emails Going to Spam
At the same time, many factors can affect your email campaign, even if your domain is great. To prevent email from going to spam, you need to produce clear messages, mince your words and refrain from overusing elements. You can check these tips before designing the next campaign:
Make your content clear and understandable
If a company has an anti-spam policy, its security experts are likely to set some rules for the text of the messages. For instance, if they have unclear words, grammar mistakes, or illogical phrases, the spam filters will stop your email from getting into the inbox. That’s why proofreading is a must and an essential step before pressing the send button.
Use no Caps Lock
Notably, a red flag for spam filters is the Caps Lock. Spammers often use it to attract attention and force people to click on malicious links. Due to this fact, never overuse Caps Lock in your messages. Also, nowadays, such an application of capitalization only irritates subscribers.
Utilize HTML only if you know how to
You may want to create a great template with beautiful fonts or some visual elements. Yet, it is a double-edged sword. If you do it right, you are likely to improve the engagement of your campaign.
Nonetheless, if you make some mistakes in the code, it will decrease the chances of hitting the inbox. Also, make sure you use regular fonts, as the massive ones are similar to utilizing Caps Lock.
Spam words are a no
Another thing to avoid when writing an email is spammy words. The words that would overpromise something or try triggering an action are likely to affect your spam score. Some signs or combinations of letters can bring harm as well. The best tactic to avoid them is not to be pushy.
Engage with subscribers
To prevent email from going into spam, you can try to evoke a response. If the recipients answer your letter, it would mean that they know you, proving that it is not spam. The system designed by the providers would think that way. Yet, remember not to be intrusive and respect the boundaries.
Subject lines matter
Lastly, and yet importantly, make your subject lines clear and understood. For sure, it has to invite the subscribers to read an email. Yet, spam email filters would do their job if it includes spammy words, makes no sense, or is irrelevant to the body. What are the rules to follow? Your subject line should reflect the text of the email, be free of unclear or pushy words, and follow grammar rules.