Dealing with email marketing you most probably face a problem of your emails going to spam instead of inbox. Today email marketing is a powerful tool for your business promotion success. But if you confront a spam problem all your efforts are just wasted. In this article, we discuss in detail the reasons why your emails can go to the spam folder and the ways to avoid this.
Let’s check carefully the main reasons why your emails are graded as “spam” and learn how to improve this situation.
A domain name created to be used for sending your email subscriptions has to be authenticated. By means of this, your subscribers’ post services are notified that your email was sent by a registered sender and that your message was not cracked or changed by a third part.
The authentication is fulfilled by setting DKIM and SPF.
DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) adds a special cryptographic signature checked by a receiver’s post service that determines the sender’s reputation rating him to blacklist or white list accordingly.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) – creating a TXT record containing a list of servers to be used to send emails from your domain.
If you ignore these authentication steps your emails are expected to be flagged by spam filters.
Check your domain and IP if they are on the blacklist (blacklist check).
Every post service has a unique algorithm of determining each sender’s reputation. It depends on various technical indicators, including DKIM, SPF and blacklist check abovementioned, as well as content quality indicators (whether the receiver complains about spam, if he opens emails, whether he responds to the emails of this sender if you send emails to non-existing subscribers, whether your emails were already caught by spam filters, etc.). To estimate and analyze your sender’s reputation you can use a postmaster – a tool provided by your post service provider.
As we already mentioned sending mails to email addresses that do not exist can worsen your sender’s reputation. It is highly recommended (ideal – before every mailing) to check your clients’ database for “dead souls” – never existed email addresses, the emails ceased to exist one day or temporary inaccessible by some technical reason. You can find numerous services of email address existence check (email checker/verifier/analyzer) that can be used for a single email check or for continuous work through API service automating thus the entire process of the email addresses check. The results of the verification provided by different services may be of varying degrees of reliability, depending on the algorithm they use. We recommend using the service https://www.emailmagnifier.com/ that provides you the most complete information of email address validation and allows the user to decide independently about the possibility or the impossibility of working with this address.
Never buy email addresses’ lists, using these emails is illegal and can damage your sender’s reputation badly. Send your emails only to the recipients who registered on your site and agreed to receive emails from you! Renew your subscribers’ list from time to time. For this purpose determine since when your recipient is considered inactive (three months, half a year, one year?) and separate your subscribers to some specific groups or categories (a category of subscribers only, a category of those who purchased your goods or services, etc.). Each group should be mailed separately with content most relevant content for their purposes. Thus you can increase the number of opened and responded mails, and improve your sender’s rating by recipients’ mail services.
If your IP is new or was not used for a long time for sending a big scope of mails you should increase the number of sent emails gradually. Group your email addresses, start mailing to the first group, after some time (e.g. a week) add the second group and so on. Analyze complaints and rejections with the help of your postmasters adjusting the volume of subscription accordingly.
The mail services struggle with spam by means of special traps - automatic filters checking the mail content. The features of spam can be: spam words (toll-free, free, risk-free, cancel at any time, special offer, special promotion, great offer, dear friend, amazing, congratulations, winner, guarantee, promise you, increase sales, order now, this is not spam, etc.), usage of hidden or redirecting links, Java script usage (JavaScript, ActiveX, VBScript, Java-applets, Frames and IFrames, outsource CSS, Meta Refresh), usage of the words written in capitals, extra usage of the exclamation marks, your mail consists of more than twenty percent of pictures, incorrect HTML structure of the email, etc.).
Inconsistency of the declared topics or change of the subject is a straight way of your email to the spam.
When registering your new subscribers by use of double opt-in you guarantee the meaningful desire of your subscriber to receive your emails. But please note that even double opt-in registration cannot prevent the usage of a temporary address the user uses for the purpose of registration only. Your emails sent after to this address can never be read, or the address can cease to exist at any time. Our recommendation is to check the entire address list before every emailing, as mentioned above in clause 4.
Not providing your subscriber an opportunity to unsubscribe in a single click (a complication of the process by a request to fill in additional polls, log in or password) or completely depriving him of such an opportunity, you risk to be blacklisted and your correspondence to appear in the spam. Let your subscriber always decide whether to stay with you or to leave you freely.
The analysis and the optimization of your work with email subscriptions help your business to succeed!
Respectfully,
Evgeny Smolansky
