Why Your Emails Go to Spam (and How to Make Sure They Don’t)

Image source: SenderScore.org

Your sender reputation score will go down if you’re too desperate with outreach, if you keep sending emails to inactive email addresses, or if users register several spam complaints against you. These triggers alert the spam filters and send your emails directly into the spam folder.

The best approach is to warm up your audience/list and start out slow. Achieve a good sender score (minimum 70) with a small audience first and slowly pump up the gas. Remember not to use words that trigger spam filters or be pushy with your subject line if you want to improve your sender score and avoid going to spam.

3. Follow permission marketing principles

The term Permission Marketing was introduced by Seth Godin in his book by the same name. The book outlines some basic principles, emphasizing that brands should only reach out to people who have explicitly consented to receive marketing communications. 

Simple, right? 

Well, not to the millions of brands who are still exploring the idea of moving to permission-based marketing tactics. 

After GDPR and privacy laws, adopting permission marketing tactics is no longer a luxury. If you think of it as one, you’ll often find your emails in spam. Here are some ways to start adopting permission marketing in your campaigns right away: 

• Don’t hide your unsubscribe link or opt-out link (never make unsubscribing hard) 
• Segment your audience (and only send contextual information) 
• Use double opt-ins based on their preferences (Give your audience an option to opt-in or out of mailing lists) 
• Always use a contextual, relevant subject line 
• Don’t use spammy words unnecessarily inside your email content
• Add only one CTA per email (too many links confuse the receiver and send spam signals to the mailbox algorithms) 
• Apply the 70/30 rule (70% educative emails and content and 30% promotional emails)

4. Avoid spam trigger words

What you write in the body of the email is the biggest signal to mailboxes. It will decide your fate—whether your email is important, or whether it should be dumped in the spam folder or promotions tab. 

That’s why it’s so important to stay relevant and contextual, adding value to the recipient’s life or buyer’s journey. 

While permission marketing principles help improve the content structure, here are some common mistakes you should avoid to stay out of the recipient’s spam folder.

• Using all caps in your subject line or using “spammy” subject lines
• Adding spam trigger words, or words that are too “salesy” (free, offer, special discount) 
• Having non-personalized email marketing content
• Having too many grammatical errors inside email copy
• Excessively formatting your email content 
• Adding large images or sending image-only emails that increase the size of the email 
• Adding too many links (hyperlinks) within the text of the email
• Not adding (or hiding) your physical address and the unsubscribe link