What to Do When My Email Lands in Spam?

Overview

Spamming is defined as the use of messaging systems to send an unsolicited message (spam). There are many reasons to explain this problem.

This guide will show you how to prevent this issue, as well as how to deal with it. Let's get going!

Prevention tactics

To make sure that none of your emails end up in spam, you should apply the following preventive tactics.

1. Ensure a healthy contact list

Sender reputation and email delivery are the sole responsibility of the sender, not the ISP (Internet Service Provider) or ESP (Email Service Provider).

If you rent, share, scrap, and co-register email lists, you are sending unwanted emails to recipients that haven't agreed or consented to receive those messages. As a matter of fact, sending emails to such contacts won't bring you any revenue, while damaging your deliverability. All ESPs (Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, AOL, etc.) monitor spam reports, and the more you get, the lower your chances are to land in the primary folder.

Wondering what the acceptable spam complaint rate is? 01.% is the rate you should not exceed. If your rates are higher, ensure that your "Unsubscribe" button is visible. Respect your subscribers' wishes and remember that unsubscribes are always much better than spam complaints.

Your recipients should consent and look forward to receiving your emails. To collect such subscribers, you can use AVADA signup forms.

See the following video for more information:

2. Freshen up your list regularly

Email services like Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo have all been known to use engagement tracking in order to help detect and filter spam. They track how each user is interacting with your messages. If a user isn't opening or clicking these emails, for example, then it's likely that the emails will go to spam for that user.

The quality of your email list is much more important and valuable than the quantity. So, try to:

- Remove inactive recipients (those who don't open your emails regularly)

- Remove bounced emails

Note:

If your campaign gets more than a 4.0% bounce rate, our system will automatically suspend your account. Read more information right here.

Good practices

1. Use your own domain for sender's email

Instead of using your free or personal email address, such as @gmail.com or @yahoo.com, you should use an email address for the company or organization for which you're sending email.

For instance, instead of using myemail@gmail.com, use contact@mycompanydomain.com. Read more about DMARC policy. 

2. Practice good text-to-image ratio

Sending an email that only contains images is a sure-fire way to have delivery issues. You should take the time to create an email with text and images - not just a single image. On the flip side, it is not necessarily better to send plain text emails.

Some spam filters check text-to-image ratio and it's essential to keep it a healthy one. The general rule is to have a good, balanced mix of text and images. Providing 2 to 4 sentences per image helps give context to the ESP and your recipients.

3. Pay attention to Gmail clipping

If your email is too large, it could be clipped by Gmail. So, make sure to preview your message in a test email (or two!) and adjust your copy as needed.

4. Manage your domain reputation

Have you ever tried to deliver a lot of the same emails directly from your inbox to promote your products (before you started using AVADA)? If yes, it is possible that your domain's reputation is compromised.

You can check it right here. Just enter your domain name and click "Blacklist Check" to check if it's blacklisted. If your sender's domain (or your store domain) is blacklisted, your messages will definitely land in spam. Getting it whitelisted should be the very first step before starting your email marketing.

5. Focus on email content

If your content is valuable and engaging, your recipients will open and your emails will be delivered to the inbox. Make sure you're sending content that your subscribers signed up to receive and that it stays interesting and fresh. If you repeatedly deliver purely promotional, hard sell offers, you'll see read rates lower and deliverability decline.

6. Avoid spammy content

Some spam filters don't like the way email content is being phrased. Take a look at some common mistakes that you should avoid:

- Excessive use of exclamation points (!!!!!)

- Using some phrases like "Once in a lifetime opportunity!" or "Click here!"

- USING ALL CAPS IN EMAIL SUBJECT LINE AND IN BODY TEXT. This makes recipients feel like you're shouting at them!

- Hash-busting: Inserting random characters in your email subject line or content to fool spam filters (i.e., "F.ree p.r!z.e")

- Be aware of words associated with the language of sales. Of course, you can still use them, but don't use them too often. If overused, they may trigger spam filters and then route your emails to junk folders. Several risky words include "free," "prize," "bonus," etc.

7. Be aware of sending frequency

If you've got a larger list, it is vital to find the right sending frequency. If you send too often, your subscribers can get burned out and may unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam. If you send too infrequently, you won't establish a good reputation.

Generally, you want to contact your audience a few times per week, but that depends on the relationship you have with your contacts. Consider asking your recipients how often they like receiving your messages in the welcome email. By doing so, you can show your respect to their preferences. For example:

Solutions

In case your emails land in spam, there are a couple of ways you can resolve this issue:

- Make sure you're following all of the above mentioned preventive tactics and best practices.

- If that doesn't help, please reach us at Live chat in-app or contact our support team so we could check if there are any issues on our end. The particular solution depends on each case and would be recommended by our team.

Updated on: 02/11/2021