Learn how to Avoid your Emails being Marked as Spam! Since the beginning of the internet, we have been fighting spam. In fact, almost 86% of global email traffic is unsolicited junk mail (with approximately 400 billion spam messages sent every single day).
The downside of this is that depending on the receiver’s settings, your legitimate messages can get marked as junk quite easily. It’s not a server or hosting issue, it’s just a common problem in the digital age.
This guide will teach you:
- Avoid Phishing Phrases and Trigger Words
- Ensure that you're Compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act
- Set up a Whitelist
- Include a Text-Only version
- Utilize Spam Checkers
- Ensure that Email Authentication is enabled
- Get your name off a Blacklist
1. Avoid Phishing Phrases and Trigger Words
When you’re composing client emails, always try and avoid typing phishing phrases and trigger words. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a complete list of trigger words to avoid, but here are some examples that can give you an idea:
- Member
- Sale
- Fantastic deal
- For free
- Act now! Don’t hesitate!
TIPAs spam is basically trying to block commercial promotions, the words that are highly common in such messages must be avoided (or used sparingly).
Phishing, on the other hand, is designed to steal identities by getting the receiver to click on a fraudulent link. So common phrases in phishing messages that you must avoid using will be related to bank accounts and personal data.
2. Ensure that you're Compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act
Speaking of promotional messages, if you’re sending a commercial message to your customers, you’ll have to follow these rules to maintain compliance (or you’ll be at risk of fines that can total $16,000):
- Avoid deceptive subject line
- Avoid using misleading header information
- Let recipients know where you’re located
- Inform your recipients how they can opt out of receiving any future emails
- Immediately honor opt-out requests (the secret is to automate it)
- Keep track of what others do on your behalf
- Clearly identify the message as a promotional message
If you’re sending out only related content like a transactional message, then you will be exempt from these rules. But you still have to ensure that you don’t use any false or misleading routing information.
3. Set up a Whitelist
Send a personal message (without any advertising or marketing links) to your clients and ask them to whitelist your domain.
This action will ensure that your business domain doesn’t get classified as spam.
4. Include a Text Only Version
If you’re sending HTML messages, they can easily end up in the spam folder. An easy way to get around this is to add a text-only version of your message. Further, this will also help if the recipient can’t read the HTML message.
If you have to send images, make sure that you use a good image-to-text ratio. Here are some tips to help your images avoid the spam filter:
- Send a well-formed HTML for email
- Avoid image-only messages
- Do your best to optimize the images
- Include a minimum of two lines of text for every graphic used
5. Utilize Spam Checkers
If you have an extensive contact list, it will be worth making use of a spam checking service. There are several options, so you can either go with spam checking software or completely manage it online.
Some checkers you can check out are as follows:
- ProgrammersHeaven.com
- IsNotSpam.com
6. Ensure that Email Authentication is Enabled
Keeping email authentication enabled will help stop spam from being generated from your address (whether you’re aware of it or not). It’s a common tactic used by spammers, so it’s best to avoid spoof emails being sent from your domain.
You can easily get blacklisted if this happens, so make sure that you check your settings. To learn more about email authentication, Click here.
7. Get your Name off a Blacklist
If you end up on a blacklist, it won’t be easy to reliably send messages until you get it resolved. This is especially true for new addresses on your contact lists.
What you can do is first check if you have been blacklisted from services like the following:
NOTE
If you have the unfortunate experience of being on a blacklist, you’ll have to first follow up on the website that added you to their blacklist. This will be the first step to getting this situation resolved.
In the end, there’s really not much else that anyone can do about it. We can’t control how messages are received or force people to control how they receive them. But you can make sure that you follow best practices to try and avoid being perceived as junk.
