Your emails may not regularly reach your recipients' mailboxes if spam filters are blocking them. Here's how you can prevent it.
Consider how much time and effort you put into writing emails, only to get them trapped in your recipients' spam folder. It's a frustrating experience, but the worst part is that your recipients may never know you've sent an email because, let's face it, who checks their spam?
Read on to learn some practical strategies to make sure your emails don't end up in the spam folder.
Why your emails end up in the spam folder
Much of the emails sent out every day are scams designed to steal money or information from victims. Considering how difficult it would be for email users to manually organize and filter these emails, email services have taken solid solutions to combat them.
A spam folder is a place where emails that are suspected of being deceptive or unsolicited are stored. Email services use filters to determine which emails may be spam and these messages are sent to the spam folder.
Spam filters work by using various methods to identify potential spam content in an email, including checking the sender's IP address against a blacklist of known spammers, deceptive subject matter, and email content, just to name. some.
The problem is that legitimate emails can sometimes get trapped in the spam folder when they contain spam triggers.
How to prevent your emails from ending up in spam
Avoid spam triggers
Spam filters scan your content, looking for specific triggers to determine if your email is likely spam. Here are some spam triggers to avoid:
- No unsubscribe links in emails: Most people have experienced receiving a seemingly legitimate email from a brand they buy from frequently, only to find that there is no unsubscribe link at the bottom. Some brands will add their own contact information excluding a way for recipients to easily unsubscribe from future communications. If you omit an easy-to-find unsubscribe link, your messages may go straight to your spam folder.
- Subject lines with all caps or excessive exclamation marks: the Subject line content can also trigger anti-spam measures because words like "free" or "sale" are commonly used in scam emails. Using all capitalization in the subject line is a clear indication that your email might be spam, as is using too many exclamation marks. Some of the most common spam words / phrases include 100% free, deal of a lifetime, FLA $ H SALE ACTIVE NOW !!!, 100% satisfied, free. pr! ze, tribute and more.
- Phishing Attempts: Phishing scams are designed to trick people into revealing sensitive information like passwords or credit card numbers by pretending to come from a legitimate company. Emails containing phishing links are often caught by spam filters and sent directly to the spam folder.
- Unnecessary attachments: if your email contains an attachment, make sure it's something the recipient wants or needs. Emails with excess attachments are typically sent to the spam folder because they can contain viruses and spyware, posing a security risk to recipients.
- Too many pictures: many legitimate marketing campaigns use multiple images as part of their strategy, but too many can trigger anti-spam measures. You should also avoid replacing text with images. This is because it has become common practice for spammers to include spam words in images in a desperate attempt to trick spam filters.
Correct your emails
It's always a good idea to re-read your emails before sending them, but this is especially important if you want to avoid the spam folder. Typos and errors can easily trigger spam filters.
This is because phishing email scams are usually full of errors. Spammers do this intentionally to only get replies from their most gullible recipients to avoid wasting time going back and forth with too many people, as they generally send emails by the thousands.
That said, the more typos when writing emails, the greater your chances of ending up in the junk folder. You can also take advantage of editing tools like Grammarly to help you with this task.
Get permission to send emails
One of the best ways to make sure your emails don't end up in the spam folder is to get permission from subscribers to send them marketing messages. This means obtaining explicit consent from each contact, rather than using a purchased email list or collecting email addresses from the web.
Obtaining consent from recipients is especially important when following the regulations governing email marketing, which requires explicit consent before sending any commercial electronic message.
There are many ways to obtain explicit consent, such as having a checkbox on the registration form or including a statement such as "I would like to receive updates from [brand]" in the registration confirmation message.
Getting permission from subscribers is not only an effective way to avoid the spam folder, it is also an ethical and legal requirement.
Ask recipients to whitelist your emails
Another way to make sure your emails don't end up in the spam folder is to ask recipients to whitelist your email address. This simply means adding your email address to their contact list or safe senders list, which will tell their email client not to automatically send your messages to the spam folder.
When asking recipients to whitelist your emails, always provide clear instructions on how they can do so.
Enhance your reputation through authentication
Authentication is a process that verifies you as the owner of a domain name (such as a “brand name”) or an IP address. This is especially useful for people who use personalized email addresses.
Authentication involves sending encrypted messages from your server to recipient servers for validation purposes. Without proper authentication in place, some ISPs completely block their inbox, which means they may not receive any legitimate marketing email campaigns.
The best way to avoid this problem is to use both Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). The reason these authentication methods are recommended is that they help prevent spoofing by providing email validation.
This prevents your emails from being marked as spam or going to a junk mail folder.
Take advantage of spam checks
Using spam checks is an effective way to improve the delivery and open rates of your emails. You can use an online solution such as to help you identify any problems with the content of your email that may be triggering spam filters.
This tool helps you evaluate the e-mail delivery. It also provides insights and advice to help you overcome any delivery-related issues.
