Why emails going to spam

If you are a Gmail user, here is how you can customize your filter and manage which emails are going to your inbox instead of spam:. If you are using Yahoo emails, there are two ways you can move non-spam emails from spam to inbox:.

If your Outlook filter is sometimes treating non-spam emails as spam, you will need to customize it. Here is how:. Spam emails tend to be generic and impersonal. If you receive an email from an account that has not been active for a long time or that has low open rate metrics, it might automatically end up in your spam folder.

Some spam emails are infested with links to malicious websites or dangerous attachments containing a virus. If an email comes with suspicious content, it might be marked as spam. There is no foolproof formula, but the pointers in the table below should provide some helpful guidance:. The email is titled randomly or without connection to the content in the email body.

The email contains relevant and verified links and attachments. The message is sent from an unknown domain. Therefore, we think that a standard unobtrusive unsubscribe button in the email footer is the way to go for most ecommerce entrepreneurs. See the above screenshot from a Stack Overflow email for an example of this, and remember that your email marketing software will already have this feature built into its templates. Above all, you should always be honest in your email marketing.

Resorting to cheap tricks like these is not the way to run a business. Instead, focus on how you can create value for your subscribers. When you give them a great offer, the money will take care of itself. We hope you now understand what causes emails to end up in spam, as well as what you can do to keep them from going there. Next up, take a look at our Resources page for useful guides and tutorials to help you maximize your returns from email marketing.

Always Get Permission to Send Emails Nothing will get your emails flagged as spam faster than sending an email without permission. Follow the Laws Governing Email Marketing Speaking of ethics, you need to be aware of the laws that govern digital marketing communications. Send without including a mailing address. Send with a deceptive subject line.

Send without including a way for recipients to opt-out. Use a Reputable Email Marketing Program One sign that spam filters keep a look out for when trying to catch messages is to look at the IP address associated with the sending email address and see if there are any spam complaints associated with it.

But, considering that the majority of emails are now opened on a mobile device the likelihood of users marking your email as SPAM will increase if the email does not render properly. That's why all email templates inside SendX are responsive by default. Not only that, we have created one of the biggest responsive email templates resources on the web till date. It's available for free. Avoid embedding forms in your email.

The submit button of the form will require you to use JavaScript which is a problem. Most email clients simply don't support flash content as it is considered unsafe for something as sensitive as email. Email clients block emails containing flash. You can use GIFs as an alternative to make your emails more appealing. Spam filters and more importantly firewalls always take a "better to be safe than sorry" approach. So, all your well-intentioned emails with any type of script will go straight to the SPAM folder.

No subject line is used as a marketing tactic to increase opens but it's not worth taking a hit on your IP reputation and deliverability. All marketing emails need to have a clear way for users to opt-out of them.

If you are sending emails to the opted-in list s ensure every email going to them has a way to opt out of using an unsubscribe link.

Usually unsubscribe links are present in the footer, but you should include it in the header too. It's not mandated by law considering you have an unsubscribe link in the email footer but email providers like Gmail consider this an important signal of reputation. This is how an unsubscribe link in the header looks like:.

Broken HTML will appear sloppy and unreadable on almost all email clients. Not only will users mark your email as SPAM, but it will also alert SPAM filters they will think you could be a lazy spammer using unsophisticated tools. An important note here - I have seen way too often, marketers copy content directly from Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. These applications add additional unwanted characters to your message source.

Always copy your content to a plain text editor that strips off all such characters. Email Acid team did a test on email size and this is what they had to say:. These emails successfully passed through all our spam filters with flying colors! Deliverability issues began to occur once the email file size was over KB.

Every email from KB to KB wound up failing multiple spam filters. Interestingly enough, once the email file size was over KB, the number of spam filters that failed each email stayed the same. For example, an email that was KB got caught in the same 7 spam filters as an email with a file size of KB. Multiple studies point out that there is a correlation between email size and deliverability.

We would recommend keeping emails between 15KBKB to ensure healthy deliverability. This is an obvious one. Scammers who use email spam frequently use this technique to steal your data. You would see a warning in Gmail like this:. Your domain which you use to send emails reputation plays a vital role in your email deliverability. To borrow an analogy from the finance world, it is a lot like a credit score for your email domain. If it is high, you will get good deliverability.

The reason you can not use a free email address inside a 3rd party system is that they have strict DMARC policies. This again is the typical behavior of a Spammer. Also, can you think of a legitimate business that will suddenly increase their email volume by x? This should not come as a surprise. If people mark your emails as SPAM, your domain reputation will get affected.

Since SPAM complaints are an explicit user signal about unsolicited emails even a 0. SendX automatically removes all email addresses from your list as soon as we detect they have marked your email as SPAM for the first time. In general, you should be fine if you stick to a reputable email service provider. We know for a fact that these 3 providers take email deliverability seriously.

Top webmail providers have stated that they look at how many emails are opened and how many are deleted as a factor in spam filtering decisions. So if you have low open rates or read rates, your emails are at higher risk of being flagged as spam.

You need to do everything you can to increase engagement. Other than targeting the right audience form the start, you can send your emails at the right time , perfect your subject lines , segment your list , and keep your list fresh by scrubbing it regularly.

For more detailed tips and 6 more ways to increase your open rates, read our post on 10 easy ways to improve your email open rate.

Every time a subscriber reports an email as spam, the complaint gets recorded by the mailbox provider regardless of whether or not the email was spam. Once the complaints exceed a certain threshold, all future campaigns skip the inbox and get sent directly to the spam folder.

To prevent this from happening, make sure that the branding in your emails is memorable, and matches the branding on your website.

This includes any images, colors, typography, voice, etc. Most email recipients are trained to look for the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email.

In their spam filtering algorithms, email service providers look at the ratio of active to inactive email accounts on your list. You can do that by sending a win-back email to increase engagement. This is a way of giving your audience one last chance to start engaging with their company before you remove them from your email list. Notice the email copy is direct and addresses the situation head-on. Depending on your email service provider, you may be able to do this automatically.

These are some super shady tricks. But there are also some gray areas you should avoid, too. But this subject line seems conveniently misleading. The problem? The reader is left feeling like they got a better deal from the error, and the subject enticed them to open the message.

This is a grey area tactic you should avoid. Remember, Russel can afford to take that risk. This email is falsely credited to the UK government. Shady practices like this are illegal and should be avoided at all costs. It could be the name of an individual, your company name, or a combination of the two. Whichever you choose for your own brand, shoot for memorability and consistency.

You legally must include your physical address. That can be your current street address, a post office box that has been registered with the U.

Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations. This is usually just above your Unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email campaign:.

You definitely need to add your own address, too. We already touched on the importance of adding an Unsubscribe button. No matter how valuable you think your email campaigns are, you still need to give your subscribers a way out. Because you should use these unsubscribes as an opportunity to boost your engagement rates in the future.

With that information, you can start customizing your email campaigns to prevent similar subscribers from leaving your newsletter. Some spam filters are triggered by specific words in the subject line or the body of the email. Some spam trigger words are:. Your email provider may have a built-in tool that checks your emails for spam trigger words before sending it.

Keep in mind that the above trigger words are common examples. They may not be specific to your email service provider, however. So be sure to contact your provider directly to see if certain words trigger spam flags.

Make a list of words to avoid in your subject line as your crafting your email copy. Text-only emails are the kinds that you typically send to friends and family. However, you may want to send HTML emails from your business.