Email marketing is a boon to organizations looking to expand their business. To fully benefit from email marketing, it is important to know how to avoid the spam folder. This text shares why emails are marked as spam and how you can avoid these spam filters for better email deliverability.
Email marketing can guarantee high ROI (Return on Investment) for organizations and service providers worldwide, which is why emails remain the top choice for business communication and marketing in an age of social media. With all the efforts organizations and digital marketers put into content and services, emails should reach their destination to ensure that they are getting the job done.
Authentication processes and spam filters are challenging since they can prevent individuals from ever seeing the email content. Organizations and service providers can focus on email deliverability and avoid spam filters by analyzing various elements. Let us see how.
Why are Emails Marked as Spam?
Spam filters are contemporary filters for email authentication that analyze all emails per email marketing rules. If the email mimics spam behavior, the spam filter might mistake your organization as a spammer and send all emails to the spam folder.
Due to the rise in spam and cybercrimes, spam filters today are on high alert and scrutinize emails hard. It would be best to be on the lookout for the top reasons that emails go to the spam folder to know how to avoid these.
Reasons Why Emails End Up in Spam and How to Avoid These
Physical Addresses
Email filters scan for physical addresses in emails; if they do not find it, they mark the email as spam, thinking it is from a non-existing entity or organization. Physical addresses ensure that the business exists, and organizations should add the physical address at the footer section of the email for best email marketing. Adding the physical address to the email signature is plenty for standard emails.
Low Engagement
Emails may also end up in spam folders due to low customer engagement. Since emails are two-way conversations, the spam filters check the recipient’s side for interaction within the email. Suppose the customer does not click on the elements within or interacts with continuous emails from an organization. In that case, the spam filters send future emails from the said organization to the spam folder.
Organizations should avoid this by including engaging content in emails and “Call to Action” tasks. Furthermore, organizations should send emails to those clients who have subscribed or consented to receive marketing or other emails and not others.
Blacklists or New Emails
Email marketers who use personal email addresses with their names have higher chances of ending up in the spam folder if their domain was blacklisted due to fraudulent activities in the past. Furthermore, since fraudsters create new emails for malicious activities, new emails have a higher probability of becoming spam.
To curb both these challenges, it would be best to stick with an email for a long time and ask friends to mark your emails as “Not Spam” so the mailing domain is whitelisted again.
Improper Formatting and Attachments
Email templates are present to design adequate email message structures with correct data and images. But adding many images or formatting flags the email as suspicious, making it land in the spam folder.
Every email should follow an 80-20 structure, with 80% of the content in text and 20% containing formatted text or images. It would be best to keep the number of links in an email limited, as too many links are red flags for spam filters.
Misleading Titles and Spam Content
Misleading titles in email conversation leads directly to the spam folder. With titles like “This email is from the President’s Office” and similar ones, spam filters already know the email is fraudulent due to impersonation red flags. Another reason why emails end up in spam is due to spam-triggering content or words present in the email body. Words such as:
- Free
- Low Price
- Easy Money
- No Cost
- Winning
- Act Now
- Apply Now
- Exclamation marks in succession
- And words in ALL CAPS
As authentic senders, your email title should be clear and concise, not deviating from the content, and your email should contain very little of such spam-triggering words, if not none.
Inactive Content Targets and Errors
Besides spam filters, grammatical errors can also get email messages spammed, as these are associated with phishing emails. Email marketers must also understand that targeting inactive accounts increases the bounce rate of emails (Undelivered Emails), marking your emails as spam.
To avoid these, it would be best to ensure that the email content is free of grammatical errors and remove inactive content targets from the mailing list. If the email does not get a reply from an individual, remove them from the list.
Unpersonalized Emails and Unsubscribe Options
Email templates that do not offer the customers an unsubscribe option can also be marked as spam. Another reason emails might end up spam is that your content addresses the recipients as Sir/Madam/Friend instead of personalized greetings.
Organizations and email marketers should always include an unsubscribe option for customers and gather names along with the mailing list to send personalized emails, hence avoiding the spam folder.
Shared IP Addresses or Increased Frequency
Shared IP (Internet Protocol) addresses may also cause emails to be marked as spam if the other domain on the shared IP misbehaves. If you want to avoid this, you should also check the domain and its IP for blacklisting or choose a service provider that has a dedicated IP for your organization.
Emails may also end up in spam due to a sudden increase in the frequency of emails, which is why it is best to stick to the current email campaigns and not change them frequently.
Final Words
Email marketing is one of the best tools for bringing in new business, but only if done properly. Resolving any email issue will maximize your ROI, maintain your email reputation, and ensure email deliverability. Any business can avoid the dreaded spam filters and blooms by following the above practices. Additionally, you must choose a vendor that can provide you with dedicated IPs for sending outbound emails, which can go a long way in ensuring your sent emails don’t end up in the spam of receivers.