Why do legitimate emails go to spam

This is a law that was enacted back in and sets national standards on commercial email. This highlights the main requirements and outlines non-compliance issues that can get you into trouble. Some areas it touches on include not using deceptive email subject lines , including a physical mailing address, telling recipients how to opt-out and honoring opt-out requests.

Besides the ugly potential penalties, failing to comply with these requirements could get your emails sent to spam. The first rule of email marketing is to always have permission before sending an email. It should go without saying, but you should never buy a list of emails or obtain them through any other unscrupulous means. In other words, you must clearly state who you are or who your company is and not include any inaccurate information that could mislead someone.

But for an even more comprehensive list, check out these email spam trigger words from Automational. In fact, creating visual content is a top priority for 55 percent of B2C content creators. You cut away small bits now in order to ensure the overall continued health of the organism. If you have low email open rates overall, then you may need to rethink your overall email marketing strategy , as this could indicate a deeper issue than just a few inactive email addresses.

As it turns out, such applications exist. One of our favorites is called Emailable. If you have a sender address full of random characters or that just sounds suspicious, you run the risk of your email getting flagged as spam. For this reason, we recommend avoiding sender addresses that contain lots of numbers or gibberish. If you only send an email every couple of months, then you risk subscribers forgetting who you are or why they subscribed.

If this happens, they may unsubscribe or even mark your email as spam when they do finally hear from you. To prevent this, stay in regular contact with your subscribers. Rather, look for opportunities to provide value to your subscribers as often as you can. While complying with the law is your foremost priority, including a way to unsubscribe also shows subscribers that you have confidence in the value of your content. How easy you make it to unsubscribe is up to you.

Some brands take the confidence approach to the extreme, placing an unsubscribe button in the header as well as the footer of their emails.

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.

Remember how earlier we mentioned that subscriber engagement plays a role in email deliverability? When your emails are inaccurately marked as spam, it could be because you have low engagement rates. One of the tell-tale causes of low engagement rates is having the wrong audience on your email list in the first place.

Now, we know that every marketer is trying to grow their email list to be as large as possible. And considering the importance of email marketing, they should be trying to improve their email list as much as they can. But rather than simply getting more subscribers, marketers need to focus on getting the right kind of subscribers. How can they do that? By using targeted optin campaigns with OptinMonster :.

The 1 rule of email marketing is to get permission to email first. Another way that marketers harm their email campaigns is by manually adding emails that they get from business cards collected at a conference or from social media.

While you may think that they would appreciate your newsletter, sending emails to them violates the CAN-SPAM Act because they did not give you permission. Instead, you should send those leads personalized emails rather than templated newsletters. Follow up with a separate drip campaign , personal email, or autoresponder series designed just for those leads and give them a chance to optin to your newsletter.

Even if you never send spam yourself, your emails could get flagged if your IP address was used for spam in the past. If you send your campaigns through an email marketing service, your email is delivered through their servers. So if even one other customer sends spam, it could affect your deliverability as well.

Note, however, that every email marketing service we recommend is vigilant about keeping their reputation intact. They have strict procedures and regulations in place to prevent this type of thing.

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.