It Is Important To Know If Your Emails Are Going To Spam
Are your emails getting enough leads? How many new subscribers did you get from the last time you sent out your email marketing campaign? Is the figure meager? A perplexing situation indeed!
Email marketing is one of the legacy marketing strategies that have empowered several businesses over the years. So why is your hard work isn’t paying off? Didn’t your recipient receive the email?
Good news, your emails did your target audience!
But the bad news is they all went in your recipient’s SPAM Box!
Well, this wasn’t something you gave a thought about. But now that you know your email is lying in a junk folder instead of the recipient’s inbox let’s evaluate ways to deal with Email Spam Issues!
Top 17 reason for email spam issues
- Misconfigured DNS
Most of the time, on the question “Why Are My Emails Going To Spam?” you will find a simple answer. It’s your DNS records. You need to be sure that you are compliant to send any email from your email address or domain, that is why you need to have those DNS records polished.
Make sure that it is SPF, DMARC, DKIM, MX, BIMI works for you. Or it’s something new, huh?
- You didn’t receive permission
Understandably, you want a big email list to create brand awareness about your products and services and generate sales revenue. The rule of thumb in email marketing is to obtain permission before sending out emails. If you send emails to people you have contacted before on LinkedIn, Outlook, Gmail, or adding people from the checkout box of your e-commerce business, or buying email lists from ‘reputable sites,’ you need to stop. Not only will this land your email in the spam folder, but you can be in legal hot water!
- Inaccurate sender information
Does your email accurately state the sender’s information? In other words, your recipients must know from whom they are receiving an email. For this, your ‘From,’ ‘To,’ ‘Reply-To,’ along with routing information, originating email address and domain address must be accurate. This will help recipients understand who you are instead of misleading them. So this will increase success ratio chances for your email campaign.
- Lack of physical address
One imperative reason why the mail service providers have to send your email to the spam folder is because of the lack of physical address. As shocking as this may sound, legit business organizations add some form of traceability with a valid address and postal code at the bottom of every mail. This also ensures that the email was raised from an authentic organization, and hence it directly reaches in the customer’s inbox.
- Usage of spam triggering content
Are you trying to gain your recipients’ attention by adding words such as ‘You are a Winner,’ ‘%off,’ ‘Click Here,’ or ‘Double Your Income,’ etc. in your email content? While you may think this will grab your recipient’s attention, these spam triggering words raise a red flag, and your email is likely to reach the spam folder. So, to address email spam issues, the first step is to avoid usage of spam words.
- A weak headline
Other than the sender information, it is the headline, which helps the recipient determine whether the email is legit or spam! So, you need to nail your campaign with an eye-catching heading that will entice readers to read on more. Avoid using All Caps, don’t overboard the heading with unnecessary exclamations, avoid making fake promises, and stop sounding salesy.
- Adding an attachment
Does an attachment accompany your email? Let’s see what harm it can do! Firstly, attachments can trigger the spam filters and lessen the chances of your email reaching the recipient’s inbox. This is because spam filters presume attachments to contain deadly hardcore viruses that can take over the recipient’s device.
Secondly, a big and bulky attachment can slow down the email loading time. Usually, most businesses avoid attachments and instead place all their information from services to CTA right in the email content.
- Lack of engagement
Are you aware that nowadays, spam filters can detect your engagement frequency with the recipient? So if you have a low engagement rate, there are high chances that your email is flagged red and reaches straight to the spam box. The more engaged your recipients are, the higher the chances of your email reflecting in their inbox. An increased engagement rate also means that you can add heavier images in your newsletter, improve your mailing frequency, send in bigger blasts at one go, and still reach the recipient’s inbox without a hassle. One key tip to address this email spam issue is to avoid sending emails to accounts that hardly ever open your mails.
- Have a bad IP address and domain name reputation
Another key reason why your emails land in the spam folder is by using an IP address that was used for sending spams. If the IP has received negative feedback from past or recent senders, you will have to handle the consequences, which in this case are your emails that are sitting idle in the spam folder. However, a professional email service provider can lessen your peril and ensure that your email reaches your target audience. Besides, domain authentication and reputation are imperative factors for your email campaign. The reliability of domain reputation rests on complaint rate, hard bounce rate, inbox placement rate, and spam placement rate. Moreover, the age of the domain matters as a newly created domain can raise an eyebrow, while its classification on the web also adds to its reputation.
- Lacks the option to opt-out
We understand that you wish to retain your existing email recipients but adding an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email profoundly impacts your deliverability. While it may seem that it can do more harm than good, the truth is some recipients may no longer wish to receive emails from you. A lack of an option to opt-out will only force them to mark your email as spam that, in turn, lowers the sender’s reputation and affects the potential of your campaign. You seriously don’t want that! So, it’s best to chuck off a section rather than receiving spam complaints.
- Poorly designed email
Can you imagine the potentiality of an eye-catching email? More subscribers, huge sales revenue, escalating business growth, in short, it will turn your dreams to reality. But if your email is poorly designed, it can go directly in the junk folder. To eradicate the email spam issue, your email must be compatible on any platform, avoid spam triggering words, portray the brand, have a balanced text-to-image ratio, and have a crisp and to-the-point tone. It must also be compliant with the CAN-SPAM ACT.
- Large image with minimal text
Adding visuals to text is a practice that most traditional marketers follow to grab the readers’ attention. But adding larger images often alerts the spam filters as they find it hard to decipher the text and send it to the spam folder. Instead of making a fully image-centric email, keep the text-to-image ration as 60:40 wherein text covers 60% content, and the images cover 40%.
- Sending emails to inactive addresses
Have you been paying attention to your email list? Your email list must comprise legit addresses and have valid opt-in from the recipients. It is necessary to clean your list at frequent intervals to remove the inactive address. Sending emails frequently to inactive accounts will be a significant indication of spam and harm your reputation.
- Spelling error and grammar
One key reason for the email spam is spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Well, it may seem like a silly error, but spam filters are on high alert to send your email to the spam folder if it has these issues. Not to mention, such mistakes also portray unprofessionalism in front of your recipients. So you need to be extra diligent and triple-check your content before sending out.
- Sending email campaign from a freemail domain
At the start of your journey, you can start an email marketing campaign from the freemail domains like Outlook or Gmail to broadcast your newsletter. To a certain extent, they can leverage your business, but as your email list grows, freemail domains can be one reason why your emails end up in the spam folder. This is because ISPs want domains that are registered by the individual sender and can be tracked. You can avoid this by creating a company domain and use it for email campaigns.
- Linking email to suspicious websites
The ISPs not only analyze your email content but also go through the backlinks you have added. Linking email to sites with a low reputation or multiple domains often raises suspicion and discriminates your email as spam. To avoid this, check for the websites you are linking, and preferably have a higher text-to-linking ratio.
- Your email frequency is off
Are you sending out emails too often or once in a blue moon? In the first case, your emails can annoy the recipient, and in turn, they can mark you as spam, and in the second scenario, there are high chances that your recipient has forgotten your existence. Neither of the cases is in favor of increasing your ROI or email deliverability. So it is necessary to set an email frequency by calculating the key metrics and start an email marketing campaign with your most engaged subscribers.
Bottom-line
You are certainly not the Queen of England willing to share your inheritance in return for a nominal fee. You are a conscientious email marketer looking to connect with potential leads to create brand awareness. But spam filters are unaware of your intentions. And to be honest, most people don’t have the patience to view emails that seem a bit spammy! You can check your email through email tester, spam checker, or spam filter tool before sending and improving email deliverability by following the afore-mentioned ways.
Reference Links:
1. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
2. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0038-spam
3. https://www.sba.gov/blog/email-marketing-basics-small-business
4. https://belkins.io/blog/email-deliverability/why-are-my-emails-going-to-spam
