You’ve done it. You’ve crafted the perfect subject line, written a persuasive email, and finished it off with a call to action that’s impossible to refuse. You hit send with a smile and wait for the sales to start rolling in. But after a few days, there’s nothing. You check your email reports and see that only a small fraction of your subscribers opened your email.
What gives?
If you’re struggling with low email open rates, it could be because your emails are getting caught in spam filters. In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about spam filters and how to avoid them with 10 proven email deliverability tactics.
1. Only Send Emails to People Who Have Opted In
This is a big one. If you want to avoid the spam folder, you need to make sure you’re only sending emails to people who have opted in.
That means you can’t buy lists of email addresses, scrape them from the internet, or use any other method to send emails to people who haven’t given you permission.
Not only is this illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act, but it’s also a surefire way to end up in the spam folder.
Instead, focus on building your own email list of people who have opted in to receive your emails. This will help you avoid the spam folder and ensure you’re only sending emails to people who actually want to hear from you.
2. Avoid Spam Traps
Spam traps are email addresses set up by ISPs and anti-spam organizations to catch and identify spammers.
There are two types of spam traps: pure and recycled.
Pure spam traps are email addresses that have never subscribed to an email list and are used specifically to catch spammers.
Recycled spam traps are email addresses that were once valid but have been abandoned by their owners and repurposed as spam traps.
The best way to avoid spam traps is to maintain a clean email list by removing inactive and invalid email addresses on a regular basis.
You should also be careful when you’re adding new contacts to your list. If you’re using a list-building tool, make sure it’s collecting email addresses in a compliant way. And if you’re buying or renting a list, be sure to vet it carefully to make sure it doesn’t contain any spam traps.
3. Use a Consistent “From” Name
The “from” name is the first thing your recipients will see when they receive an email from you. This is why it’s so important to make sure it’s consistent and recognizable.
For example, if your email is coming from a person, it should always come from that person. If it’s coming from a company, it should always come from the same company name.
This may seem like a small detail, but it can make a big difference in how your email is perceived. If your recipients don’t recognize the “from” name, they may be more likely to mark your email as spam.
4. Set Clear Expectations at Sign-Up
When someone subscribes to your email list, they should know what they’re signing up for. This means being clear about how often you’ll email them and what type of content they’ll receive.
For example, let’s say you tell people they’ll receive a weekly newsletter with your top blog posts. If you then start sending them daily sales emails, they’re going to be disappointed and may mark your emails as spam.
To avoid this, make sure you’re setting expectations at the beginning and then sticking to them. You can even use a double opt-in process to confirm someone’s subscription and to clarify what they can expect from you.
5. Use a Reputable Email Service Provider
Gone are the days of sending out mass emails from your Gmail account. Today, there are countless email service providers (ESPs) that offer advanced features to help you create, send, and track your email marketing campaigns.
But, with so many options to choose from, how do you know which one is right for you? When it comes to email deliverability, the ESP you choose can make a big difference.
That’s because your email service provider’s reputation can impact your deliverability. If your ESP has a good reputation, it can help improve your deliverability. On the other hand, if your ESP has a poor reputation, it can hurt your deliverability.
In addition to your ESP’s reputation, there are several other factors to consider when choosing an email service provider, including:
• Features and functionality
• Price
• Support
• Integrations
When evaluating different email service providers, be sure to consider their deliverability rates and reputation. You can also look at reviews and ratings to get a sense of how other users feel about the platform’s deliverability.
6. Authenticate Your Email
Email authentication is a way to verify that the sender of an email is who they say they are. When you authenticate your email, you can add a digital signature or encryption to your email message, which helps to prevent it from being tampered with or altered in any way.
There are a few different ways to authenticate your email, including:
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF is an email validation system that allows the owner of a domain to specify which mail servers are authorized to send email from that domain. When an email is received, the recipient’s mail server checks the SPF record for the sending domain to see if the message is coming from an authorized server.
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): DKIM is an email authentication system that allows the sender of an email to digitally sign the message. When the email is received, the recipient’s mail server verifies the DKIM signature by using the public key published in the sender’s DNS record. If the signature is valid, the message is considered authentic.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): DMARC is an email authentication system that allows the owner of a domain to specify how they want their email to be handled if it fails an SPF or DKIM check. For example, you can specify that the message should be delivered with a warning, quarantined, or rejected.
By authenticating your email, you can help to prevent it from being spoofed, forged, or altered in any way, which will help to improve your email deliverability.
7. Send Useful
If you’re not sending useful emails, it’s more likely that someone will mark your email as spam, which will hurt your sender reputation and deliverability.
One of the best ways to ensure that your emails are useful is to understand your audience and send them content that’s relevant to their needs and interests. This means that you need to segment your email list and create targeted email campaigns.
You can use data from your email marketing platform, as well as other tools and sources, to segment your email list and create targeted email campaigns. For example, you can segment your list based on:
• Demographics, such as age, gender, and location
• Purchase history and other behavioral data
• Interests and preferences, such as the type of content your subscribers are interested in
• How long they’ve been on your list and how often they open and engage with your emails
Relevant Content
When it comes to email marketing, the most important thing is to send emails to people who want them. The second most important thing is to send relevant content to those people.
Avoid sending to purchased lists or people who have not opted in to receive email from you. This will not only lead to high spam complaint rates but it’s also illegal in many countries to send email to people who do not want it.
Even if you are only sending to people who have opted in, if you are sending irrelevant content, they may not want your email for long. People who have opted in to receive email from you expect you to send relevant content. If you don’t, they will stop opening your emails or worse, mark your email as spam.
8. Segment Your Email List
If you want to keep your email deliverability rate high, list segmentation is key.
You can segment your email list in a number of ways. For example, you could organize your contacts based on how frequently they engage with your emails.
Highly engaged contacts might receive your emails more frequently than less engaged contacts. Or, you could create a re-engagement campaign to try to get your less engaged contacts to interact with your emails more.
Another way to segment your list is to group your contacts based on their buyer personas. This will allow you to tailor your email content to better fit the needs of different segments of your audience.
You can also segment your list based on the actions your contacts take. For example, you could create a segment of people who haven’t made a purchase in the last 90 days and send them a win-back email.
The more you can segment your list, the better. This will allow you to send more targeted and relevant emails, which will help you maintain a high email deliverability rate.
9. Test Your Emails
Testing your emails is the best way to avoid spam filters. By identifying potential problems, you can make changes before you send your emails to your subscribers.
There are a few different types of tests you can run to ensure your emails are delivered properly. The most common types of tests include:
• Spam filter tests: These tests check to see if your email will be caught by common spam filters.
• Content tests: These tests check to see if your email contains any problematic content that could cause it to be flagged as spam.
• Design tests: These tests check to see if your email design is likely to cause any deliverability issues.
• Inbox placement tests: These tests check to see if your email will be delivered to the inbox or the spam folder.
The best way to test your emails is to use an email deliverability tool. These tools can run all of the tests mentioned above and more.
10. Monitor Your Email Deliverability
One of the most important things you can do to avoid the spam folder is to monitor your email deliverability. This is the process of tracking how many of your emails are delivered to the inbox, how many are marked as spam, and how many are simply not delivered at all.
You should also monitor your email deliverability rate, which is the percentage of your emails that are delivered to the inbox. This will help you identify any issues with your email marketing strategy and make any necessary adjustments.
For example, if you notice that your email deliverability rate is declining, you may want to take a look at your email list and see if there are any invalid email addresses. You may also want to consider sending fewer emails or segmenting your email list to make sure you’re only sending relevant content to your subscribers.
If you’re not already monitoring your email deliverability, there are a number of email deliverability tools that can help you get started. These tools will track your email deliverability rate, as well as any issues with your email list, content, or sending practices.
Conclusion
Spam filters are a complex, ever-changing system. One day, a word like “free” might send your email to the spam folder. The next day, it won’t. That’s why it’s so important to stay up to date on email deliverability best practices and make sure you’re following them.
If you’re looking for a way to avoid the spam folder, you’re in the right place. At our email deliverability blog, you can stay up to date on the latest email deliverability trends and best practices.
For example, did you know that timing matters for email marketing and platforms like TikTok, Instagram and more? Suppose you’re wondering when is the best time to post on TikTok.
In that case, it’s important to understand why timing matters and how optimizing your email and social media posting times can increase the likelihood of your content reaching your audience when they’re most likely to engage.