How To Avoid A Spam Filter In Email Marketing?

The world of email marketing can be all-inclusive. However, at times, it can be extremely deceptive as well. One such deceptive element of an email marketing campaign is email spam. Yes! We are talking about the spam filter in email marketing. Buckle up! Because in this blog we will be telling you how to avoid spam filters to make your email marketing campaign a success!

As an online merchant, who usually runs a email marketing campaign, you must be aware of how to avoid spam filters when sending email so that YOU don’t get flagged as deceptive by your target customers and hindered by a spam filter.

Every merchant who sends emails to its target customers must understand that spam filter in email marketing is something

that can drastically affect your email marketing campaign and you may lose your potential customers if you aren’t aware of how to avoid spam filters. Spam email also frustrates the recipients and it becomes extremely crucial for email marketers to take measures so that their email doesn’t end up being in the spam folder of the email box after being filtered by a spam filter.

To know how to avoid spam filter when sending email and to save your email from the spam filter in email marketing, let’s understand everything about how spam filter works and affects your email marketing campaign.

Also Read: 7 tips to develop a successful marketing strategy

The Numbers of Spam Filter In Email Marketing

• Per day, 14.5 billion messages worldwide account for spam.
• Of all the emails worldwide, 28.5% are spam.
• 36% of all the spam emails are related to advertising.
• Emails related with finance account for 26.5% of all the spam emails.
• In the year 2016, 3 out of 4 companies fell prey to phishing.
• 7 of the world’s top 10 spammers are from the USA.

Spam Filter and Spam Emails In Your Email Marketing Campaign

Sometimes, the unwanted, irrelevant emails that are sent in bulk to the users end up landing in the spam folder and are considered as spam emails. These bulk emails being shot up to the customers’ inbox may either be sent by a business for generating profit, or by some unreliable source to lure the recipients for some fraudulent activity.

52% of participants in a recent survey stated that spam was a major problem.

Now barring the reason why such emails are sent, they are considered as spam and get filtered out by spam filter and never reach the recipient’s inbox.

How Do A Spam Filter In Email Marketing Filters Spam Mails?

Whenever an email is sent to customers as a part of a company’s email marketing campaign, the internet service provider of the customer sends the email through the spam filter and that is the step when the spam emails get filtered out by a spam filter. Like the internet service providers, email inbox provider also does the same and send the unwanted, spam emails to the spam folder after spam filter filters the emails.

A spam filter in email marketing or anti-spam software basically check the emails coming to recipients inbox for the common attributes that spam emails contain. The similar attributes that the spam emails contain, if are present in the email, emails are sent to the spam folders and not in the inbox. This whole process takes place between the time when an email is being sent by the sender and being received by the customer.

The interesting point here is that online merchants sometimes do not even get to know if their emails are being checked by a spam filter and going to the spam folder. However, if some points are taken into consideration as to how a spam filter works, it can be prevented. Thus, it’s essential to understand how to avoid spam filters. Scroll down and know how!

Reasons Why Spam Filter In Email Marketing Sends Emails To Spam Folder

For online merchants running a email marketing campaign, it is very important to know why their emails go to the spam folder and not in the inbox, as it can badly affect not only the sales and business but also the reputation of the business.

Let’s see the reasons why an email is considered to be spam by a spam filter as well as how to avoid spam filters:

You’re Not Following The CAN-SPAM ACT Guidelines

If you’re not following the guidelines made by CAN-SPAM, a law that sets the rules for commercial emails and gives the recipients the freedom to stop getting emails from you if the emails are not wanted, your emails will get filtered by spam filter and will go to spam folder. If you buy the email list, you are violating the CAN-SPAM ACT as it strictly says that an email can be spammed by spam filter if it is unsolicited.

However, you can get the express consent which makes it evident that your website visitors are subscribing to your emails. To get the express consent, a merchant may have an opt-in form on its website which makes the visitors acknowledge that they are interested in subscribing the emails by the website. As a result, you may send the emails to such subscribers without being labeled as spam by spam filter.

There are researches that indicate that spam filter in email marketing makes up an even greater part of worldwide emails, 73% in fact. So, in case you don’t want your email marketing campaign to get ruined by the spam filter, you must know how to avoid spam filters when sending email.

Also Read: 4 ways to shorten your sales cycle with marketing with marketing automation 

Misleading Content

If your email content is misleading, it will definitely be filtered by spam filter and will go to the spam folder, as per the CAN-SPAM act. Based on the guideline of the act, sending an email with a deceptive subject line to lure your customer to open the email is forbidden. Such emails with misleading content get flagged as spam by spam filter and in order to avoid it, you should not usee misleading subject lines.

According to a survey that was conducted by Litmus and Fluent, almost 50% participants expressed that they felt deceived when they opened a promotional mail due to a misleading subject line. As an online seller, you should know how to avoid spam filters so that you can actually make your email marketing campaign influential.

Source: Litmus and Fluent

Low Open Rates

One of the most common reasons why an email gets filtered by spam filter in email marketing campaign is low open rates. Quite often, users don’t even open the emails and delete them as they consider the mail to be useless or spam. In this case, the email inbox providers also consider this open rate and while filtering out the emails in future, they take into consideration this point.

IP Address of the Email Service Provider

It sometimes happens that the email service provider that you use may have other senders also who might have been labeled as spam. In this case also, no matter how accurate your emails are, there are chances that you may be flagged as spam by spam filter as the IP address of the service provider has already been used by a spam email sender. To avoid spam filter in email marketing, always use a reliable email service provider while conducting an email marketing campaign.

Wrong ‘Sender Info’

As per the guidelines of CAN-SPAM, a sender can’t send a mail with a wrong “from” as it is believed to be misleading. As a result, the mail would be considered as spam by spam filter. To avoid such practice, a sender should always use an appropriate name (company name, seller name etc). Such practice also instills the sense of relationship among the target users.

To the question how to avoid spam filter while sending emails, avoiding the above stated mistake can be considered as a solution that will help your email marketing campaign to work for you.

In a survey conducted in 2005, 53% of people stated that they had lost confidence in communicating through email due to spam.

Also Read: What is email marketing? How will it help merchants to grow their business?

Do Not Use ‘Spam Words’

Sometimes, being too promising can cost you your business. Even if you are trying to convey a message more accurately or that your product is going to do wonders for the users, don’t use words which are common among spam emails. Some of the spam trigger words that can be harmful to your email marketing campaign are: Click Here, This is not spam, Amazing, Risk-free etc. If such words are used, chances are high that spam filter in email marketing will filter your email as spam email.

Although there are many, the above-mentioned points are some crucial ones in order to understand how to avoid spam filters so that you, as an online merchant must prevent your mails to fall in the spam section.

Now comes the part where you can see what are the steps that you need to take to make it sure that your email doesn’t get considered as an unsolicited spam email by a spam filter and may make its way to the users’ inbox. Let’s see how to avoid spam filters when sending emails:

How To Avoid Spam Filters While Sending Emails

Whitelisting

In contrast to blacklisted spam emails, ask your users to whitelist your emails as soon as you send them the first email. Ask them to add you to their contacts and you may easily make the way for your emails to their inbox.

Build Your Own Email List

As already discussed, it is always a bad idea to buy a list while doing the email marketing. On the other hand, sending the emails to the users who have an interest in your product makes it easy for you to get to their inbox. As per the CAN-SPAM ACT, unsolicited emails are considered to be spam by spam filter, so send the emails to those who have opted in. At the same time, always avoid:

• Renting or purchasing an email list.
• Sharing the list with partners.
• Scraping emails, as they will never give a fruitful result.

Send Personalized Emails

How to avoid spam filters while sending emails? Well, the best you can do to avoid spam filters is to send personalized emails to your customers.

Because spam filter also keeps a check on whether you know your email receiver or not. It is always recommended that you should add the first name of the customer that you are sending an email to, to avoid being flagged as spam email. The best part about personalized email is that the open rate is high with such emails. The CAN-SPAM ACT says that you should also add your information in the mail for where you are located.

According to a report, emails that are personalized with a subject line are 26% more likely to be opened.

Use Company Domain

Mails sent in bulk are filtered out by spam filter if they have not been sent using a proper domain. There are chances that an email which is not sent by an email service provider gets labeled as a spam email. So while starting an email marketing campaign, stop using free email accounts as provided by many email service providers.

Also Read: Benefits of marketing automation for e-commerce business?

Use Full Links

There are multiple answers to the question how to avoid spam filters while sending emails, using full links in your emails is one such solution.

Person or company sending a fraud spam email would never want to disclose what lies in the link that it is providing in the spam email. Hence, they always use the shortened link and once the user clicks the link, their system becomes prone to the malware attack. To stand out, always use the full links so that email service providers or internet service providers or spam filter can identify you as a genuine sender.

Use An Email Service Provider

There are multiple email marketing companies which can help you in your email marketing campaign and provide service and products to enable you to know if your email can be categorized as spam email by a spam filter or not. On the basis of that, a sender may check the pointers and can redesign the emails to be sent. Some of the leading email marketing companies are: HubSpot, InfusionSoft, MailChimp, Salesforce, and GetResponse.

Also Read: What is Hubspot e-commerce bridge and how can it benefit store owners?

Manage The Metrics

Running an email marketing campaign and sending an email doesn’t end the process. Every merchant needs to understand the metrics also as it is as vital as sending an email in an email marketing campaign. With a better understanding of metrics, you will get aware of the performance of your email marketing campaign as to how successful a campaign is and what are the measures that you can take in the future campaigns.

Consider SPF, DMARC, and DKIM

While sending an email in an email marketing campaign, it is very important to authenticate your email so that internet service providers or spam filter do not consider you to be a spam email sender. How to do that? Consider the following:

SPF(Sender Policy Framework) – It checks the sender and receivers IPs and confirms if the sender is not any fraudulent who’s trying to be someone else.

DKIM(Domain Keys Identified Mail) – It checks if the emails are tampered while they were on their way to reach the receiver.

DMARC(Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) – It requires both the above-mentioned elements to be accurate for an email to be sent.

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Let The Users ‘Unsubscribe’

No matter how important the email marketing campaign is, always give the liberty to your customers to unsubscribe. Also, without much delay, take the action of removing them from your email list as soon as they unsubscribe so that they don’t get frustrated and mark you as spam. According to the CAN-SPAM ACT, you must honor the choice of your customer to unsubscribe.

When people ask, ‘how to avoid spam filters while sending emails’, the best solution is by implementing the above strategies in their email marketing campaign.

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Conclusion

Though email marketing campaign is the need of the hour today, it is equally important for email marketers to understand if their campaign is working or not. Sending the email won’t put an end to your responsibility as a marketer in the dynamic marketing environment. Understanding the concept behind why an email marketing campaign is not a success too is not the only point to consider. Understand why the emails are not reaching out to the people they are intended to reach or why your emails are going to spam folders as a spam email.

Thus, it is the prime duty of an online merchant to understand how to avoid spam filters so that they can achieve the desired results. So, keep in mind the pointers mentioned in this post, follow the CAN-SPAM ACT. Remember how to avoid the spam filters to filter your email as well as prevent them from being labeled as spam email, and make your email marketing campaign a roaring success. Connect with us and know how to draft a successful email marketing campaign with the help of our expert team at CedCommerce.