7 Tips to Keep Your Email Campaigns Out of the Spam Folder
Good news — the amount of email spam is on the decline, hitting a 12-year low in 2015. But spam still makes up nearly half of all emails sent today. And in the ongoing battle to keep spam out of users’ inboxes, Internet service providers (ISPs) may mistakenly label your legitimate emails as spam. Here are seven key actions you can take to prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder.
1. Folow the rules The anti-spam rules are laid out in the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) that took effect on July 1, 2014. For example, the law requires that senders include an unsubscribe link that’s valid for at least 30 days, as well as a physical address, in their emails. In addition to facing substantial fines for sending emails that don’t comply with the anti-spam laws, your emails will be sent to the spam folder.
For more information about how to comply with the anti-spam laws, click on the following links:
2. Manage your email lists. Even if you have a great product and consistently create spectacular email campaigns, some of your subscribers inevitably will lose interest and become inactive over time. On average, about 25% of subscribers become inactive every year for typical email lists. And lists with a high percentage of inactive recipients who aren’t engaging with your emails will likely have a negative impact on your email deliverability.
Some good list management practices include continually growing your list, promptly removing all bounced email addresses, and routinely running reengagement campaigns to help reignite interest in your brand and products. Click here for some other great ways to help keep your list of subscribers engaged.
3. Make double opt-in an integral part of your email-marketing program. In other words, once prospects sign up to receive your emails, have them confirm their subscriptions by clicking a link in a confirmation email. This practice helps ensure that the people on your email list are truly interested in getting information from you.
4. Keep in touch with your subscribers. You get prospects to share their email addresses with you at a conference or at your website. But then you let weeks go by before sending them the first email. Or perhaps you let months pass between sending emails to your list of subscribers. In both of these examples, the chances are high that subscribers may forget that they ever signed up. And some of these subscribers may even mark your emails as spam. Sending emails on a consistent basis helps your company stay top of mind with subscribers.
5. Avoid using spammy copy. Although filtering rules aren’t published and are regularly updated, we know that servers will flag and assign points to spammy copy. Spam filters check email subject lines and copy for signs of spam, including all-uppercase letters, unusual punctuation (such as multiple exclamation points), and the frequency of certain spammy words and phrases (such as free, buy, purchase, earn big bucks, and money making). When the number of points for spammy copy exceeds an ISP’s threshold, the email is sent to the spam folder.
6. Pay attention to the image-to-text ratio. Large images and too many images relative to the amount of text in an email are both factors that can contribute to your emails being flagged as spam. For example, including at least two lines of text for every graphic in your email is considered a good practice.
7. Track your campaign deliverability rates. This metric is a key indication of whether your email campaigns are making it into your subscribers’ inboxes. If your deliverability rates are low, begin by evaluating such technical specifics as email authentication and sender reputation. Then, take a close look at your email content and practices to find what could be triggering the spam filters.
How are your email delivery rates? If you’re having trouble with spam filters, email the experts at FulcrumTech or give us a call at 215-489-9336. We’ll help you uncover the source of your problems and solve your deliverability issues. At FulcrumTech, we specialize in getting our clients’ email delivered!