Email marketing in spam? Tips and solutions to avoid this problem

Email is one of the most effective strategies to communicate with your audience, generate leads, increase sales, and build customer loyalty. However, your emails can often end up in recipients’ spam folders, harming your reach and return on investment. That’s why we’ve created this guide about email marketing and spam.

Why does this happen? What factors cause your emails to be considered unwanted or unauthorized by providers or users? And what can you do to prevent your emails from landing in spam and instead reach your contacts’ inboxes?

In this article, we will answer these questions and provide tips and solutions to help you improve your email deliverability and open rates. Keep reading!

What is spam, and how is it identified?

Spam refers to electronic messages that are sent without the recipient’s consent or interest. These messages are usually commercial or fraudulent and may contain viruses, malicious links, fake offers, and other unwanted or harmful content.

There are two types of spam: hard spam and soft spam. Hard spam is sent by unknown senders with no connection to the recipient and often does not offer an option to unsubscribe. This type of spam is easier for email providers’ filters—such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo—to detect and block.

Soft spam, on the other hand, is sent by known senders who may have some relationship with the recipient but fail to follow good email marketing practices, such as sending relevant, segmented, personalized emails at an appropriate frequency. This type of spam is harder for providers’ filters to detect, but users themselves may mark it as spam if they find the emails annoying or unsatisfactory.

What are the consequences of email marketing landing in Spam?

Ending up in the spam folder can have several negative consequences for your email marketing strategy, such as:

❌ Loss of visibility:
Your emails won’t be seen by your contacts, as they rarely check their spam folder or pay attention to messages found there.

❌ Loss of credibility:
Your emails may become associated with low-quality content that adds no value or even poses a risk to recipients.

❌ Loss of engagement:
Emails will not be opened, clicked, or responded to by your contacts, reducing your chances of conversion and building relationships.

❌ Loss of reputation:
Your emails may be reported as spam by your contacts or providers, damaging your reputation as a sender and making it harder to deliver future emails.

What are the main causes of ending up in spam?

There are several reasons why your email marketing can land in spam, both from email providers’ filters and user actions. Here are some common causes:

• Using trigger words that activate spam filters, such as “free,” “promotion,” “guaranteed,” “click here,” “urgent,” and others.
• Using misleading subject lines that don’t match the email content, promise something they don’t deliver, or use all caps, excessive punctuation, or special characters.
• Sending from a generic sender that doesn’t identify your brand or name, or using a free domain like Gmail or Hotmail.
• Sending emails to purchased or outdated lists containing invalid, non-existent addresses or contacts that didn’t give permission to receive your emails.
• Sending emails without an unsubscribe option, which allows users to opt out if they no longer wish to receive your emails.
• Sending emails with a frequency that’s too high or too low, which can overwhelm or cause your audience to forget about you.
• Sending emails without segmentation or personalization, ignoring users’ characteristics, preferences, and behaviors.
• Creating irrelevant content that doesn’t provide value or solutions to users, or that isn’t aligned with their stage in the buying journey.
• Sending emails with poor layout, such as non-responsive designs, too many images and little text, broken links, or slow loading times.

Tips and solutions to avoid landing in spam

To prevent your emails from ending up in the spam folder, it’s important to follow email marketing best practices aimed at improving the quality and relevance of your emails, both for email providers’ filters and users. Here are some tips and solutions you can apply:

• Use relevant keywords related to your content that spark interest and curiosity without being exaggerated or misleading.
• Craft creative subject lines that summarize the email’s content, grab attention, and build anticipation, but avoid making them too long or confusing.
• Use a clear sender name that identifies your brand or your name, and use a custom domain that conveys trust and professionalism.
• Build your email list organically by capturing the emails of users who show interest in your content, who give consent to receive your emails, and who confirm their subscription.
• Verify the email addresses on your list to ensure all are correct and exist. We can help with that.
• Include an unsubscribe link in all your emails, making it visible and easy to use, and respect users’ decisions to opt out of your list.
• Set an appropriate email frequency that’s enough to maintain contact and user interest without being too frequent or too scarce.
• Segment your list based on users’ profiles, interests, and behaviors, and send personalized emails that use the recipient’s name, are tailored to their stage in the buying journey, and offer relevant content.
• Create high-quality content that is original, informative, educational, persuasive, or entertaining, adding value or solving users’ problems with a well-structured text featuring an introduction, development, and conclusion.
• Design an attractive layout that is responsive, with a good balance between images and text, functional links, and quick loading times.

Frequently asked questions that can help you:

Conclusion

Email is still one of the most powerful strategies for your business, but for it to work, you need to avoid email marketing in spam. To do this, it’s crucial to follow email marketing best practices to ensure the quality and relevance of your emails, both for email providers’ filters and users.

We hope this article has helped you understand why email marketing ends up in spam and how to avoid this issue. If you enjoyed it, share it with your friends and leave your comment below.