How to prevent my campaigns from going to spam

One of the main problems when sending email campaigns is that they end up in the spam or junk mail folder. The positive part is that this is a problem that in most cases has a solution . In this article we teach you how to identify if you are facing a deliverability problem with your emails and, if so, how to solve it .

The first thing you need to know is that, unfortunately, there is no way to check exactly what percentage of your emails are ending up in the spam folder, but we do have a way to identify if we are facing a deliverability problem:

• First of all, we need to know if we are reaching spam occasionally or in a generalized way. We can get an idea by analyzing our recent opening rates: a campaign that reaches spam in a generalized way does not usually exceed 1 or 2% of open rate.
• Regarding open rate, it's important to put it into context: this will depend a lot on the type of email you send (for example, an order receipt email or an automated email usually has a higher opening rate than a newsletter), the sector you belong to and, very importantly, the quality of your subscriber list, a topic we will cover in this article.
• How can I assess whether my emails have an acceptable opening rate or not? It's impossible for all of your subscribers to open your emails (although that would be great), but if your average open rate is 7% or higher, we can say that we have a healthy open rate. Beyond that percentage, we can say that you have a good opening rate.
• In this regard, it is important not to be alarmed by an isolated complaint from a subscriber that has ended up in spam. This may happen because the anti-spam filter of an email service provider (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) has been activated in some way. And that brings us to the next point.
• How do antispam filters work?this videoWe explain how they are activated. Anti-spam filters (which determine whether a campaign is going to spam or not) take into account:
  • The behavior of your subscribers (if they open your campaigns)
  • The reputation of the email domain you use as a sender
  • The content and links of your campaign

  In the following section we explain how you can prevent reaching the spam folder or solve a deliverability problem, taking into account the three factors that activate an antispam filter.

How do I prevent my campaign from going to spam?

Setting up DKIM

DKIM ( Domainkeys Identified Email) and SPF (Server Policy Framework ) are two authentication protocols used to verify the identity of email senders . Setting them up is important for:

• Not reaching the spam folder (since you will not activate the anti-spam response of an email provider)
• You will ensure that you protect your subscribers from potential online scams in which your company name is used to steal information ( phishing ).

Setting up DKIM in Acumbamail is easy, you don't need any technical knowledge to do it and you have a lot to benefit from. You only need to have your own domain for your sending (info@yourcompany.com) and access your hosting provider (where you bought your domain). In this article we explain how to do it step by step.

Use a good quality list

The list to which the emails are sent is the main success factor of an email marketing campaign. The quality of the list will largely determine the average behavior of your subscribers with your mailings (remember that this is a factor that can activate antispam filters). Therefore, it is extremely important that you follow these good practices:

• Don't use purchased, assigned or public lists: first of all because it's illegal , but also because you can't expect great receptivity to your mailings from people who have not consented to receive your communications. Sending emails to a list that is not very active will eventually end up in spam. In addition, it is very likely that these people will manually mark your mailing as spam (in Acumbamail's reports it will appear as a complaint), which potentially increases the probability that you will systematically end up in spam in the long run.
• Regularly clean your lists of old emails that don't exist (known as hard bounces ) and subscribers who never open your emails . At first it may seem that the more subscribers on a list, the greater the reach, but sending to lists with low interaction (they don't open your emails regularly) can compromise your overall deliverability in the long run and end up in spam.

If you don't know at first if you have a quality list or not, at Acumbamail we have many resources on this topic to help you:

• A specific ebook on how to build an email database ethically and effectively. You can download it for free.
• Articles on our blog about how to grow your list with quality subscribers who are interested in what you do (hint: content is king)
• A complete and free email marketing course from beginner to expert level, where we pay a lot of attention to this point
• Within your Acumbamail lists, you can create segments by behavior (for example, for those who have never opened a mailing) to identify inactive subscribers and remove them.
• You can use automatic tools to automate list cleaning and identify emails that do not exist in our PRO and Enterprise plans.

And finally, don't hesitate to contact our support if you have any questions . Remember that we are specialized in this topic and we will advise you on whatever you need.

The sender of your campaign is important

Often, not much care is taken in choosing a sender for the campaign. Sometimes, even a sender from a random email provider is used, such as a Hotmail or Gmail address. This practice can trigger antispam filters.

The most important thing here is to use an email that belongs to a domain you own . It is also highly recommended that the address exists and is not a no-reply address , so that your subscribers can contact you directly by replying to your emails.

It is common that if you send an email from your own domain @yourcompany.com to another address on your domain, the emails end up in spam. This is because the email provider knows that the email has not been sent from your domain, but from a third party (Acumbamail's sending servers, in this case). But don't worry, because this has an easy solution if you configure DKIM .

Building your template correctly

Building the template is an important point to avoid triggering content spam filters.

• Our recommendation is to use our template editor , which generates HTML-correct emails. This is the best advice we can give you for many reasons - it's used to create tens of thousands of templates a day, it's standards-compliant, it renders correctly in all browsers, and the emails it creates adapt to different devices. We have over 260 fully customizable templates to fit your branding and sending needs, but if you need a template specifically created for you, our design team can create a custom template for you .
• If you want to import your own HTML template , make sure it has correct HTML.
• Avoid, as far as possible, having your email simply consist of an image with text (this is a common practice among spammers and can raise "suspicion" for email providers).
• It is also important that you do not use words in the subject or body of the email that may trigger spam filters .

Maintaining your domain's reputation

If you have previously sent some campaigns that have been considered spam (to a greater or lesser extent) or you have sent to a list with a large number of non-existent emails (hard bounce), you may need to do something to improve the reputation of your domain and the email that sent the campaign. A good way to increase your reputation would be to send quality emails, following the advice we have shown you and gradually increasing the number of subscribers.

The last factor that influences deliverability is the quality of the IPs and sending servers, which is our responsibility. At Acumbamail we regularly monitor the IPs and sending servers to ensure their quality. Furthermore, all our sending servers are located in Spain, so there is no transfer of data outside the European Union and you can easily comply with the GDPR .

If you want a more detailed explanation of domain reputation and the main problems (and solutions) you may face when using an email marketing platform, we recommend these additional resources:

• Complete guide to deliverability in email marketing (where you will find all the factors that can affect the reputation of a sending domain)
• A complete guide to the most common problems our clients have (and how they can be solved in most cases). We give you different alternatives for each problem raised.