Email marketing has always been the prime channel for businesses to communicate with their audience and drive conversions. However, the effectiveness of email marketing can get dented if the emails you send are marked as spam. This directly harms the sender’s reputation while limiting the reach of your campaign. Moreover, it may also limit the chances of your emails reaching the inboxes of your audience in the future.
There may be various reasons why you are marked as spam during the email marketing campaigns. In this post, we will see some actionable tips to help you avoid spam and ensure the success of your email marketing campaign.
Strategies to Avoid Spam for Email Marketing Campaigns
Focus on Building a Quality Email List
The first and foremost thing you need to do here is to avoid buying email lists from third parties. This is one of the key reasons why emails are marked as spam. Use organic strategies to build your email list. Leverage social media platforms, your website, and landing pages for sign-up forms. This will help you get genuine subscribers who willingly engage with your emails.
Tip – Use double opt-in forms where users receive a confirmation email after signing up. Only after verifying their email address, they will be added to your email list. This will protect you from having any fake email address while helping with the success of your email marketing campaign.
Clean Your Email List Regularly
It is not necessary that a user who has willingly subscribed to your emails will remain loyal in the future. This is why it is important for you to optimize your email list regularly. Removing inactive or unengaged subscribers from your email list can improve deliverability and open rates.
Remember, if you see high deliverability and click-through rates, your email list is of top quality. Hence, there will be a minimal risk of your emails being marked as spam.
Tip – Before removing inactive subscribers from your list, consider running a re-engagement program. If they engage, that is good, if they do not, remove them.
Focus on Personalizing Email Content
Besides a quality email list, the success of any email marketing campaign also depends on the quality of content delivered. Personalizing email content can have a positive impact on the engagement rates. Addressing the audience with their names and tailoring content based on their interests and preferences shows that you value them. As a result, they will happily consider your CTA while improving your email marketing metrics.
Tip – Use segmentation based on the interest of your audience to personalize content and send what they wish to see.
Pay More Attention to the Subject Line
Subject line is of most importance when it comes to the
success of your email marketing campaign and preventing spam. The first thing a recipient sees after opening the inbox is the subject line. Hence, make sure that the subject line is clear and professional. Avoid using misleading phrases as doing so may lead your email marked as spam.
Be honest and relevant to the content of your email.
Tip – It is always better to keep subject line crisp and clear. Maintain the character count between 50 and 60 to ensure it appears complete on mobile devices.
Make Unsubscribing Easy
Now, you might be thinking why to make unsubscribing easy. Well, it is important to maintain a good sender’s reputation. When it is difficult to unsubscribe, uninterested people may mark your emails as spam. However, when they find unsubscribing easy, your sender’s reputation will be protected. Moreover, giving an unsubscribe option is also important to meet anti-spam laws.
Tip – Avoid hiding the unsubscribe link. Keep it clearly visible. Additionally, you can also give your subscribers an option to change their preferences rather than unsubscribing. This may help retain subscribers who like only a certain type of content.
Avoid Using Words That Can Trigger Spam
There are certain words in the hit list of spam filters. So, avoid using those words to prevent your email being marked as spam. Such word may include “free,” “click here,” “earn,” “urgent,” and others. These words can raise red flags while increasing the chances of marking your emails as spam.
Additionally, try using natural tone that adds value to the users. As a result, you will not find the need to use such words.
Tip – Get an analysis of your email metrics to identify the words or phrases that works the best and the ones disliked by your target audience.
Optimize HTML Codes in Emails
This is one of the overlooked factors when it comes to email marketing. Having a clean HTML code in emails also play a vital role in avoid spam. Make sure any image you insert into the email must have a relevant alt text. Moreover, avoid using only a single large image in the email as it is often used by spammers to bypass text-based filters.
Tip – Maintain a balanced image-to-text ratio in your email and use proper HTML structure.
Avoid too Many Attachments
Having too many attachments and links in your emails can alert spam filters. This is because spammers do this. So, limit the number of attachments and include only relevant and authoritative links.
Tip – Do not use link shorteners. Wherever possible, include links to your website instead of attachments.
Keep Monitoring Your Sender’s Reputation
Always keep a check on your sender reputation and ensure it is on the higher side. It is influenced by the open rates, bounce rates, spam complaints, and engagement rates. If it goes down, there are high chances of your emails being marked as spam.
Remember, a higher sender reputation increases the chances of your emails landing in the inboxes of your target audience.
Tip – There are online tools available for checking your sender reputation and domain health. Leverage those tools to keep yourself updated.
Test Emails Before Sending
Before you decide to launch the email marketing campaign, do test whether your emails are landing in the inbox or spam folder. This will give you another chance of optimizing the email and removing elements that are causing the problems.
Tip – Use multiple email clients to send emails to while testing like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. This is will ensure that your emails are compatible across all clients.
Conclusion
Avoiding spam strategies in email marketing campaigns is not only about using relevant content and clear subject lines. It is much more than that. Technical aspects like HTML codes also play equal role in the success.
In this post, we have discussed some of the key elements you need to focus on to avoid spam for email marketing campaign. We hope consider these will help you maximize your email marketing campaign’s performance and extract the best results out.
