Everyone seems to love Google’s Gmail and it has been hailed as one of the best free web-mail services by many tech people. It can considered as one of the most secure email service that is free which allows you to enable 2-step verification to prevent from your Gmail account from being hacked. I personally love to use Gmail because it supports POP3 and IMAP for free and the email space available has grown up to a huge 10GB!
I’ve configured my email client The Bat to download Gmail inbox emails ever since I registered for a Gmail account. Many times I signed up in forums, social networking sites etc but never received any welcome emails to active my account. One day, just out of curiosity, I logged in to Gmail.com to check my emails and saw a huge amount of spams in the Spam folder.
I was quite surprised to find so many legitimate emails being identified as spam which were automatically moved straight into spam folder. The problem with using regular or portable email clients to download POP3 emails from Gmail is they don’t download emails from the spam folder. I logged in to Gmail again and tried to look for any spam settings but couldn’t find any. It looks like Gmail doesn’t allow us to configure the sensitivity of their spam filter.
After many months of testing, my Gmail spam filter is now perfect because it is possible to train Gmail spam filter.
Did you notice that there is a “Not Spam” button when you view and you tick on any mails in the Spam folder?
At first I thought that it is only used to move wrongly identified legitimate emails to the inbox, but I was wrong. When you mark an email as “Not Spam”, you’re actually training the Gmail spam filter. The more spam you mark, the better the Gmail spam system will get at weeding out those annoying messages. If you’ve accidentally marked a good message as spam, remember to set the email as “Not Spam” so that it future similar emails won’t go to your spam folder.
Even after months of manually marking legitimate emails as not spam, and you still find that some senders’ messages are consistently being mislabeled as spam, you can prevent this by adding their email addresses to your Contacts list. Gmail will always deliver messages from members of your Contacts list to your inbox.
I’ve read a few articles on the web complaining that Gmail’s spam filter is rubbish just because one day they woke up and suddenly found thousands of spam emails got into their inbox. This only happened once in a while when spammers found a way to bypass Gmail’s spam filter. When this happens, check for legitimate emails from inbox, move them to another folder such as DRAFT, then select all and use the REPORT SPAM button. Once all spam emails has been moved to spam folder, go back to DRAFT and move them back to your inbox. If you’re being mailbombed, it is actually quite easy to clean up your inbox from the web based mail.
Remember, the Gmail spam filter is not really that good when you first start using it. After a little effort and spending some time manually training the filter, I assure you that Gmail’s spam filter will be near perfect.
If you’re not using Google Gmail yet, you can get your free Gmail account here.
You may find yourself often fighting the frustration of having your business emails getting classified as spam in your customer email boxes. The fact is that about 80-90% of All email on the internet is spam. In spite of this, businesses anticipate increasing the number of email campaigns on the web.
To stop the bombardment, people and businesses are creating filters, or buying company services that filter email so that they receive only content that they deem relevant to them. So, whether or not your email is legitimate, if a receiving host or email spam program is aggressive or set a certain way, your emails could very easily get marked as spam. Unfortunately, this is not a server or hosting issue. This is a general issue with email that you will find no matter where you host your business emails. This article discusses what you can do from your end.
Steps to take when your emails are flagged as spam
There are several things that may help, but bear mind these are suggestions and not a guarantee that your email will no longer be filtered as spam:
- Make sure that you are not in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Verify that your emails make the grade and you’re not falling into common filtering rules.
- Send your customers a personal email message requesting that they white-list your domain, so that your business emails don’t get filtered into Spam. In this, I’m referring to a “personal” email as one that doesn’t include your marketing links or business advertisements or enhancements that may flag the email as something other than a personal email.
- Check to make sure that your Email Authentication is enabled. This helps stop spam coming from your email address (even if you’re not sending any that you know of). One of the common tactics by spammers out there is to spoof email coming from your domain. This causes you to get blacklisted even though you’re not sending emails. Here’s an article on these settings: Email Authentication – SPF and DomainKeys.
- If all else fails, you might want to consider a paid service or use a large specific email host for sending business emails- like Google mail. There are services for sending out emails for marketing such as MailChimp.com. Check them out as possible solutions since they can provide business email and newsletter services.
- Examine your email bounces. When an email bounces, it will tell you “why” it’s being bounced and give you a source or reason for the bounce. If you’re being listed on a service (that you may not be aware of), then you should investigate. In some cases, you can very easily remove yourself from a list simply contacting the authority who has blacklisted you. This may not always be the same person as the email administrator of that server. However, you can also send an email to an email administrator of the service to find out why your emails are being blocked. Though, I would only do this after examining the reason for the block and ,making sure that you have done your due diligence by reading their bounce messages and confirmed that you’re not sending spam.
Outgoing Email Filtering
Outgoing email on InMotion Hosting servers are also being continuously scanned for emails that are classified as “spam.” This includes emails that may have inappropriate language or topics that are typically classified as spam. These filters are being applied to outgoing emails in an effort to stop email servers from being blacklisted or being rated with poor reputation scores. In many cases, outgoing emails labeled as spam are not intentional, but they have the unfortunate side effect of causing poor reputation scores with blacklist services such as SpamCOP, Spamhaus, Barracuda, or SURBL. If you find your emails being blocked as spam, then please make sure to review your outgoing to content. If you are on a VPS or dedicated server, then exceptions can be made, but you will need to submit a verified support ticket if you do not have root access or you’re not familar with making the necessary changes.
For more information on combating Spam:
As a writer for InMotion Hosting, Arnel has always aimed to share helpful information and provide knowledge that will help solve problems and aid in achieving goals. He’s also been active with WordPress local community groups and events since 2004.
Since the beginning of the internet, we have been fighting spam. In fact, almost 86% of global email traffic is unsolicited junk mail (with approximately 400 billion spam messages sent every single day).
To stop being bombarded by spam, people sometimes buy third-party email filtering services or create filters on their own to ensure that they only receive content that they deem to be relevant.
The downside of this is that depending on the receiver’s settings, your legitimate emails can get marked as spam quite easily. It’s not a server or hosting issue, it’s just a common problem in the digital age. So how do you avoid emails going to spam? In this guide we’ll discuss:
- Avoid Phishing Phrases and Spam Trigger Words
- Ensure that you’re Compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act
- Set up a Whitelist
- Include a Text-Only version of your Email
- Utilize Spam Checkers
- Ensure that Email Authentication is enabled
- Get your name off a Blacklist
1 Avoid Phishing Phrases and Spam Trigger Words
When you’re composing client emails, always try and avoid typing phishing phrases and spam trigger words. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a complete list of trigger words to avoid, but here are some examples that can give you an idea:
- Member
- Sale
- Fantastic deal
- For free
- Act now! Don’t hesitate!
Tip: As spam is basically trying to block commercial promotions, the words that are highly common in such emails must be avoided (or used sparingly).
Phishing, on the other hand, is designed to steal identities by getting the receiver to click on a fraudulent link. So common phrases in phishing emails that you must avoid using will be related to bank accounts and personal data.
2 Ensure that you’re Compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act
Speaking of promotional emails, if you’re sending a commercial message to your customers, you’ll have to follow these rules to maintain compliance (or you’ll be at risk of fines that can total $16,000):
- Avoid deceptive subject line
- Avoid using misleading header information
- Let recipients know where you’re located
- Inform your recipients how they can opt-out of receiving any future emails
- Immediately honor opt-out requests (the secret is to automate it)
- Keep track of what others do on your behalf
- Clearly identify the message as a promotional message
If you’re sending out only related content like a transactional email, then you will be exempt from these rules. But you still have to ensure that you don’t use any false or misleading routing information.
3 Set up a Whitelist
Send a personal email (without any advertising or marketing links) to your clients and ask them to whitelist your domain .
This action will ensure that your business email doesn’t get classified as spam.
4 Include a Text Only Version of your Email
If you’re sending HTML emails, they can easily end up in the spam folder. An easy way to get around this is to add a text-only version of your email. Further, this will also help if the recipient can’t read the HTML email.
If you have to send images, make sure that you use a good image-to-text ratio. Here are some tips to help your images avoid the spam filter:
- Send a well-formed HTML for email
- Avoid image-only emails
- Do your best to optimize the images
- Include a minimum of two lines of text for every graphic used in the email
5 Utilize Spam Checkers
If you have an extensive email list, it will be worth making use of a spam checking service. There are several options, so you can either go with spam checking software or completely manage it online.
Some spam checkers you can check out are as follows:
6 Ensure that Email Authentication is Enabled
Keeping email authentication enabled will help stop spam from being generated from your email address (whether you’re aware of it or not). It’s a common tactic used by spammers, so it’s best to avoid spoof emails being sent from your domain.
You can easily get blacklisted if this happens, so make sure that you check your settings. To learn more about email authentication, check out this guide from Network Solutions .
7 Get your Name off a Blacklist
If your email server ends up on a blacklist, it won’t be easy to reliably send emails until you get it resolved. This is especially true for new addresses on your email lists.
What you can do is first check if your email server has been blacklisted from services like the following:
- Email Blacklist Check
- Domain Blacklist Check
If you have the unfortunate experience of being on a blacklist, you’ll have to first follow up on the website that added you to their blacklist. This will be the first step to getting this situation resolved.
In the end, there’s really not much else that anyone can do about spam or spam filters. We can’t control how emails are received or force people to control how they receive them. But you can make sure that you follow best practices to try and avoid being perceived as spam.
Now you can Stop Legitimate Emails from Getting Marked as Spam with the help of a simple and easy guide that will help you to implement this. So Follow the below guide to proceed.
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll email services usually identify and hence categorize any of the emails to be spam if it has any such significant marks inside it that would let describe it as spam, but it always doesn’t mean that these services would catch the real spams only. These services could also mark the legitimate emails as spam, and this could be the real problem for the users. To make up the email services not tick the spam marker for the legitimate emails there have to be some preferences made out although there is no such option to control it in any of the email services. Fortunately, the fix could be there for the issue, and this could be easily done for any of the Email services. Here in this article, we have written about the method through which you could be able to stop the legitimate emails from being getting as marked to be spam although these are not the spam in real. If you were also seeking for this method, then you are exactly at the right place because we have written about the process in an easy way such that you might also not get any issues while implementing it by your own. Now it’s your time just to follow up reading this article and hence get to know about this method!
How to Stop Legitimate Emails from Getting Marked as Spam
#1 For Gmail
To prevent the Microsoft Outlook from putting your particular sender’s emails to the spam folder, you have to make up the below-given changes.
1. Open up the Email from any particular sender for which you wish to prevent all emails to be received from entering the spam folder.
2. Click on the spam mail that you want to put to nonspam and just click on Not Spam option there and that’s it you are done.
#2 For Microsoft Outlook
To prevent the Microsoft Outlook from putting your particular sender’s emails to the spam folder, you have to make up the below-given changes.
1.Open up the email from the sender you wish not to enter their emails into the spam folder and then click on Junk button in the delete section on the ribbon. After that select up the Never Block Sender option and this would stop the emails from being marked as spam for that particular email sender.
#3 For Outlook.com
To prevent the Outlook.com from putting your particular sender’s emails to the spam folder, you have to make up the below-given changes.
1. Open up the email from the sender you wish not to enter their emails into the spam folder and then click on the sender’s email address at the top of the email.
2. Click on the email address and then click on the Add button, after that enter the information for the contact which could be anything you like and then save it up by clicking on the Save button.
3. This would prevent the emails from that particular contact being marked as spams, but in case you still get the emails gone to spam folder click on the gear icon at the top corner of the outlook.com page and then click options.
4. Finally, click on the Safe Senders option under the junk email and add the sender’s email address to the list there!
#4 For Yahoo! Mail
To prevent the Yahoo mail from putting your particular sender’s emails to the spam folder, you have to make up the below-given changes.
1. Open up the email from the sender you wish not to enter their emails into the spam folder and then click on the originator’s email address at the top of the email.
2. Move up the mouse over the “…” menu at the bottom of the popup and then click “Add to Contacts” option from there.
3. Add the desired information for that contact and then save that all by clicking on the Save button.
After reading up the above article you have now got about the method by which you would be able to stop the emails from being marked as spam, and this is all for those emails that are all legitimate and are not the spam in the real case. The method as you have read the above article is simple to be applied, and there might be no issues to get onto it. Hope that you might have liked up the method, in case you get into any trouble while trying to apply up to the method then worry not but just tap your appearance below in the comments, and we shall be there to help you out.
Let’s have a look at the guide to Stop Legitimate Emails from being Flagged as Spam using the simple email setting that will help you to avoid missing some important emails. So follow up the complete guide discussed below to proceed.
[dropcap]E[/dropcap]mail is the great way to communicate between some business authorities, communicate related to some important information, share some really important stuff to the others securely. The Emails could be the better way to share information but there is certainly a negative part of it too, and that is it attracts lots of spam. This spam just is a kind of rubbish messages that are connected with something insecure on the other end. The email services provide lots of features to prevent from this issue, and some of the providers or services automatically send the spam emails to the other specific folders. Apart from the thing that this separation filter is highly sensitive and accurate to justify among the legitimate or spam emails but still in some cases, the legitimate emails are censored as spam. In this situation, the users would need to search for the legitimate emails in the spam folder which could sometimes be a tricky task. Here in this article, we have described the way through which the legitimate emails can be stopped from going to the spam folder. If you wish to know about that method then please go to the article below and read it fully!
How to Stop Legitimate Emails from being Flagged as Spam
Below we had discussed a method for different mail servers by which you can easily implement in yours. So proceed with the below ways.
#1 In Gmail
Although Gmail’s inbuilt spam filter is extremely capable it do sometimes mistook the legit emails as spam and send them to the spam folder. We will not be always able to see if the Gmail is working correctly or not, we have to apply some forces so that no problems would occur at all. To make the changes inside the Gmail to prevent the legit messages from going to the spam folder just follow the below steps.
If you want to mark any email as not a spam then you can do it easily, just open up the message or the email inside your account and then click on the Not Spam button above it. Further, if you wish to make the whole messages from the sender to be added to the legit emails list and not in the Spam folder, you can do this by hovering over the sender field and right clicking over it. From the options that arise just select the sender as legit. Now any message from that particular sender will not be shifted to spam folder ever.
#2 Yahoo Mail
The another biggest mail service in the world after Gmail that is not capable of deciding whether if the email is spam or legit, the issue is that it does try to perform the filter but it does not work always. Yahoo Mail’s inbuilt spam filter is extremely capable but it does sometimes mistook the legit emails as spam and send them to the spam folder. We will not be always able to see if the Gmail is working correctly or not, we have to apply some forces so that no problems would occur at all. To make the changes inside the Yahoo mail to prevent the legit messages from going to the spam folder just follow the below steps.
Simply right click on the message that you wish to restrict from being appearing as spam and then through the options that appear you will have the Not Spam option. This can be done for the Senders too.
#3 Outlook
The master service by the Microsoft that helps the users to share the mail through their accounts and it also have some better safety features inbuilt to prevent the accounts from the spam. For this purpose, there is an inbuilt feature that always works for filtering but this can sometimes override any useful emails too. Go to the Delete section of the Outlook account and from there select the Junk button. This will launch a list menu and you will see the options to stop blocking the Emails from that particular sender to the Junk. The options will be “Never Block Sender” or Never Block Sender’s Domain.
You must not lose your important emails and on the other sides, you also must not let the spam emails to enter into your inbox. This is why you will not be directed to stop the spam check inside the email services. The legitimate emails are your most important stuff and you can never dare to lose it or let it stumble inside the flood of spam that you may receive! The above method is what will help you to prevent from this situation so go and utilize it for sure. At last, we can just say that you might have liked our article, in case if this is true then please help us more through sharing this article excessively as you can do. Also, tend to provide us with your valuable opinions, you can do so through the comments section below!
The improved Microsoft 365 Defender portal is now available. This new experience brings Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, Microsoft 365 Defender, and more into the Microsoft 365 security center. Learn what’s new.
Applies to
In Microsoft 365 organizations with mailboxes in Exchange Online or standalone Exchange Online Protection (EOP) organizations without Exchange Online mailboxes, we take managing outbound spam seriously. Even if one customer intentionally or unintentionally sends spam from their organization, that action can degrade the reputation of the whole service and can affect email delivery for other customers.
This article describes the controls and notifications that are designed to help prevent outbound spam, and what you can do if you need to send mass mailings.
What admins can do to control outbound spam
Use built-in notifications: When a user exceeds sending limits of the service or outbound spam policies and is restricted from sending email, the default alert policy named User restricted from sending email sends email notifications to members of the TenantAdmins (Global admins) group. To configure who else receives these notifications, see Verify the alert settings for restricted users. Also, the default alert policies named Email sending limit exceeded and Suspicious email sending patterns detected send email notifications to members of the TenantAdmins (Global admins) group. For more information about alert policies, see Alert policies in Microsoft 365.
Review spam complaints from third-party email providers: Many email services like Outlook.com, Yahoo, and AOL provide a feedback loop where if any user in their service marks an email from Microsoft 365 as spam, the message is packaged up and sent back to us for review. To learn more about sender support for Outlook.com, go to
How EOP controls outbound spam
Segregation of outbound email traffic: Every outbound message that’s sent through the service is scanned for spam. If the message is determined to be spam, it’s delivered from a secondary, less reputable IP address pool named the high-risk delivery pool. For more information, see High-risk delivery pool for outbound messages.
Monitoring our source IP address reputation: Microsoft 365 queries various third-party IP block lists. An alert is generated if any of the IP addresses that we use for outbound email appear on these lists. This monitoring allows us to react quickly when spam has caused our reputation to degrade. When an alert is generated, we have internal documentation that outlines how to get our IP addresses remove (delisted) from block lists.
Disable accounts that send too much spam * : Even though we segregate outbound spam into the high-risk delivery pool, we can’t allow an account (often, a compromised account) to send spam indefinitely. We monitor accounts that are sending spam, and when they exceed an undisclosed limit, the account is blocked from sending email. There are different thresholds for individual users and the entire tenant.
Disabling accounts that send too much email too quickly * : In addition to the limits that look for messages marked as spam, there are also limits that block accounts when they reach an overall outbound message limit, regardless the spam filtering verdict on the outbound messages. A compromised account could send zero-day (previously unrecognized) spam that is missed by the spam filter. Because it can be difficult to identify a legitimate mass mailing campaign vs. a spam campaign, these limits help to minimize any potential damage.
* We don’t advertise the exact limits so spammers can’t game the system, and so we can increase or decrease the limits as necessary. The limits are high enough to prevent an average business user from ever exceeding them, and low enough to help contain the damage caused by a spammer.
Recommendations for customers who want to send mass mailings through EOP
It’s difficult to strike a balance between customers who want to send a large volume of email vs. protecting the service from compromised accounts and bulk email senders with poor recipient acquisition practices. The cost of a Microsoft 365 email source landing on a third-party IP block list is greater than blocking a user who’s sending too much email.
As described in the Exchange Online Service Description, using EOP to send bulk email is not a supported use of the service, and is only permitted on a "best-effort" basis. For customers who do want to send bulk email, we recommend the following solutions:
Send bulk email through on-premises email servers: Customers maintain their own email infrastructure for mass mailings.
Use a third-party bulk email provider: There are several third-party bulk email solution providers that you can use to send mass mailings. These companies have a vested interest in working with customers to ensure good email sending practices.
Stop legitimate emails from being marked as spam Spam is one of the things people hate most about email. So email providers like mail.com have developed extremely effective systems to block spam emails. The downside, however, is that legitimate emails can be blocked or land in your spam folder. Luckily there are a few tricks you can use to make sure you receive important messages – and to stop your outgoing messages from being marked as spam.
How to stop your emails from being marked as spam
1. Check your mailing list
2. Don’t send unwanted bulk emails
3. Avoid common spam words and phrases
4. Ask recipients to add you to their list of trusted senders
How to keep emails you want out of your spam folder
Email providers deploy a number of filters to ensure that your incoming emails are correctly evaluated for their spam potential. These systems are based on artificial intelligence and can be “trained” to recognize your email preferences.
If an email incorrectly lands in your spam folder, you can manually mark the mail as legitimate by selecting the message and clicking “not spam.” This will move the message back into your inbox, and the email address will automatically be added to your list of trusted senders. In your mail.com account, you will find the “Not Spam” button here in your Spam folder: Select the email and click “Not Spam” to send it back to your inbox – and keep the sender from landing in spam in the future!
Saving an email address to your Contacts is another way to mark it as a trusted sender and should keep messages from that person out of the spam filter.
We hope this will help you avoid having messages mislabeled as spam. Please let us know how you liked this article below.
If email is going to your Outlook.com Junk folder by mistake, you can mark it as Not junk or add the sender to your Safe Senders list. Marking email as Not junk also helps us improve our service.
To mark an email message as Not junk in Outlook.com
Open your Junk Email folder and select the messages you want to keep.
From the top toolbar, select Not junk > Not junk (or Not spam > Not spam). You can also open the message and select the It’s not junk link at the top.
If you’ve blocked someone by mistake, open your Blocked senders list and select the next to their name.
Add the sender to your Safe senders list.
To stop email from going to your Outlook.com Deleted Items by mistake
Messages in your Junk folder are automatically deleted between 10 and 30 days after they arrive.
Check that the sender is not in your Blocked senders list. If they are, select the next to their name and add the sender to your Safe senders list instead.
Check that you don’t have an Inbox Rule running for the sender or a keyword in the deleted email.
Still need help?
Note: You will need to sign in first to get support. If you can’t sign in, go to Account support.
People have been reading more marketing emails in the past year. No less than 78 percent of marketers say they’ve seen an increase in engagement over the last 12 months. Now is the time for you to make the most of email and its marketing potential.
However, not all your subscribers will see your messages. With 17 percent of all emails going to spam, some of your campaigns may never reach your target prospects and customers. Internet and email service providers use advanced filters to separate legitimate emails from spam. Sometimes, one or more things can trigger these filters to relegate your emails away from people’s inboxes.
Let’s see why this happens and what you can do to avoid the desolation of the junk folder.
To avoid being labeled as spam, don’t act like a spammer
That may seem self-explanatory, but if you don’t know what behavior is spammy, you may not know how to avoid it. Here are the top things to be aware of when you want to land in the inbox and avoid the spam folder.
Stay on top of your email list hygiene
What some email marketers forget is that the most well-crafted email means nothing if the list you send it to is full of bad contacts. Not only will those emails reach no one but also, those bounces affect your sender reputation and cause ISPs to see you as a spammer.
Spammers don’t care about their list hygiene. They scrape email addresses from the Internet and use them without any regard for ethics. Getting bounces and spam complaints or hitting a spam trap doesn’t stop them from sending more spam. Until, of course, they’re blocked and can’t even reach the junk folder anymore. It’s common for spammers to get blacklisted – but it also happens to respected businesses when they’re not careful.
As a legitimate email marketer, you can’t afford to engage in such behaviors and be mistaken for a spammer. So starting with a healthy list is vital. Buying one is never a good idea, as everyone on your list should be there because they want to get your emails. Permission is key in email marketing.
Whether you’re just starting your list or already have a number of contacts, consider implementing double opt-in. This subscription method requires every new subscriber to confirm that they do indeed want to receive your emails. It’s easy to set up and prevents your database from acquiring poor-quality contacts.
Apart from that, validating your list at least quarterly shows you’re following email marketing best practices. For inbox providers, it’s a sign that you are a trustworthy sender, so they’re confident about directing your emails to people’s inboxes.
Learning about and implementing good email list hygiene matters as much as what you write and how you present it. What good would your hard work do if nobody ends up seeing it?
Be careful with your subject lines
There must be hundreds of articles online about email subject lines – and for good reason. After your “From” name, your subject line is the first thing your subscribers see. It has a significant impact on your open rate: 47 percent of people say they open an email based on the subject line alone.
So it’s worth taking the time to polish each subject line and ensure it’s:
- informative: people should get a clear idea of what your email is about
- enticing: it should spark curiosity without resorting to cheap tricks.
A helpful exercise is to write down several versions of your subject line until you find one that stands out. If it helps, consult with your team or friends, their feedback can be eye-opening.
When choosing the final version, make sure it doesn’t include any spammy words that could trigger ISPs to think your email is spam. If you get an email with the word “free” in the subject, it can cause suspicion. Also, words you should avoid include “lowest price,” “fast cash,” “save $” and other similar constructions.
Spammy subject lines look like scams and ISPs could categorize your legitimate email as junk because of gimmicky, spam-like words. If you’re in doubt, change it.
Avoid including too many images and too little text
You may have noticed that a lot of spam consists of just a couple of lines and other times, no text at all. Sometimes it’s just an image and occasionally, it’s an email with a few words and many pictures.
Legitimate marketing emails have an average of 434.48 words. If you’re only including a sentence, you’re not offering much interesting content.
Why is it so important to have a healthy image-to-text ratio? Again, it boils down to not looking like a spammer. The purpose of an email is to provide relevant information. Few emails can do that in just a few words.
Of course, you can use images to illustrate your points or show the products you sell, but try to keep a balance. Images may also take longer to load if your recipient has a slower internet connection.
Another aspect to keep in mind is the links you include in your email. Try to avoid the temptation of using link shorteners – they can trigger spam filters. Instead, be fully transparent and link directly to your landing page. You want to stay away from any practice that may endanger your deliverability.
Plan a sending schedule and follow it
A common email mistake that businesses make is pulling a disappearing act.
Let’s say someone sells beach and pool merchandise. In the winter, operating hours naturally decrease. The company will just stop emailing its lists. There’s nothing to promote anyway, why bother? This marketing approach is detrimental to any business.
It’s a smart idea for email marketers to get on a schedule. Send your emails on the same day of the week or, if you send less frequently, do it no less than once a month. It’s a mistake to only send when you want something or have a new product or service to sell.
First of all, people forget about you. When you resume, they may not recognize your email and mark you as spam. Being predictable and sending your emails regularly is the opposite of how spammers behave. Not only does it build brand awareness and trust, but it also keeps ISPs aware of you.
If your services or products are rather seasonal, it’s natural to increase your email volume during your sales peak. However, to stay top of mind, continue to email your list regularly throughout the rest of the year. Create useful, entertaining content that can nurture your subscribers and keep them engaged. You’ll see much better results when it’s time to target them with a campaign.
Conclusion
One of the secrets to getting more eyes on your marketing emails seems obvious, but it’s worth emphasizing. You have to be where people can see you and the only way to do that is to land in the inbox.
The behavior and impetus for spammers are all about taking. With your email marketing, you must give to get. Strive for the principles of generosity and service in everything you do. Keep security, ethics and respect in mind at all times. Be of service to your readers and they will remember you and open your emails consistently.
