Getting permission to send an email is one thing, getting it delivered to the inbox can be quite another. The ISPs (Internet Service Providers) that host and maintain your subscribers’ email employ sophisticated filters to keep spam email content out of their users inboxes, and legitimate permission-based content often gets caught up in these filters.
Unfortunately, there is no simple formula to ensure your mail gets delivered to the inbox (if there was then spammers would use it as well). The filters employed by the ISPs are constantly changing to do battle with the latest spammer tactics. Most filters review the content of your message and apply a ‘score’ to your email based on certain characteristics that they consider common to spam messages. If your score gets too high, you get blocked. Here are some tips for keeping your score low and avoiding the spam folder:
Too many images, not enough text – spam filters look for keywords in the content of an email but they can’t read images, so it’s a common spammer tactic to use only images. As a result, spam filters now block messages with a low text to image ratio. If you are sending out just a bunch of pretty pictures and no text or very little text, expect to have problems getting delivered.
Not sending a text version – while you may be in love with the HTML email you created, don’t neglect to send a text version as well. While most filters won’t block you outright for not sending a text version of your HTML email, leaving this out can raise your score and be a contributing factor to getting caught in the filter.
Sending different content in your HTML and text versions - spammers love to try and slip past filters by sending benign content in the text version of an email and then sending completely different content in the HTML version. Filters are wise to this, and will send your message to the spam folder if they determine the content of the two versions is substantially different.
Spam Keywords, especially in your Subject or From Lines – as mentioned before, filters look for keywords that they consider to be ‘spammy’. Using a few of the common keywords in the body of your message probably won’t get you blocked, but each keyword can raise your score and contribute to your being blocked. And if you are putting common triggers like $, win, cash, save, !, or special offer in your subject line, you are highly likely to be blocked. Keywords vary by filter and no list is really complete, but click here for a list of keywords that have been identified as common among many filters.
Dear FNAME – we’ve heard from several sources now that using ‘Dear’ in your message can bump up your score significantly. So if you are merging the recipient’s first name into your message avoid the d-word.
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