How to Avoid Spam Filters
For marketers who send emails on a regular basis, spam filters are the scourge of many a campaign.
Not only do an average 10 to 20% of emails sent become victims of spam blocker software, but even permission-based emails can get filtered out of in-boxes as spam.
Understanding how spam filters work seems to be the only way to take on the software and get your message to your intended audience.
How Spam Filters Work
Essentially a spam filter is a tool for quickly checking an email against a set list of criteria to decide if it is spam or not.
One of the criteria might be a phrase such as “FREE”, “CLICK HERE”, “WHY PAY MORE” or “BUY NOW”. Points are given each time one of these phrases occurs. Some criteria are awarded more points than others.
If your email campaign’s total point score reaches or exceeds a set threshold your email is automatically classed as spam and gets quarantined.
The problem for the marketer is that rules for awarding points and thresholds are not uniform. How high or how low spam tolerance is set depends on the software being used and the person who sets it up.
The best way to ensure your email gets through is to keep an eye on spam criteria and make sure your campaign removes as many of these as possible. This is an on-going learning curve as spam filters are continuously updating their spam criteria whenever someone clicks on the “this is spam” button. Some spam filters even compare and synchronise criteria on-line.
If all this sounds too much to handle, a professional email broadcaster can help you. They deal with marketing emails every day and keep abreast of the latest developments in spam blocking technologies.
10 Top Tips for Beating Spam Filters
In the meantime here are our top 10 tips to help your email marketing campaigns beat the spam blockers.
1. Rent only clean lists from reputable email list brokers. Do some background research to find out how they keep their lists up to date and compliant with legal obligations like the preference services and EuroCAUCE.
2. If you are using your own list, this has to be updated regularly to make sure it takes into account unsubscribe requests, bounced emails and that it complies with privacy and preference legislation. Data cleansing and list management is another job a professional list broker can help you with to make sure your list remains current, useful and legally compliant.
3. Send messages from a real name. Avoid using symbols and numbers in your “From” name field. Individual’s prefer to receive emails from a name they recognise and trust. If they don’t recognise you, it’s very likely your email will end up in the junk mail folder.
4. Keep your subject lines simple. Avoid recognised spam words and phrases like “free”, “buy now” and “win”, instead be clear about what your email is about. Is there a particular customer benefit or solution that would make a great headline. Don’t try to be over complicated or over personal in your subject line. Keep excessive punctuation out of this field as well as the use of ALL CAPS. Avoid buzzwords and overused marketing phrases like “while stocks last” or “last week of sale”.
5. Keep the main body of email text clear and to the point. Don’t fill it with marketing jargon and unnecessary padding. Say what you want to say, include details of benefits and offers and end with a clear call to action.
6. Test, test and test again before sending your email. Aim to run a test of different email systems and email programmes to flush out any problems. It’s also useful to send your email to various email accounts with different protection settings.
7. Use a normal font size. Very small fonts are flagged up by spam filters as a sign that the sender is attempting to embed content or other other harmful elements in a message.
8. Avoid using lots of images. Spam filters can’t read images and may automatically assume they are spam.
9. Don’t send multiple copies of an email to the same address. If you have problems de-duplicating your lists, talk to reputable email list broker for advice.
10. Be aware of blacklists. Blacklists of known spam offenders are blocked by ISPs. Getting on the list is usually down to feedback and complaints received from ISP subscribers as well as evidence of bad emailing practice, like a high number of bounce backs.
The best way to avoid blacklists is to ensure you adhere to email best practice and adopt an ongoing email testing process to catch problems early. You could also investigate the procedure for getting accepted onto ISP whitelists as an identified good sender.
Email Flow are email broadcasting professionals with expertise in dealing with spam blockers. For help and advice on avoiding spam blockers speak to the email marketing experts at Email Flow.
Author: Nicola Brown
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Smart cooker
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