How to Avoid Spam Filters to Boost Your Email Marketing

It's well known that email marketing holds the top spot for creating conversions out of all the digital marketing tools available.

But what do you do if your emails keep landing in the spam folder?

In this post, I'll share ways you can avoid getting your email marked as spam with the help of the right tools and best practices in email marketing.

Use a good email marketing service

From my experience, choosing a reputed email service provider matters very much.

You may be tempted to use free or cheap options, but remember that every time your email lands in the spam folder, it's training the email service to create a negative association with your domain name.

Also, if your IP address was previously used to send spam then it's likely that your email will get automatically filtered.

A reliable email marketing service provider helps you overcome this. Pick one by doing your research and communicating with their sales team. You'll want to work with a company that has a reliable customer support staff to help you with any problems.

Avoid deceptive and spammy subject lines

While you should make your email subject lines eye-catching, be aware that you're not using words and phrases that set off spam filters.

Keep your email subject line straightforward and honest. You can use exciting headlines but make sure that the headline matches the body of the email.

You never want to make your customers feel frustrated with your content. Always use ethical and honest content or you run the risk of having your email marked as spam.

Authenticate your email

If you use WordPress, then you should know that your email gets sent using the PHP mail function by default.

However, the best option is to use Google SMTP or Google API. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use a WordPress plugin. I recommend using WP Mail SMTP because it has a step-by-step setup and is great for any platform you're using whether it's Gmail, Outlook, Amazon SES, and other mailers.

By authenticating your email address and following the rest of the tips here, you'll radically boost the likelihood of landing in a person's inbox rather than the spam folder.

Always get express permission to send email

Even if someone gives you their business card and asks you to email them, that's not an invitation to send them email newsletters.

It's critical that you always get explicit consent to add someone to your email list. The best way to do this is to add an optin form to your website. When a certain trigger is hit, your popup appears and interested users can sign up for newsletters.

I also recommend that you use a double-optin setup so that users confirm that they want to receive content from you by clicking on a link sent to their email for this reason.

Increase your engagement rates

If your users don't read your email and just move your content to trash, email providers take this into consideration when filtering content.

You can overcome this by creating great headlines, sending your emails at the right time, and by segmenting your email list.

As soon as you build your email list, you should start segmenting it based on demographics, how people interact with your content, and other factors. With segmentation, you'll be able to send personalized content - something that users respond to well.

Also, when building your emails, address your readers by their first name by using the features provided by your email marketing providers. Doing this will attract your readers' attention and create higher engagement.

Make sure your customers recognize you

Some businesses fail to brand their email content. As a result, customers don't remember who they're getting an email from and may perceive a company's email as spam.

Whenever users put your content in the spam folder, they train the email provider to recognize your content as spam.

Avoid this by sending high-quality content and branding your email body with an attractive header, logo, and by adding relevant details in the footer.

Avoid spam trigger words

There are some words and phrases that trigger email spam filters to stop your email from appearing in your audience's inbox.
Some of these are 'Click here', 'Get offer', and even 'This is not spam'.

Avoid making your content over-promotional and instead, focus on conveying real value. Make sure your content is relevant to your users and offers them helpful tips they can use.

Over to you

These are some important ways you can make sure that your email doesn't get caught in a user's spam filter.

Some of these tips take time and effort to carry out but they're also one-time tasks. Once you have a solid setup in place, you can focus on sending good quality content to your users and nurture them.

Over time, you'll see a boost in interactions and will grow your business.