Getting your emails into recipients’ inboxes and ensuring you’re staying out of spam is high on every email marketer’s priority list. But there’s so much we don’t know about emails. The email algorithms are getting more sophisticated, spam filters keep changing, and countries around the world are implementing stricter laws related to the digital world.
All this means that rules do change very often, and it can be hard to stay on top of reasons for poor email deliverability. But, you’re in luck, because we’re here to quickly go through some of the most important things you shouldn’t be doing if you want to keep your emails out of spam.
Table of Contents
Don’t Buy Email Lists
Whether you’re an established business, or if you’re just starting out and have only your family and friends as subscribers.
When you’re buying email lists you’re essentially getting a list of people who have never heard of you or your business, and they probably don’t want to hear from you.
By emailing these people you’re risking being blocked or marked as spam – which sends a clear message to the email provider that your emails aren’t thrustworthy.
Don’t Email People Who Keep Bouncing
Hard bounces are caused by invalid email addresses and these are emails that will never be delivered. Additionally, email and internet providers use the bounce rate to determine your reputation. Therefore, having too many hard bounces makes you look unreliable.
Check your stats after every campaign, find which email addresses keep bouncing, and remove them from your list.
Don’t Use All Caps
Writing emails and subject lines in all caps is considered annoying and spammy. It’s a poor way to get your subscriber’s attention, and it won’t fly.
Instead, look through your previous campaigns and see what worked in the past. Additionally, you should always A/B test your subject lines to figure out which one will work better. You should also personalize your titles and emails and work on creating catchy subject lines.
Don’t Use Exclamation Marks
Just like all caps, exclamation marks (especially a bunch of them in a row) make you look unprofessional. You seem hungry for attention, but you’re not trying to get it in a good way.
Reports say that more than 60% of people report emails as spam just based on the subject line, so you should be careful.
Don’t Include Attachments
Attachments are the easiest way for email providers to mark you as spam. If you really need to share a document with your audience, we recommend you upload it to your website, and then create a CTA button to take your readers to the page where they can download the document in question.
Besides helping you stay out of spam, this tip will shorten the load time of your emails.
Don’t Use Too Many Images
Using too many images slows your email load time, and this can lead to the spam folder. Besides many images, large images are also a problem.
We recommend that you use a tool which compresses their size without affecting the quality of the picture. There are plenty of tools online, and you can do it in just a few short seconds.
Final Thoughts
Staying out of the spam and junk folders is easy when you know what not to do. By following these six tips you’ll lower your chances of poor email deliverability, keep your subscribers happy, and (hopefully) sales high.
