Introduction

In this blog, we’ll explore the reasons and factors behind emails landing in the spam folder, and offer tips to help prevent this from happening to your emails and understand what are the different types of email hosting.

Why Do Emails Go to Spam?

Emails are directed to the spam folder due to various reasons, including decreased engagement, sender reputation, content-related concerns, and issues with email deliverability.

1. Sender Reputation

One of the most crucial factors that determine whether an email ends up in the spam folder is the sender’s reputation. Email service providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook employ sophisticated algorithms to evaluate the trustworthiness of senders. If your sender’s reputation is poor, your emails are more likely to be marked as spam.

Ways to Address It:

• Maintain a positive sender reputation by sending high-quality content, refraining from using spam-like language, and adhering to email marketing best practices.

• Monitor your sender score using tools like Senderscore.org or Sender Score by Validity.

2. Content and Spam Triggers

The content of your email plays a significant role. Specific keywords and elements in your email can activate spam filters, such as excessive capitalization, an abundance of exclamation marks, and words commonly linked with spam

Ways to Address It:

• Meticulously craft your email content, steering clear of spam-like language and tactics.

• Utilise spam checkers like SpamAssassin or Email on Acid to evaluate your email content for possible issues.

3. Poor Email Authentication

Email authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC aid recipients in verifying the sender’s authenticity.

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) serves as an email authentication method designed to thwart email spoofing by assisting email ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in identifying mail servers authorised to send email for a particular domain. Through this email authentication, companies and brands can safeguard their domain from being exploited by spoofers, scammers, and phishers to dispatch malicious emails.

• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) employs DKIM signatures and encryption procedures to uphold the email’s integrity during transmission. If the email is tampered with, the DKIM signature will fail the validation process.

• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) furnishes email senders with a mechanism to provide guidelines to email recipients on how to manage inbound email that fails the sender’s email validation processes.

SPF and DKIM play vital roles in email validation, ensuring the authenticity of the sender and verifying that the email originated from the stated sender. DMARC assists recipients in understanding how to handle unauthenticated emails they receive.

SPF and DKIM play vital roles in email validation, ensuring the authenticity of the sender and verifying that the email originated from the stated sender. DMARC assists recipients in understanding how to handle unauthenticated emails they receive. Without proper authentication, your emails are prone to be viewed with suspicion.

Ways to Address It:

• Ensure your domain’s SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are accurately configured.

• Regularly verify the authentication status of your emails using online tools or email authentication services.

4.  High Complaint Rates

If recipients frequently mark your emails as spam or unsubscribe from your mailing list, it negatively impacts your sender’s reputation. This can happen due to various reasons, the recipient may have forgotten they have opted to receive your emails or they find your emails a waste of time.

Ways to Deal With It:

• Send emails only to those who have opted in.
• Make unsubscribing easy and clear in your emails.
• Ensure the emails are interesting and informative to the recipients.
• Encourage recipients to move emails from the spam folder to their inbox if they find them there.

5. Sending Bulk Emails

Sending mass emails can raise red flags for spam filters, especially if you’re not following best practices for bulk emailing.

This has a lot of perks including helping you obtain a wider reach in a short span of time in the most economical way possible, but it also increases the chances of your email ending up in the spam folder. This will result in lower open rates and click-throughs and it will also damage your sender’s reputation and reduce your brand credibility.

Bulk emails are not for all your email marketing campaigns, they should be implemented strategically during specific occasions and to announce big changes.

Ways to Deal With It:

• Use reputable email marketing services like SendGrid that help manage and optimise bulk email campaigns.

• Segment your email list to send relevant content to specific groups.

What actions can you take to prevent your emails from ending up in spam folders?

1. Follow Email Marketing Best Practices

Adhering to best practices is essential for maintaining a good sender reputation. This includes sending emails only to those who have opted in, providing valuable and relevant content, and ensuring that your email list is clean and up to date.

2. Authenticate Your Emails

Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to ensure your emails are authenticated and can be trusted by email service providers.

3. Monitor Your Sender Reputation

Regularly check your sender score and reputation using online tools and services. This helps you identify and address issues before they impact your email deliverability.

4. Avoid Spammy Content

Craft your emails carefully, avoiding spam triggers and keeping the content relevant to your recipients. Use spam checkers like mailmeteor to scan your emails before sending them.

5. Partner With a Reliable Email Hosting Provider

Email hosting plays a crucial role in preventing your emails from ending up in spam folders. It does this by verifying the legitimacy of your emails, offering dedicated IP addresses, managing IP reputations, filtering content to avoid common spam triggers, helping you maintain clean email lists, setting reasonable email sending rates, providing tools for monitoring, establishing feedback loops with major email providers, ensuring compliance with email regulations, and implementing security measures to deter spam.

FlexiCloud’s shared hosting plans come with complementary cPanel based IMAP and POP mails which customers can use for free.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ensuring that your emails reach recipients’ inboxes instead of spam folders requires attention to various factors such as sender reputation, email content, and authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. By implementing best practices, regularly monitoring email performance, and staying informed about email authentication technologies, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of your emails being flagged as spam.