In previous sections of our email marketing complete guide, we learned about email marketing definition and steps, learned how to build an email list, and also found out how to validate email lists for free. After that, we came to writing; we wanted to learn how to write marketing emails. In the first part, I show you how to write good email subject lines, and in the second part, I shared my experience writing marketing email content. In this section and the last part of the “write marketing emails” series, I will tell you how to avoid spam in email marketing.
Email marketing and spam. These two words are very close to each other in most cases. One of the main problems of email marketers is marketing emails going to spam. Email marketing without spam is not by any means easy. There are email marketing spam filters that try to do their jobs as best they can. In this section, I will share my experience on how to avoid spam filters when sending emails. And Also how to have an email marketing inbox delivery, not just in the promotion tab. Because you know people usually don’t open the promotion tab and only check their inbox.
Let’s first clear this. In most cases, an email marketing inbox delivery is not about your email system or your SMTP, especially when your emails land on the promotion tab; it’s just about your email content and your subject line. It would be best if you were sure that you avoid any email marketing spam triggers. So please take all of these actions before you send any email or any marketing campaigns. I call these steps “email marketing spam checkers.”
Eight Ways To Avoid Spam In Email Marketing
1. Make sure you wrote a good subject line
We talked about this in another article; before you send any emails, go to the sites that test the subject lines and make sure your point is at least upper than 90. you can find a complete description of these sites on another part of this article series named how to write a good subject line.
2. Check your email with Gmass.co
Go to Gmass.co. Then go to the products tab and click on inbox, spam, or promotions. It will give you 20 email addresses, and you should first send your email to these addresses. Then come back to Gmass.co and filter the emails by your subject, domain, or anything else. You will see your email landed on inbox, promotion, or spam. If it was inbox, so good for you, but if your email landed at least ten times in promotion or spam, you should change your subject line or email content. I usually start by changing my content. Remove any keywords that trigger promotion, and then try again.
3. test your sending score with mail-tester.com
Go to mail-tester.com. It will let you send your email to a sample address and analyze your email and let you know your score. Try to be at least 9.4 or 9.5 in the mail-tester.
4. check your domain in MXtoolbox.com
Go MXtoolbox, click on the blacklist tap and check if your domain is blacklisted or not. Note that some fresh new domains will be automatically blacklisted for 30 days, and after that, they will be removed automatically. This is only a precaution for new domains if your domain is not new and blacklisted. You should check why or use another domain to send your emails.
5. devoid your email from any affiliate links
If your email contains an affiliate link, there is a significant chance of being specified as spam. Here are two choices for deleting affiliate links from your email. The first one is to create a post or a landing page about this product you will advertise on your website and add your website link to the email. And inside the post, you can use affiliate links. The second choice is to mask or cloak the affiliate URLs. It means creating a URL on your website, redirecting it to the affiliate link, and replacing the affiliate link with your new standard URL.
6. Use another domain for tracking
In most cases, email marketers add some hidden images or hidden links inside the emails. And when someone opens the email, this image will load and send a message to the server telling the email was opened or not. If you go now to any SMTP service like SendGrid or SparkPost or whatever company, they will add another domain for tracking. Using another domain for tracking helps your main domain remains safe and healthy. If you use email marketing services like MailChimp or Aweber, you won’t need this because they will track you.
7. Warm-up your SMTP
If you use your domain and your SMTP for email marketing, you should warm up your SMTP before sending email marketing campaigns. It means that you only send two emails on the first day, and after that, you will double the emails on the second day. On the first day, you need to send the emails to the correct email addresses, and if your audience opens the mail and replies to you, it will be perfect for your SMTP. The number of emails that are bouncing back to your server is very crucial in the early days. If you send an email to two invalid email addresses in the first few days, it can kill your SMTP reputation. So make sure you validate your email addresses before sending any emails. To keep bounce rate always between 0% to 1%.
8. Email Marketing NO Spam
Before sending any email marketing campaigns, send the email to yourself. All the people may report you as a spammer, and it also will kill your reputation. So first, make sure you targeted the correct people. And send the email to yourself. Look at how it will be displayed in any size, is it responsive or not? Is it good on mobiles too? And then read the email once. Sit down and look at your email. Think besides your audience’s mind. Reread the email. Does it look spammy or not? If you say no, perfect. If you feel like 10% it may be a spammy email, don’t send it. Go and change your email in some way that you, yourself, feel good about it.
