If you send an email will recipients read it? That answer largely depends on whether they are actually able to open the message itself. As email spam filters become more sophisticated, smart email marketers increasingly need to understand how spam filters work and how to avoid them. Modern spam filter technology is based on both automated filters as well as machine learning from user submitted spam flags.
The result is that spam filters are increasingly personalized for individual users and organizations, making opt-in additional to user address books, ongoing communications and CAN-SPAM compliant practices even more important.
As spam volume increases, many programs become aggressive in stopping messages, resulting in a type one error – an error where spam filters flag a false positive. These types of accidental flags may come from a variety of causes including the contents of the email, the structure of the coding and the nature of your email send itself.
Ensuring Your Content is Spam-Filter Friendly
One of the single largest factors in identifying spam content is the content used in the email itself. Making sure to use only soft sell and original, informational copy can prevent unwanted filters. Hard sell language with exclamation points, colored fonts and strong click call to actions all can be a sign of a potential spam message. Many spam messages focus on earning money, urgency and guarantees – save any specific sales language for the sales landing page itself and encourage engage with your content.
Designing and Developing a Clean Email
Paying close attention to design best practices in terms of HTML coding can help ensure your emails are delivered. In particular, you’ll want to use clean, tested HTML code that validates. You can validate your code with W3C to ensure its compatibility across browsers by uploading it to your server. Following coding best practices ensures readability across email programs and browsers, as well as keeping your emails out of the spam box.
Following Proper Opt-in and Sending Methods
Using a reputable email sending and having a clean sender address are essential for keeping on the right side of the email filters. Following protocol in terms of opt-in and unsubscribe standards, while only sending out emails from reputable messaging programs with the right standards. Carefully cultivating an email list requires following best practices over time on a consistent basis.
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