Summary
Experts, marketers, and documentation all agree that Gmail's 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe significantly harms sender reputation. This is a strong negative signal to Gmail, indicating the email was unwanted and counting towards overall spam rates. High spam complaint rates lead to deliverability issues, filtering emails into spam folders, and potential blacklisting. Implementing best practices is crucial. Key practices include: providing easy unsubscribe options; maintaining clean and engaged email lists; segmenting lists for better engagement; using double opt-in; ensuring a seamless post-unsubscribe user experience; avoiding purchased lists; and actively monitoring spam complaint rates. This collective effort aims to improve user engagement, respect user preferences, and ultimately protect sender reputation.
Key findings
- Strong Negative Signal: 'Move to spam' after unsubscribe is a strong negative indicator.
- Damaged Sender Reputation: Directly and negatively impacts sender reputation with Gmail.
- Increased Spam Rates: Contributes to overall spam rates, impacting deliverability.
- Deliverability Issues: Leads to emails being filtered into spam folders and potential blacklisting.
- Importance of Engagement: User engagement is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation.
- Prevention is Key: Implementing best practices is critical to avoid being marked as spam.
- Avoid Spam Traps: Landing in spam traps, especially via purchased lists, severely harms sender reputation.
- Actionable Metrics: Monitor sender reputation metrics, particularly spam complaint rates, is crucial.
Key considerations
- Easy Unsubscribe: Provide a clear and easy unsubscribe process.
- List Hygiene: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive subscribers.
- Segmentation: Segment your audience to ensure you are sending relevant and targeted emails.
- Double Opt-in: Implement double opt-in to confirm subscriber interest.
- User Experience: Ensure a seamless and positive user experience, especially after unsubscribing.
- Avoid Purchased Lists: Never purchase email lists as these are highly likely to be spam.
- Monitor Spam Rates: Actively monitor spam complaint rates and address issues quickly.
- Incentivize Best Practices: Focus on actions that incentivize senders to implement long-advised best practices in email marketing.
- Prioritize User Preferences: Respect user preferences by making unsubscribing easy and honoring their choice.
What email marketers say
10 marketer opinions
Gmail's 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe significantly affects sender reputation. It serves as a strong negative signal to Gmail, indicating that users find the email unwanted. This action counts toward spam rates and increases the likelihood of emails being filtered into spam folders. Providing easy unsubscribe options, maintaining clean and engaged email lists, segmenting lists for better engagement, and using double opt-in are crucial strategies to minimize spam complaints and maintain a healthy sender reputation. User experience after unsubscribing should be seamless, and purchasing email lists should be avoided as they often lead to spam reports.
Key opinions
- Negative Signal: The 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe is a strong negative signal to Gmail.
- Impacts Reputation: This action directly impacts sender reputation, potentially leading to deliverability issues.
- Spam Rates: The action counts towards overall spam rates, affecting email filtering.
- Easy Unsubscribe: Easy and prominent unsubscribe options are crucial to prevent spam markings.
- List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean and engaged email list is vital for reputation.
- Segmentation: Segmenting email lists based on user engagement reduces spam complaints.
- Double Opt-in: Double opt-in ensures genuine interest and reduces spam reports.
- User Experience: A seamless user experience post-unsubscribe is important.
- Purchased Lists: Purchasing email lists significantly increases the risk of spam complaints.
Key considerations
- Monitor Spam Rates: Regularly monitor spam complaint rates to identify and address potential issues.
- Optimize Unsubscribe Process: Ensure the unsubscribe process is easy and efficient to prevent users from marking emails as spam.
- Engage Subscribers: Focus on sending relevant and engaging content to keep subscribers interested and reduce the likelihood of spam reports.
- Maintain List Hygiene: Implement a regular list cleaning process to remove inactive subscribers and reduce spam complaints.
- Implement Double Opt-in: Use double opt-in to confirm subscriber interest and ensure a higher quality email list.
- Segment Audience: Segment your audience to ensure you are sending relevant and targeted emails.
- Post-Unsubscribe Experience: Ensure the user is unsubscribed and provide a confirmation page. Do not keep sending them emails.
- Avoid Purchased Lists: Never purchase email lists as these lists are highly likely to contain spam traps and unengaged users.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Reddit shares that you should never ever purchase email lists because those are very highly likely to be spam.
25 Jan 2022 - Reddit
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks mentions the unsubscribe affordance in Gmail is more visible, helping receivers to use that instead of the spam button and it's unrelated to new sender guidelines. Unsubscribe/spam vote rates indicate receiver satisfaction with content.
4 Feb 2025 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
4 expert opinions
Experts emphasize that the 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe is a significant negative signal to Gmail, strongly impacting sender reputation. This action indicates unwanted email and contributes to deliverability issues. Addressing this requires implementing best practices, improving user engagement, avoiding spam traps, and refraining from purchasing email lists.
Key opinions
- Strong Negative Signal: The 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe strongly signals that the email was unwanted.
- Impacts Sender Reputation: This action negatively impacts sender reputation, leading to deliverability problems.
- Incentivizes Best Practices: Gmail's actions incentivize senders to implement long-advised best practices in email marketing.
- Importance of Engagement: User engagement is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation.
- Avoid Spam Traps: Landing in spam traps, especially via purchased lists, severely harms sender reputation.
Key considerations
- Implement Best Practices: Actively implement best practices in email marketing to avoid being marked as spam.
- Improve User Engagement: Focus on sending engaging and relevant content to keep users interested.
- Avoid Spam Traps: Take precautions to avoid landing in spam traps, such as not purchasing email lists.
- Prioritize User Preferences: Respect user preferences by making unsubscribing easy and honoring their choice.
- Monitor Deliverability: Continuously monitor deliverability metrics to identify and address any issues promptly.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks shares it's about incentivizing senders to implement best practices they've been advised to do for years, responding to the threat of mail being blocked.
25 Feb 2025 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, responds by noting that engagement is important for your sender reputation, and that landing in spam traps as a result of purchasing email lists will seriously harm your sender reputation, even if you have a good product.
14 May 2024 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
Technical documentation from Google, Mailchimp, SparkPost, SendGrid, and Microsoft consistently highlights spam complaints as a critical factor impacting sender reputation. High spam rates signal unwanted emails, leading to deliverability issues, potential blacklisting, and lower reputation scores. Managing bounces, unsubscribes, and monitoring spam complaint rates are essential practices for maintaining a good sender reputation and identifying issues with email practices or list quality.
Key findings
- Spam Complaints Critical: Spam complaints are a critical factor in determining sender reputation.
- High Spam Rate = Problems: A high spam rate signals unwanted emails and indicates issues with sending practices.
- Deliverability Impacted: Spam complaints lead to deliverability issues and potential blacklisting.
- Monitoring Essential: Monitoring sender reputation metrics, particularly spam complaint rates, is crucial.
- Manage Email Quality: Careful management of bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints is necessary for a good sender reputation.
Key considerations
- Prioritize User Experience: Focus on providing a positive user experience to reduce the likelihood of spam complaints.
- Maintain Clean Lists: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive or unengaged subscribers.
- Monitor Spam Rates: Continuously monitor spam complaint rates to identify and address potential issues promptly.
- Optimize Sending Practices: Review and optimize email sending practices to minimize bounces and unsubscribes.
- Address Complaints Quickly: Develop a system for addressing spam complaints quickly and effectively.
- Use Feedback Loops: Set up feedback loops to receive notifications about spam complaints.
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft describes the reputation scores of senders and the effect that things like spam complaints can have on those scores.
22 May 2024 - Microsoft
Technical article
Documentation from SparkPost details that it's crucial to monitor sender reputation metrics like spam complaint rates. Sudden spikes in spam complaints can indicate issues with your email practices or list quality and require immediate attention.
20 Mar 2023 - SparkPost
Do email unsubscribes negatively affect sender reputation?
Do unsubscribe links and rates affect email deliverability and spam filtering?
How are Gmail and Yahoo enforcing unsubscribe requests, and what factors do they consider for compliance?
How can I avoid the unsubscribe link on Gmail when sending email campaigns?
How do Gmail and Yahoo's new one-click unsubscribe requirements work?
How do mailbox providers handle unsubscribe requests and multiple mailing lists from the same sender?
