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What impact does malformed HTML have on email deliverability and spam filtering?

Summary

Malformed HTML in emails negatively impacts deliverability and triggers spam filters. The severity depends on sender reputation and mailbox provider; established senders may have more leeway. Common errors include missing alt text, unclosed tags, and incorrect doctype declarations, all contributing to higher spam scores. While content is becoming relatively less important to spam algorithms, user engagement underscores the importance of well-crafted, accessible content. AI spam filters analyze HTML code quality and can penalize emails with misspelled tags and other bad signals. Ensuring clean, valid, and semantically correct HTML, along with following best practices like using inline CSS and avoiding deprecated tags, is crucial for improving inbox placement, rendering consistency, accessibility and overall user experience across various email clients and devices.

Key findings

  • Reputation-Dependent Impact: The effect of malformed HTML on deliverability varies with sender reputation; reputable senders may experience less severe consequences.
  • Common HTML Errors: Missing alt text, unclosed tags, and improper doctype declarations are frequent causes of deliverability issues.
  • Spam Score Contribution: Malformed HTML contributes to higher spam scores, increasing the likelihood of being filtered out.
  • AI-Driven Analysis: AI-powered spam filters scrutinize HTML code quality and penalize emails with code errors, especially when combined with other negative signals.
  • Importance of Content and Engagement: User engagement and content quality are increasingly important factors for achieving good deliverability.
  • Rendering Inconsistencies: Malformed HTML can cause rendering issues across different email clients, leading to a poor user experience.
  • Accessibility Concerns: Invalid or poorly structured HTML can create accessibility problems, particularly for users on iOS devices.

Key considerations

  • Prioritize Clean HTML: Strive for clean, valid, and semantically correct HTML in email design.
  • Validate Code: Regularly validate HTML code to identify and correct errors.
  • Follow Best Practices: Adhere to established email coding best practices, including the use of inline CSS and avoidance of deprecated tags.
  • Focus on Accessibility: Ensure accessibility by including alt text for images and using semantic HTML.
  • Optimize for Rendering: Test emails across different email clients and devices to ensure consistent rendering.
  • Avoid Deprecated Elements: Refrain from using deprecated HTML elements that can trigger spam filters or cause display issues.
  • Balance Content and Code: Create engaging content and ensure it's paired with well-structured code for optimal deliverability.

What email marketers say

14 marketer opinions

Malformed HTML in emails can negatively impact deliverability and trigger spam filters, although the extent of the impact depends on sender reputation and mailbox provider. Common HTML errors, such as missing alt text, unclosed tags, and incorrect doctype declarations, contribute to higher spam scores. While content is becoming less relevant in spam filtering algorithms, user engagement ironically increases the importance of content to deliverability. AI spam filters consider various factors, including HTML code quality, and misspelled tags combined with other bad signals can harm deliverability. Ensuring clean and valid HTML, validating code, using proper declarations, and following email coding best practices improves inbox placement and user experience.

Key opinions

  • Reputation Matters: The impact of malformed HTML is influenced by the sender's reputation; established senders may be more tolerant.
  • Common Errors: Missing alt text, unclosed tags, and incorrect doctype declarations are frequent HTML errors.
  • Spam Score Impact: Malformed HTML contributes to higher spam scores, increasing the likelihood of being filtered.
  • AI Analysis: AI spam filters consider HTML code quality, and misspelled tags combined with bad signals can harm deliverability.
  • Content Shift: User engagement and preferences are increasing the importance of content for deliverability.

Key considerations

  • Validate HTML: Use HTML validators to ensure code compliance and prevent common errors.
  • Accessibility: Pay attention to accessibility by adding alt text to images for users who cannot view them.
  • Best Practices: Follow email coding best practices, including proper doctype declarations and inline CSS.
  • User Experience: Inconsistent rendering due to HTML errors can negatively impact user experience and engagement.
  • Monitor Deliverability: Track deliverability metrics and adjust HTML practices based on performance.

Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests that content, including HTML, is becoming less relevant to spam filters than it was in the past, as filters now focus more on user preferences and engagement, ironically this means that content is more important to deliverability.

1 Jan 2022 - Email Geeks

Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks notes that common HTML errors in emails include missing alt text, unclosed tags, missing title tags, and missing `<!DOCTYPE html>`, and while fixing these takes minutes, the impact is marginal but can make a difference.

31 Jan 2024 - Email Geeks

What the experts say

2 expert opinions

Malformed HTML negatively impacts email deliverability by signaling spam filters. Clean, valid HTML code is crucial for improving inbox placement. Proper HTML structure and avoiding deprecated tags are important to prevent inconsistent display and reduce the risk of being flagged as spam.

Key opinions

  • Spam Signal: Malformed HTML can act as a signal for spam filters, leading to deliverability issues.
  • HTML Structure: Proper HTML structure is important to deliverability, with deprecated tags being bad.
  • Display Consistency: Avoiding deprecated tags maintains consistent display across email clients.

Key considerations

  • Clean HTML: Ensure clean and valid HTML code to improve deliverability.
  • Avoid Deprecated: Avoid using deprecated HTML tags in email design.
  • Inbox Placement: Prioritize clean code to improve inbox placement and avoid spam filters.

Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise (Laura Atkins) details that proper HTML structure and avoiding deprecated tags are important for deliverability, and not using these can lead to inconsistent display and can raise flags for spam filters.

8 Jul 2023 - Word to the Wise

Expert view

Expert from Spam Resource explains that malformed HTML can negatively impact email deliverability as it can be a signal for spam filters. They advise ensuring clean and valid HTML code to improve inbox placement.

5 Mar 2025 - Spam Resource

What the documentation says

4 technical articles

Malformed or poorly coded HTML in emails increases the likelihood of being flagged as spam or junk by email clients like Outlook. Valid, semantic HTML ensures proper rendering and improves deliverability by avoiding spam triggers. Best practices, such as using inline CSS and avoiding deprecated tags, are recommended to ensure optimal rendering, accessibility, and deliverability across different platforms, including iOS.

Key findings

  • Spam Flagging: Poorly coded HTML increases the chances of emails being marked as spam or junk.
  • Proper Rendering: Valid, semantic HTML ensures emails are rendered correctly across various email clients.
  • Accessibility: Malformed HTML can cause accessibility issues for users on iOS devices.

Key considerations

  • Valid HTML: Use valid and semantic HTML in email coding.
  • Coding Standards: Follow best practices, including inline CSS and avoiding deprecated tags.
  • Compliance: Ensure HTML complies with web standards to reduce junk folder filtering.

Technical article

Documentation from Apple details that malformed or invalid HTML can create accessibility issues for users on iOS devices; and that to ensure readability of your mail you should use valid HTML.

1 Jun 2025 - Apple

Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft Support explains that malformed HTML in emails can cause Outlook to flag the message as junk. They suggest ensuring that HTML is properly formatted and complies with web standards to reduce the likelihood of emails being filtered into the junk folder.

28 Oct 2022 - Microsoft Support

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