Summary
Cold emails frequently land in spam due to various factors, including poor sender reputation, triggered by low engagement, spam complaints, and using purchased lists. Corporate spam filters are increasingly sophisticated, further complicating deliverability. Solutions involve authenticating emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC; carefully crafting content to avoid spam triggers; sending relevant, personalized content; and gradually warming up IP addresses. Monitoring spam rates using Google Postmaster Tools is crucial, as is addressing blocklist issues. Building lists organically with explicit consent and testing email placement are essential steps for improving deliverability. Engaging most active users first and moving to legitimate business practice are also recommended.
Key findings
- Sender Reputation Matters: A low sender reputation is a primary cause of emails going to spam.
- Authentication is Key: Email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) verifies sender legitimacy.
- Content Counts: Spam trigger words and poor HTML coding trigger spam filters.
- Relevance Boosts Deliverability: Sending relevant and personalized content increases engagement.
- IP Warmup: Gradually warming up IP addresses prevents triggering spam filters.
- Explicit Consent: Building lists organically with explicit consent is essential.
- Monitoring Spam Rates: Monitoring spam rates via tools like Google Postmaster Tools is crucial.
- Corporate Filters Tightening: Corporate filters are getting tighter and more accurate with their filters.
Key considerations
- Clean Email Lists: Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive or invalid addresses.
- Avoid Spam Triggers: Refrain from using spam trigger words or excessive capitalization.
- Audience Segmentation: Segment your audience for more targeted messaging.
- Personalized Content: Personalize content based on recipient data.
- Gradual IP Warmup: Implement a gradual IP warmup strategy.
- Obtain Explicit Consent: Obtain explicit consent to send emails to build a engaged audience.
- Monitor Spam Rate: Regularly monitor your spam rate to find issues early
- Legitimate Company Behaviour: Consider behaving like a legitimate company and build from there.
- Clean ESP: Make sure to keep cold prospect stuff on it's own ESP, far, far away from your clean outbound traffic
What email marketers say
9 marketer opinions
Cold emails often land in spam due to factors impacting sender reputation, such as low engagement, high spam complaints, and poor list hygiene. Improving deliverability involves authenticating emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC; crafting content to avoid spam triggers; sending relevant, personalized content to segmented audiences; warming up IP addresses gradually; focusing on engagement; implementing double opt-in; and regularly monitoring sender reputation using tools like Sender Score and Google Postmaster Tools.
Key opinions
- Sender Reputation: Low sender reputation, influenced by spam complaints, bounce rates, and engagement, is a primary cause of emails going to spam.
- Email Authentication: Authenticating emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is crucial for proving sender legitimacy to ISPs.
- Content Quality: Carefully crafted content, avoiding spam trigger words and clean HTML, helps bypass spam filters.
- Audience Relevance: Sending relevant, personalized content to segmented audiences increases engagement and reduces spam reports.
- IP Warmup: Warming up IP addresses gradually prevents triggering spam filters associated with sudden high-volume sending.
- Engagement: High engagement rates signal email value to ISPs, improving deliverability.
- Double Opt-In: Double opt-in ensures subscribers genuinely want to receive emails, reducing spam complaints.
- Reputation Monitoring: Regularly monitoring sender reputation using tools identifies deliverability issues.
Key considerations
- List Hygiene: Regularly clean your email list to remove inactive or invalid addresses.
- Spam Triggers: Avoid using spam trigger words, excessive exclamation points, and ALL CAPS in your email content.
- Segmentation: Segment your audience to send more targeted and relevant emails.
- Personalization: Personalize your email content based on subscriber data.
- IP Warmup Schedule: Create a gradual IP warmup schedule, increasing sending volume over time.
- Engagement Tactics: Encourage subscribers to add your email address to their address book.
- Sender Reputation Tools: Utilize tools like Sender Score and Google Postmaster Tools to monitor your sender reputation.
- Relevance: Start IP warm up with your most engaged users.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Neil Patel Blog explains that one of the main reasons emails go to spam is a low sender reputation. This is based on your IP address and domain. Factors impacting reputation include spam complaints, bounce rates, and engagement levels. To fix this, focus on cleaning your email list, authenticating your email, and improving email content.
5 Sep 2022 - Neil Patel Blog
Marketer view
Email marketer from Reddit shares that it's important to warm up your IP address when starting a new email campaign. Sending too many emails at once from a new IP can trigger spam filters. Gradually increase your sending volume over time.
15 May 2022 - Reddit
What the experts say
7 expert opinions
Cold emails often go to spam because they are treated as such by ISPs and corporate filters, especially with tightened B2C learning filters. Using separate domains might not help if the IP address is the same or if there are references to your primary domain in cold emails. Building lists organically with explicit consent and testing/monitoring email placement are important. The long-term viable solution is to behave like a legitimate company and avoid third-party spammers or consider manual mail sending if emails are useful. Targeting cold prospects via platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn could be more effective than email.
Key opinions
- Cold Emails = Spam: Cold emails are often viewed as spam, leading to deliverability issues.
- Corporate Filters: Corporate spam filters are tightening and learning, impacting B2B email deliverability.
- IP Address & Domain: Using a separate domain is ineffective if the IP address remains the same or there are cross-references in email content.
- List Acquisition: Purchased or scraped lists damage sender reputation due to high spam complaint rates.
- Testing & Monitoring: Testing and monitoring email placement is crucial to diagnose deliverability issues.
Key considerations
- Legitimate Practices: Consider behaving like a legitimate company instead of relying on third-party spammers.
- Manual Sending: Explore manual email sending if the content is genuinely useful.
- Alternative Platforms: Utilize platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn to target cold prospects instead of email.
- Explicit Consent: Gather email addresses with explicit consent to build a healthy list.
- Clean ESP: Make sure to keep cold prospect stuff on it's own ESP, far, far away from your clean outbound traffic
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks states that cold emails are essentially spam and will likely end up in the junk folder as intended. Furthermore, if a sender engages in spam practices, the resulting poor reputation can negatively impact even their legitimate business emails.
10 Aug 2021 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that if the emails are really useful, to stop using a 3rd party tool and move it back to manual mail, using their own links, domains, and IPs.
20 Apr 2024 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
Cold emails end up in spam for various technical reasons addressed by email authentication protocols and spam monitoring practices. Maintaining a low spam rate (below 0.10% in Google Postmaster Tools) is crucial. Being on a blocklist can directly lead to junking of emails, requiring removal requests. Implementing SPF prevents address forgery, while DMARC protects domain names from spoofing and specifies actions for failed authentication, which could include rejecting or junking the message. DKIM ensures that the "From:" sender address in messages hasn't been forged by spammers.
Key findings
- Spam Rate Monitoring: Maintaining a spam rate below 0.10% is crucial, according to Google Postmaster Tools.
- Blocklist Impact: Being on a blocklist results in emails being sent to junk, necessitating removal requests.
- SPF Functionality: SPF prevents address forgery by authorizing specific hosts to send mail on behalf of a domain.
- DMARC Protection: DMARC protects domain names from spoofing and defines actions for failed authentication (junk or reject).
- DKIM Verification: DKIM ensures that the 'From:' sender address is not forged.
Key considerations
- Postmaster Tools: Regularly monitor your spam rate in Google Postmaster Tools.
- Blocklist Check: Check if your IP address is on any blocklists and request removal if necessary.
- SPF Implementation: Implement SPF to authorize your sending servers.
- DMARC Setup: Set up DMARC to protect your domain from spoofing.
- DKIM Configuration: Configure DKIM to prevent sender address forgery.
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft explains that one reason email ends up in Junk Email is that the sending email server's IP address is on a blocklist. Microsoft uses blocklists to help prevent junk email, also known as spam. To resolve this, contact the blocklist provider to have your IP address removed.
28 Feb 2022 - Microsoft Support
Technical article
Documentation from RFC-Editor defines SPF is a way for a domain to authorize specific hosts to send mail on its behalf. The purpose of SPF is to prevent address forgery used in spam.
9 Dec 2022 - RFC-Editor.org
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