Why do political campaign emails go to spam?

Key findings

• Engagement Metrics: ISPs like Google heavily weigh engagement signals, such as opens, clicks, and replies, when determining inbox placement. Political campaigns often send to large, less engaged lists, leading to low engagement rates and higher spam placement.
• List Quality: Many political campaigns acquire email addresses through various means, including purchased lists or sign-ups for unrelated events, leading to a high percentage of disengaged, invalid, or even spam trap addresses. This significantly harms sender reputation.
• Volume and Frequency: Campaigns often send very high volumes of email in short bursts, which can trigger spam filters, especially if the sender's reputation is not robust enough to handle such spikes.
• Content and Tone: Political emails often contain urgent language, calls to action for donations, and highly charged content, which can sometimes resemble characteristics of typical spam or promotional material, prompting filtering.
• User Complaints: Due to the high volume and often unsolicited nature, recipients frequently mark political emails as spam, directly damaging the sender's reputation and leading to more emails being filtered in the future.

Key considerations

• Sender Reputation: Maintaining a healthy sender reputation is paramount. This includes consistent sending volume, low complaint rates, and strong engagement. Understanding your domain reputation is a crucial first step.
• List Management: Regularly cleaning email lists, removing inactive subscribers, and implementing strict opt-in processes can dramatically improve deliverability. Avoiding purchased lists is critical.
• Authentication: Proper implementation of email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps ISPs verify the sender's legitimacy and can prevent emails from being flagged as spoofed or fraudulent.
• Segmenting Audiences: Sending targeted messages to specific, engaged segments of an audience rather than mass-blasting helps improve engagement rates and reduce complaints.
• Campaign Strategy: While politicians often employ aggressive tactics, adopting more nuanced sending strategies, similar to those used in commercial marketing, can yield better inbox placement. Research indicates that political emails often have low inbox rates.

Key opinions

• Engagement Focus: Many marketers believe that political campaigns overlook the critical role of user engagement, leading to poor sender reputation and increased spam filtering.
• List Acquisition Issues: A common complaint is that political lists are often acquired without proper consent or are poorly maintained, resulting in high bounce and spam complaint rates. This practice directly affects why emails from political campaigns go to spam.
• Ignoring Feedback Loops: Some marketers suggest that political campaigns do not adequately monitor or respond to feedback loops from ISPs, missing crucial signals about recipient disengagement or complaints.
• Content Blind Spots: The highly persuasive and often repetitive nature of political messaging can trigger content-based spam filters, despite the sender's intentions.
• Misunderstanding Algorithms: Many campaigns seem to misunderstand the sophistication of modern spam filtering algorithms, which go beyond simple keyword detection to behavioral analysis.

Key considerations

• Subscriber Consent: Marketers advise prioritizing explicit consent for email communication to ensure a more engaged and less complaint-prone audience.
• Segmentation: Segmenting lists based on engagement levels or specific interests can help tailor messages and improve overall deliverability. This can prevent marketing emails from going to spam.
• Frequency Management: Balancing the need for frequent communication with the risk of recipient fatigue is crucial. Over-sending often leads to unsubscribes and spam complaints.
• A/B Testing Content: Testing different subject lines, calls to action, and content styles can help identify what resonates best with the audience and reduces negative engagement.
• Long-Term View: Even in fast-paced election cycles, building and maintaining a positive sender reputation should be a continuous effort, not a last-minute scramble. Political campaigns might consider lessons from cold email campaigns in other sectors.

Key opinions

• Algorithm Neutrality: Experts generally assert that ISP algorithms are designed to filter spam based on established metrics like engagement and complaints, not political affiliation, despite claims of bias.
• Poor List Hygiene: A common expert observation is that political campaigns frequently use outdated or non-permission-based lists, leading to high bounce rates and spam trap hits.
• Sender Attitude: Some experts argue that a 'batch and blast' mentality, rather than a focus on empathetic email communication, contributes significantly to poor deliverability.
• Lack of DNS Records: Many political emails also lack proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, making them appear less legitimate to ISPs.
• Ignoring User Signals: Experts find that campaigns often fail to respect unsubscribe requests promptly or monitor spam complaints, worsening their sender reputation over time.

Key considerations

• Prioritize Engagement: Experts recommend political campaigns shift focus from sheer volume to meaningful engagement, segmenting lists and personalizing content to drive opens and clicks.
• Validate and Clean Lists: Implementing robust list validation and regular cleaning processes is crucial to avoid spam traps and reduce bounce rates. This is especially true for new domains.
• Monitor Deliverability: Continuous monitoring of deliverability metrics, including inbox placement, bounce rates, and spam complaints, is vital for identifying and addressing issues promptly.
• Educate Stakeholders: Political strategists and candidates often need education on how email deliverability truly works, dispelling myths about algorithmic bias or quick fixes.
• Adopt Best Practices: Emulating the best practices of commercial senders, particularly those focused on building and nurturing engaged subscriber relationships, can significantly improve inbox rates for political campaigns. For instance, Business Insider reports on the prevalence of spam from political campaigns.

Key findings

• Standard Filtering Rules: ISP documentation confirms that filtering is based on a wide array of signals, including sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and user engagement, none of which differentiate based on political content.
• Legislation and Debate: Discussions surrounding acts like the Political Bias In Algorithm Sorting (BIAS) Emails Act highlight that political actors perceive algorithmic bias, even if the technical documentation indicates otherwise.
• User Feedback Emphasis: Many email provider guidelines emphasize the importance of user feedback (complaints, unsubs, opens) as a primary determinant of inbox placement, regardless of sender type.
• Bulk Sender Guidelines: General bulk sender guidelines (e.g., from Google and Yahoo) apply equally to political campaigns, mandating proper authentication, low spam complaint rates, and easy unsubscribe options.

Key considerations

• Adherence to Standards: Political campaigns should strictly adhere to established email authentication protocols and bulk sender guidelines to ensure deliverability, as these are the primary criteria for ISPs. This includes proper compliance with new sender requirements.
• Transparency in Data: Even with perceived political bias, focusing on transparent data on email performance, rather than anecdotal evidence, is crucial for improving deliverability. This can be done via tools like Google Postmaster Tools.
• Regulatory Compliance vs. Deliverability: Campaigns must understand that while some regulations might give them leeway on unsolicited messages (e.g., CAN-SPAM for political messages), this does not override ISP filtering based on recipient engagement and sender reputation.
• Prioritize User Experience: Documentation from major email providers consistently emphasizes that respecting user preferences and ensuring a positive email experience is the most effective way to achieve inbox placement.
• Understanding Filtering Mechanics: Campaigns should educate themselves on how spam filters work, beyond anecdotal or political narratives, to implement effective deliverability strategies. For example, Campaigns & Elections details the potential biases affecting political email senders.