Why do political emails end up in spam folders?

Key findings

• Sender practices: Political campaigns often engage in aggressive list acquisition and sharing, which can lead to poor email hygiene and a higher likelihood of triggering spam filters. Tactics like buying or exchanging lists, or co-registration without clear consent, contribute to deliverability issues.
• User engagement: Recipient behavior, such as marking political emails as spam (even when initially subscribed), significantly influences filtering algorithms. Low engagement rates (opens, clicks) and high complaint rates signal to internet service providers (ISPs) that the content is unwanted.
• Content and frequency: The urgent, emotional, and often repetitive nature of political messaging can resemble typical spam patterns. High sending frequency without sufficient user engagement can also lead to blocklisting.
• Algorithmic response: Email service provider (ESP) and ISP algorithms learn from user interactions. If a large segment of users marks political emails as spam, the filters adjust to block similar messages, regardless of the sender's political affiliation. This is a key reason why your emails are going to spam.

Key considerations

• Consent and list hygiene: Prioritizing explicit consent for email subscriptions and regularly cleaning email lists are fundamental steps to improve deliverability. This includes removing inactive subscribers and addressing spam traps.
• Engagement monitoring: Actively monitoring engagement metrics and spam complaint rates can provide insights into how recipients perceive political email campaigns. Lowering complaint rates is vital for inbox placement. This includes learning how to avoid spam filters.
• Content relevance and value: Focusing on providing relevant, factual, and valuable content can increase user engagement and reduce the likelihood of emails being marked as spam.
• Authentication protocols: Ensuring proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is essential for demonstrating sender legitimacy and preventing spoofing, though it does not override user negative feedback.

Key opinions

• List acquisition differences: Marketers frequently point out that different political campaigns employ varied and often aggressive list acquisition methods (e.g., list sharing, purchasing), which significantly affect their deliverability performance. This often leads to emails from new IPs landing in spam.
• Recipient behavior drives filters: Many marketers believe that spam filters primarily react to user actions, such as marking emails as spam, rather than any inherent political bias. This user feedback trains the algorithms to filter unwanted content.
• Lack of consent and relevance: A common sentiment is that some political senders do not adequately prioritize recipient consent or the relevance of their messages, leading to high complaint rates and negative sender reputation.
• Deceptive practices: Marketers have observed instances where political emails use deceptive copy or link to low-reputation payment providers, which triggers spam filters due to phishing-like characteristics.

Key considerations

• Improve list hygiene: Political campaigns should focus on organic list growth and regular list cleaning to remove unengaged subscribers and reduce spam complaints. This is vital for determining if marketing emails are going to spam.
• Respect consent: Adhering to strict consent practices and transparently managing subscriber expectations for content and frequency can significantly improve inbox placement.
• Content quality: Political emails should strive for clear, factual, and helpful content to increase engagement and reduce the likelihood of being marked as spam. Focus on providing value to the recipient (Campaigns & Elections).
• Monitor spam complaints: Political senders need to closely monitor their spam complaint rates, as these directly inform ISP filtering decisions. High complaint rates (e.g., readers blocking senders or marking emails as spam) have a cumulative effect that makes emails more likely to go to the spam folder, as noted by EmailTooltester.com.

Key opinions

• Sender reputation is paramount: Experts emphasize that sender reputation, built on consistent positive engagement and adherence to best practices, is the primary determinant of inbox placement, even for political content. A poor sender reputation is a key reason for Gmail sending mail to spam folders.
• User feedback drives filtering: Mailbox providers prioritize user preference. If users frequently mark political emails as spam, or if engagement is low, providers will route those messages to the spam folder, irrespective of the content's political nature. This is a crucial aspect of understanding your email domain reputation.
• Aggressive campaign tactics: The use of purchased or shared lists, combined with rapid scaling of sending volumes and potentially deceptive content or links, creates a 'perfect storm' for deliverability problems in political email.
• Content is secondary to user desire: Mailbox providers generally state that they do not filter emails based on content's political nature, but rather on whether users want to receive those emails. Harmful content is an exception.

Key considerations

• Prioritize permission: Political campaigns must adopt stricter permission-based email marketing to ensure recipients genuinely opt-in and expect their communications.
• Maintain list hygiene: Regularly cleaning and segmenting lists, removing unengaged subscribers, and avoiding purchased or shared data is critical for long-term deliverability. For more on this, read our article on technical solutions for boost email deliverability rates.
• Improve content and transparency: Political emails should be clear about their purpose, use legitimate links, and offer easy unsubscribe options to build trust and reduce spam complaints.
• Understand ISP signals: Email deliverability is about how users interact with emails. Experts highlight that political senders need to learn how mailbox providers evaluate sender reputation based on user feedback, as algorithms react to sender practices.

Key findings

• Algorithmic neutrality claims: Major email providers, such as Google, consistently state that their spam filters do not discriminate based on political affiliation. Their algorithms are designed to reflect user actions and preferences.
• User action as a filter determinant: Documentation often highlights that user feedback, specifically marking emails as spam, plays a critical role in training and adjusting spam filters. This makes user engagement a significant factor in email deliverability issues.
• Research findings on political bias: While providers claim neutrality, some academic studies (e.g., from North Carolina State University) have presented findings suggesting disparate treatment of political emails by certain providers, which sparks ongoing debate.
• Policy adjustments: Mailbox providers sometimes propose or implement specific policies, like exemptions or pilot programs for political emails, indicating an awareness of the unique challenges these campaigns face in reaching the inbox without being blocked as spam.

Key considerations

• Adherence to best practices: For any sender, including political campaigns, complying with standard email best practices—such as clear consent, easy unsubscribing, and proper authentication (e.g., DMARC, SPF, and DKIM)—is essential for deliverability.
• Impact of user feedback: Despite any perceived bias, the overwhelming influence of user spam complaints and engagement signals on filtering algorithms remains a consistent theme across documentation and research. Political campaigns must focus on positive user interaction.
• Content analysis by filters: Spam filters identify patterns characteristic of unsolicited email, which political messages can inadvertently mimic due to their urgent tone, calls to action, or mass sending nature. This is how legitimate emails sometimes go to spam.