Why are my cold emails going to spam and how can I fix it?

Key findings

• Spam definition: Cold emails are often classified as spam because they are unsolicited, irrespective of how targeted or relevant the sender believes them to be. The recipient's perspective on relevance is paramount.
• Corporate filters: B2B environments are seeing increasingly aggressive spam filters, which learn from consumer-side filtering techniques and prioritize the preferences of their internal customers (employees).
• Domain separation: Using a separate domain for cold emails to 'protect' your main domain can be counterproductive, as ISPs recognize this tactic and employ countermeasures like fingerprinting to associate all mail streams from the same entity.
• Third-party tools: Many popular cold outreach platforms are frequently blocklisted (or blacklisted) by corporate filters, impacting delivery rates for all users.
• Reputation impact: Poor sending practices for cold outreach can negatively affect the deliverability of legitimate transactional or marketing emails from the same entity, even if sent from different domains or IPs, due to advanced tracking by ISPs.

Key considerations

• Sender reputation: Focus on building and maintaining a positive sender reputation by ensuring high engagement, low complaint rates, and proper email authentication.
• List hygiene: Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive or invalid addresses, which can reduce bounce rates and improve overall deliverability. This also helps avoid spam traps.
• Personalization: Go beyond basic personalization. Tailor content to genuinely resonate with recipients to encourage engagement and reduce spam complaints.
• Authentication: Implement and monitor SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to verify your emails' legitimacy and prevent spoofing. You can check your DMARC record to ensure proper configuration.
• Volume management: Avoid sudden spikes in sending volume, which can trigger spam filters. Implement proper email warmupstrategies for new domains or IPs.

Key opinions

• Personalization is key: Marketers frequently highlight the need for tailored messages over generic templates to resonate with recipients.
• Bounce rate matters: Maintaining a low bounce rate (e.g., under 3%) is crucial for good deliverability and is seen as a direct indicator of list quality.
• Content relevance: Subject lines must accurately reflect email content to avoid negative user reactions and spam complaints.
• Authentication basics: Proper email authentication, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, is fundamental for email marketing success, especially in B2B contexts where corporate filters are strict.
• Sender score: Monitoring and aiming for a high sender score (e.g., 80+) is considered essential for consistent inbox placement.

Key considerations

• Audience segmentation: Segmenting customer interests and applying deep personalization to content can significantly improve deliverability, even for cold emails.
• Blacklist checks: Regularly checking if your domain is on any email blacklist or blocklist is a critical step if emails start landing in spam.
• Spam trigger words: Avoid using words or phrases commonly associated with spam, which can automatically flag your emails.
• Ethical content: Focus on creating genuinely ethical and valuable content that respects the recipient's inbox and avoids deceptive practices. More details are available in this guide on cold email practices.
• Small volumes: For cold outreach, it can be more effective to send smaller, highly individualized batches of emails rather than large volumes that are hard to manage and respond to individually.

Key opinions

• Cold email equals spam: Experts firmly state that cold emails are inherently spam because they are unsolicited, regardless of personalization or targeting.
• ISPs are sophisticated: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and corporate filters use advanced fingerprinting to identify and block mail streams from senders who try to hide behind different domains or third-party tools.
• Recipient decides relevance: The relevance of an email is solely determined by the recipient, not the sender, highlighting the importance of explicit opt-in.
• Long-term trend: Corporate spam filtering will continue to become more aggressive, making deliverability for unsolicited mail increasingly challenging.
• Cost of spam: Each spam email that bypasses filters costs employers in terms of broken attention spans and lost productivity, reinforcing why filters are so stringent.

Key considerations

• Separate infrastructure: If cold outreach is deemed necessary, it should be sent from entirely separate ESPs, IPs, and domains, with no cross-references to your main domain or brand, to avoid reputation bleed.
• Permission-based strategies: Transitioning to strategies that encourage voluntary sign-ups can create 'allies' within target organizations, improving long-term deliverability.
• List quality: Routinely examine the source and cleanliness of recipient email addresses. Filthy lists will exacerbate deliverability issues.
• Authentication importance: Robust implementation of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is non-negotiable for establishing legitimacy and bypassing filters.
• Alternative outreach: Consider using alternative platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook for targeting cold prospects, where email list uploads can be used for audience targeting in a more accepted manner. This approach can be more sustainable long-term, as outlined in articles on deliverability challenges.

Key findings

• Authentication is fundamental: Official documentation consistently stresses the necessity of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for validating sender identity and preventing spoofing.
• Monitoring reputation: MSPs provide tools (e.g., Google Postmaster Tools) for senders to monitor their IP and domain reputation, spam rates, and deliverability performance, which are key indicators of sending health.
• Compliance with regulations: Laws like the CAN-SPAM Act in the US outline requirements for commercial emails, including clear identification of sender, physical address, and a visible unsubscribe mechanism.
• Content guidelines: Documentation often provides guidance on avoiding spammy content, including suspicious phrases, excessive capitalization, and broken HTML.
• Recipient engagement: MSPs heavily weigh recipient engagement (opens, clicks, replies) and negative feedback (spam complaints, deletions without opening) when determining inbox placement.

Key considerations

• Adhere to best practices: Follow recommended guidelines for list acquisition, email content, and sending frequency to avoid triggering spam filters. Find an expert guide to email deliverability for more.
• Regular monitoring: Continuously monitor your deliverability metrics using tools like Google Postmaster Tools to identify issues early and adapt your sending strategy.
• Clean lists: Implement strict list hygiene protocols to minimize bounces and engagement with spam traps. Understanding how spam traps work is essential.
• Reputation building: Actively work to build a positive sender reputation over time through consistent, high-quality, and permission-based sending. Google Postmaster Tools offers valuable insights for improving domain reputation.
• Opt-out process: Always provide a clear and easy way for recipients to opt out of your emails and honor those requests promptly to avoid complaints and blacklists.