How Some Emails Get Flagged as Spam

Spam filtering is great for keeping dangerous or wasteful messages from clogging up your inbox, but at the same time, there can be times when legitimate emails get flagged and sectioned off by accident. This is especially pertinent to business owners who do frequent outreach to vendors and valued customers. Here are some reasons your messages might get flagged as spam, as well as what you can do about it.

You Haven’t Been Given Permission to Email Someone

The biggest rule to keep in mind for sending emails and avoiding the spam filter is that you can’t send promotional emails to someone who has not given you permission to do so. You might even be running the risk of severe fines. If you purchase an email list or obtain contact information without securing the requisite authorization, you will more likely than not get marked as spam for sending unsolicited messages.

Your Content Triggers the Filter

There is a list of words that spam filters specifically pick out, so if one of these words finds their way into your message, it has a greater chance of being held up by the spam filter. Do your research and try not to use words that are questionable at best; and remember, if you think your message sounds spammy, chances are it probably is.

You’re Sending Too Much At Once

If you are sending hundreds of emails out at once, some email service providers will look a bit more skeptically upon you and consider it spam. When you use email for business communications, this can happen just through day-to-day outreach, so it’s not necessarily something you can avoid. That said, you can effectively use what’s called a “drip” campaign to schedule emails out ahead of time and effectively spread them out.

You Included an Attachment

This is another that is a little difficult to get around, as you might sometimes have to send attachments as part of your business’ operations. The context of the email itself is what will likely determine if the message will get flagged or not as a result of having an attachment. Honestly, if a spam filter is flagging a message as spam for having an attachment, you cannot blame it too much, as the most common threats are often distributed through unexpected or unsolicited email attachments.

You Haven’t Provided the Opportunity to Opt Out

Spam filters really don’t like to see email messages that don’t give their recipients the ability to opt out of the mailing list. If you don’t put a link that does just this, your message could potentially be marked as spam or sorted into a folder where it will never see the light of day. Building this link into your email campaign will give false prospects the ability to opt out of further communication, preventing you from further wasting your time (and theirs). While it might seem like a waste, it’s just good business, and if the message is getting sorted into spam anyway, does it matter if it’s getting read or not?

Don’t Let Your Communications Be Affected By Cybersecurity Precautions

It’s incredibly important that you take precautions against real cyberthreats, but it is also important to maintain your communications infrastructure for both internal users and external clients or vendors. BNMC can help you make sure that both sides of this are addressed adequately moving forward. To learn more, reach out to us at (978) 482-2020.