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4 Reasons Why Your Marketing Emails are Going to Spam

Founder of Orchid Agency
Marissa Lodato
July 18, 2022
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If you’re reading this your email open rates may be low or you’re just getting started on your email marketing strategy. Either way, the trickiest part of email marketing can be getting your technical details aligned. You may have the most visually appealing email template with amazing content, but it will be a waste of time and resources if your email is hitting spam.

Here are the major reasons why your marketing emails might be going to spam.

1. Your email isn’t configured correctly.

Just like you strive to protect the business reputation of your company, you have to do the same for your domain and IP address. Before you launch your first email campaign you will need to create a separate company domain and different email addresses for campaigns and testing purposes. 

Stray away from the temptation to blast out your first email to a large number of email addresses. Instead, send your email to several email addresses each day. This way your email won’t get marked as spam and over time this builds up your email reputation. 

2. Your email is not verified.

To ensure your emails don’t land in spam, you will need to properly set up these 3 must-have measures. 

  1. SPF
  2. DMARC
  3. DKIM

You need SPF and no, we aren’t talking about sunscreen! 

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a text file used to authenticate the sender of an email. Your SPF record ensures your emails will not be rejected.

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(source: Cyberius)

How to set up SPF

  1. Put together your list of IP addresses that you use to send emails.
  2. Gather the domains you control.
  3. Create your SPF record according to your domain instructions.
  4. Add your SPF records to your email application.

What is DMARC and how to set it up?

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) is a technical standard that protects your email domain from being used in email scams such as phishing or cyber crimes.

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(source: dmarcanalyzer)

How to set up DMARC:

  1. Go to your DNS host to create the DMAC record
  2. Select the TXT DNS record type
  3. Add the host value 
  4. Add the “value” information
  5. Save the DMARC record
  6. Run a DMARC record check to ensure it was set up correctly

What is DKIM and how to set it up?

Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email authentication standard that allows the recipient to check that the email was sent by the owner of that domain.

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(source: Cyberius)

How to set up DKIM:

  1. Generate the public keys provided by your email service.
  2. Copy and paste the generated keys as a TXT file in your DNS settings.
  3. Generate and save the signature encrypted with your private key.

3. Not segmenting your audience.

Unfortunately, the spray and pray approach just doesn’t work. Creating one email for your entire database may sound tempting, but you will get the best results for your marketing campaign by segmenting your audience.

According to Campaign manager, 60% of recipients that open an irrelevant email will delete it, while 23% will mark the email as spam.

Simply put, segmenting your audience is when you divide up your email list into small groups based on categories like demographics or interests. You can segment your audience in many different ways like job title, sales cycle stage, or industry. For example, a popular tactic for account-based marketing is to segment by company size. The interests of a large company of 1,000 or more are very different from the interests of a small company of 10 people.

4. Triggering spam filters.

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According to optinmonster, nearly one in five emails end up in spam.

The email content you’ve included or did not include could be triggering spam filters set by the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. This law sets rules for marketing emails to protect recipients from receiving spam messages. 

The rules are very simple to follow:

  • Don’t use false or misleading header information in your from and reply-to
  • Don’t use deceptive subject lines 
  • Include an address of where your business is located
  • Include an opt-out link

Another reason your email could be triggering spam filters is that you’re using spam words, symbols, or broken HTML, without even knowing.

Here are some red flags that spam filters look for:

  • Mismatched or colorful fonts
  • Copy written in all caps
  • Non-working HTML code
  • Using more images than words
  • Using certain words or symbols like best price, trial, urgent, $, or #1

Free tools to get started and check your SPF, DMARC, and DKIM:

Following these tips will definitely help point you in the right direction to get your target audience to open your marketing emails, but there is much more to consider. For any questions regarding your email marketing strategy, please reach out to us.

B2B MARKETING TIPS