How does Gmail's 'move to spam' after unsubscribe affect sender reputation?

Summary

Experts, marketers, and documentation all agree that Gmail's 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe significantly harms sender reputation. This is a strong negative signal to Gmail, indicating the email was unwanted and counting towards overall spam rates. High spam complaint rates lead to deliverability issues, filtering emails into spam folders, and potential blacklisting. Implementing best practices is crucial. Key practices include: providing easy unsubscribe options; maintaining clean and engaged email lists; segmenting lists for better engagement; using double opt-in; ensuring a seamless post-unsubscribe user experience; avoiding purchased lists; and actively monitoring spam complaint rates. This collective effort aims to improve user engagement, respect user preferences, and ultimately protect sender reputation.

Key findings

  • Strong Negative Signal: 'Move to spam' after unsubscribe is a strong negative indicator.
  • Damaged Sender Reputation: Directly and negatively impacts sender reputation with Gmail.
  • Increased Spam Rates: Contributes to overall spam rates, impacting deliverability.
  • Deliverability Issues: Leads to emails being filtered into spam folders and potential blacklisting.
  • Importance of Engagement: User engagement is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation.
  • Prevention is Key: Implementing best practices is critical to avoid being marked as spam.
  • Avoid Spam Traps: Landing in spam traps, especially via purchased lists, severely harms sender reputation.
  • Actionable Metrics: Monitor sender reputation metrics, particularly spam complaint rates, is crucial.

Key considerations

  • Easy Unsubscribe: Provide a clear and easy unsubscribe process.
  • List Hygiene: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive subscribers.
  • Segmentation: Segment your audience to ensure you are sending relevant and targeted emails.
  • Double Opt-in: Implement double opt-in to confirm subscriber interest.
  • User Experience: Ensure a seamless and positive user experience, especially after unsubscribing.
  • Avoid Purchased Lists: Never purchase email lists as these are highly likely to be spam.
  • Monitor Spam Rates: Actively monitor spam complaint rates and address issues quickly.
  • Incentivize Best Practices: Focus on actions that incentivize senders to implement long-advised best practices in email marketing.
  • Prioritize User Preferences: Respect user preferences by making unsubscribing easy and honoring their choice.

What email marketers say
10Marketer opinions

Gmail's 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe significantly affects sender reputation. It serves as a strong negative signal to Gmail, indicating that users find the email unwanted. This action counts toward spam rates and increases the likelihood of emails being filtered into spam folders. Providing easy unsubscribe options, maintaining clean and engaged email lists, segmenting lists for better engagement, and using double opt-in are crucial strategies to minimize spam complaints and maintain a healthy sender reputation. User experience after unsubscribing should be seamless, and purchasing email lists should be avoided as they often lead to spam reports.

Key opinions

  • Negative Signal: The 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe is a strong negative signal to Gmail.
  • Impacts Reputation: This action directly impacts sender reputation, potentially leading to deliverability issues.
  • Spam Rates: The action counts towards overall spam rates, affecting email filtering.
  • Easy Unsubscribe: Easy and prominent unsubscribe options are crucial to prevent spam markings.
  • List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean and engaged email list is vital for reputation.
  • Segmentation: Segmenting email lists based on user engagement reduces spam complaints.
  • Double Opt-in: Double opt-in ensures genuine interest and reduces spam reports.
  • User Experience: A seamless user experience post-unsubscribe is important.
  • Purchased Lists: Purchasing email lists significantly increases the risk of spam complaints.

Key considerations

  • Monitor Spam Rates: Regularly monitor spam complaint rates to identify and address potential issues.
  • Optimize Unsubscribe Process: Ensure the unsubscribe process is easy and efficient to prevent users from marking emails as spam.
  • Engage Subscribers: Focus on sending relevant and engaging content to keep subscribers interested and reduce the likelihood of spam reports.
  • Maintain List Hygiene: Implement a regular list cleaning process to remove inactive subscribers and reduce spam complaints.
  • Implement Double Opt-in: Use double opt-in to confirm subscriber interest and ensure a higher quality email list.
  • Segment Audience: Segment your audience to ensure you are sending relevant and targeted emails.
  • Post-Unsubscribe Experience: Ensure the user is unsubscribed and provide a confirmation page. Do not keep sending them emails.
  • Avoid Purchased Lists: Never purchase email lists as these lists are highly likely to contain spam traps and unengaged users.
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit shares that you should never ever purchase email lists because those are very highly likely to be spam.

April 2021 - Reddit
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks mentions the unsubscribe affordance in Gmail is more visible, helping receivers to use that instead of the spam button and it's unrelated to new sender guidelines. Unsubscribe/spam vote rates indicate receiver satisfaction with content.

February 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Marketing Pro shares using double opt-in ensures subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails. This reduces the likelihood of spam complaints and helps maintain a healthy sender reputation.

January 2024 - Email Marketing Pro
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Marketing Tips Blog advises segmenting email lists based on user engagement. Sending targeted content to specific segments increases engagement and reduces the chances of users marking emails as spam.

May 2022 - Email Marketing Tips Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Quora says that the user experience immediately after unsubscribing is important - ensure the user knows they have been unsubscribed and you don't keep sending them emails, otherwise you will likely be marked as spam.

September 2023 - Quora
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit shares that providing an easy and prominent unsubscribe option is crucial. Users who can't easily unsubscribe are more likely to mark emails as spam, negatively impacting your reputation.

November 2021 - Reddit
Marketer view

Email marketer from Stack Overflow explains that when a Gmail user marks an email as spam, it directly impacts your sender reputation negatively. High spam complaint rates can lead to emails being filtered into spam folders for other users.

March 2023 - Stack Overflow
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks says the 'move to spam folder' action after unsubscribe will likely count towards your GPT spam rate.

November 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email on Acid Forum emphasizes maintaining a clean and engaged email list. Regularly removing inactive subscribers and those who haven't engaged in a while reduces the likelihood of spam complaints and improves sender reputation.

December 2024 - Email on Acid Forum
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks clarifies that “move to spam folder” is an additional negative signal and any negative signal will impact sender reputation, based on user preference.

January 2024 - Email Geeks

What the experts say
4Expert opinions

Experts emphasize that the 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe is a significant negative signal to Gmail, strongly impacting sender reputation. This action indicates unwanted email and contributes to deliverability issues. Addressing this requires implementing best practices, improving user engagement, avoiding spam traps, and refraining from purchasing email lists.

Key opinions

  • Strong Negative Signal: The 'move to spam' action after unsubscribe strongly signals that the email was unwanted.
  • Impacts Sender Reputation: This action negatively impacts sender reputation, leading to deliverability problems.
  • Incentivizes Best Practices: Gmail's actions incentivize senders to implement long-advised best practices in email marketing.
  • Importance of Engagement: User engagement is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation.
  • Avoid Spam Traps: Landing in spam traps, especially via purchased lists, severely harms sender reputation.

Key considerations

  • Implement Best Practices: Actively implement best practices in email marketing to avoid being marked as spam.
  • Improve User Engagement: Focus on sending engaging and relevant content to keep users interested.
  • Avoid Spam Traps: Take precautions to avoid landing in spam traps, such as not purchasing email lists.
  • Prioritize User Preferences: Respect user preferences by making unsubscribing easy and honoring their choice.
  • Monitor Deliverability: Continuously monitor deliverability metrics to identify and address any issues promptly.
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks shares it's about incentivizing senders to implement best practices they've been advised to do for years, responding to the threat of mail being blocked.

September 2023 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, responds by noting that engagement is important for your sender reputation, and that landing in spam traps as a result of purchasing email lists will seriously harm your sender reputation, even if you have a good product.

August 2022 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Spam Resource, John Levine, explains that spam complaints are a very strong negative signal to mailbox providers like Gmail. High complaint rates directly and negatively impact sender reputation, leading to deliverability problems.

July 2024 - Spam Resource
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks explains that if users unsubscribe and then move the email to spam, it's a strong signal the email wasn't wanted.

February 2024 - Email Geeks

What the documentation says
5Technical articles

Technical documentation from Google, Mailchimp, SparkPost, SendGrid, and Microsoft consistently highlights spam complaints as a critical factor impacting sender reputation. High spam rates signal unwanted emails, leading to deliverability issues, potential blacklisting, and lower reputation scores. Managing bounces, unsubscribes, and monitoring spam complaint rates are essential practices for maintaining a good sender reputation and identifying issues with email practices or list quality.

Key findings

  • Spam Complaints Critical: Spam complaints are a critical factor in determining sender reputation.
  • High Spam Rate = Problems: A high spam rate signals unwanted emails and indicates issues with sending practices.
  • Deliverability Impacted: Spam complaints lead to deliverability issues and potential blacklisting.
  • Monitoring Essential: Monitoring sender reputation metrics, particularly spam complaint rates, is crucial.
  • Manage Email Quality: Careful management of bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints is necessary for a good sender reputation.

Key considerations

  • Prioritize User Experience: Focus on providing a positive user experience to reduce the likelihood of spam complaints.
  • Maintain Clean Lists: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive or unengaged subscribers.
  • Monitor Spam Rates: Continuously monitor spam complaint rates to identify and address potential issues promptly.
  • Optimize Sending Practices: Review and optimize email sending practices to minimize bounces and unsubscribes.
  • Address Complaints Quickly: Develop a system for addressing spam complaints quickly and effectively.
  • Use Feedback Loops: Set up feedback loops to receive notifications about spam complaints.
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft describes the reputation scores of senders and the effect that things like spam complaints can have on those scores.

February 2024 - Microsoft
Technical article

Documentation from SparkPost details that it's crucial to monitor sender reputation metrics like spam complaint rates. Sudden spikes in spam complaints can indicate issues with your email practices or list quality and require immediate attention.

January 2025 - SparkPost
Technical article

Documentation from Mailchimp explains that spam complaints significantly harm sender reputation. ISPs use spam complaint data to filter emails, and high complaint rates can result in blacklisting.

September 2022 - Mailchimp
Technical article

Documentation from SendGrid explains that you must manage bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribes carefully to maintain a good sender reputation. High rates of these indicate problems with your sending practices.

December 2023 - SendGrid
Technical article

Documentation from Google Support states that spam complaints are a critical factor in determining sender reputation. A high spam rate signals to Gmail that your emails are unwanted, leading to deliverability issues.

April 2023 - Google Support