How to prevent emails from going to spam due to high bounce rate before BFCM?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares to review email content for spam triggers. Avoid excessive use of promotional language, special characters, and all caps, improving chances of inbox placement.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that cleaning your email list is crucial. Remove inactive subscribers and those who have hard bounced. Regular cleaning improves sender reputation.
Email marketer from EmailToolTester suggests using email preview tools to check how emails appear across different devices and email clients, ensuring optimal rendering and reducing spam flags.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains the first step is to look at the bounces and understand WHY it bounces in order to fix that.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains if the reason for the bounces is that the email addresses don't exist, you need to address that, and not to start ramped-up email campaigns until the bounce issue is fixed or it will only compound the problem.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor explains regularly removing unengaged subscribers improves list quality, reduces bounce rates, and boosts overall deliverability.
Email marketer from Reddit shares to clean your email list immediately after a campaign. Remove hard bounces right away. Don't wait, and don't keep trying to mail them.
Email marketer from Litmus shares to segment email lists based on engagement. Send more emails to active subscribers and less to inactive ones, this improves deliverability.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that a high bounce rate negatively impacts sender reputation, causing ISPs to filter emails as spam. Maintaining a healthy list minimizes bounces and increases deliverability.
Email marketer from HubSpot explains that using double opt-in ensures subscribers genuinely want to receive emails. This reduces the likelihood of spam complaints and improves list quality, thereby decreasing bounce rates.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that implementing and respecting suppression lists (including unsubscribes and complaint feedback loops) prevents sending to recipients who no longer wish to receive emails. This proactive approach minimizes spam complaints and enhances deliverability.
Expert from Email Geeks explains the only way to know why mail is bouncing is to read the actual bounce message.
Expert from SpamResource explains that list hygiene is critical and emphasizes regularly cleaning your email list to remove invalid or inactive addresses, which directly contributes to lowering bounce rates and improving overall deliverability.
Expert from Email Geeks explains to get the actual bounce message and that high bounce rates and going to spam are related. Likely the same things that caused mail to go to spam at some mailbox providers caused other mailbox providers to bounce mail. It sounds like either audience selection is bad or the sender is being spam blocked and the first led to the second.
Expert from Word to the Wise recommends setting up and monitoring automated bounce processing. Properly handling bounces ensures that invalid addresses are quickly removed from your mailing list, preventing future attempts and preserving your sender reputation.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from DMARC.org explains Implementing DMARC policy and monitoring reports helps identify and prevent email spoofing, improving sender reputation and deliverability.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools shares that maintaining a low spam rate is essential for Gmail deliverability. Staying below the threshold (0.1%) prevents emails from being flagged as spam.
Documentation from Microsoft explains setting up SPF and DKIM records authenticates emails, proving they're genuinely from the sender's domain. This reduces the chances of being marked as spam by ISPs.
Documentation from GlockApps explains that gradually increasing email volume when using a new IP address allows ISPs to learn about the sender's sending habits. This reduces the likelihood of being flagged as spam.
Documentation from RFC Editor explains understanding SMTP bounce codes is important for diagnosing delivery issues. Analyzing the codes helps identify the reason for bounces, enabling targeted solutions.