What is the acceptable spam rate threshold and what factors affect it?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Constant Contact explains that avoiding spam filters involves using permission-based marketing, authenticating your email, sending relevant content, providing an easy way to unsubscribe, and monitoring your sender reputation. They recommend keeping your spam complaint rate below 0.1%.
Email marketer from Sender explains how to keep your email spam score low: use double opt-in, clean your email list regularly, use a dedicated IP address, send relevant content, use a familiar ‘From’ name and email address, add an unsubscribe link, and add a text version to your HTML emails.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that a good rule of thumb is to keep your spam rate below 0.1%. Once you cross 0.3%, you're likely to see deliverability problems. Factors that affect this include list quality, content, and sending frequency.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that concern about the .3% spam rate threshold is common, but the industry lacks clear guidance. While some suggest being far below this threshold, others acknowledge that many mailers operate near it, with possible consideration of other factors before penalties are applied.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that mailbox providers are usually forgiving of complaint spikes if best practices are followed but consistently high rates (0.2-0.3%) will impact deliverability. She also highlights the importance of aligned signup incentives and email content, setting clear expectations during opt-in, reminding subscribers where they signed up, ensuring easy unsubscription, and avoiding misleading content and subject lines.
Email marketer from Neil Patel recommends using double opt-in, cleaning email lists, authenticating emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, sending engaging content, and consistently monitoring sender reputation to maintain a good deliverability rate and avoid spam filters.
Email marketer from HubSpot notes that to maintain a healthy sender reputation, consistently monitor your sender score, keep complaint rates low, authenticate your email, and segment your audience to send relevant content. They also advise removing unengaged subscribers from your list.
Email marketer from Quora highlights that factors such as poor list hygiene (sending to old or invalid addresses), irrelevant content, deceptive subject lines, and the lack of proper authentication methods (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) can significantly increase spam complaint rates.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that a spam score is a number (usually from 0 to 5) that determines how likely your email is to be marked as spam. The lower the score, the better your chances of landing in the inbox.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign states that the acceptable spam complaint rate should be less than 0.1%. To maintain this, they suggest you practice proper list hygiene, only send to engaged subscribers, and segment your lists.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks states that the spam rate threshold evaluation period is 'More than a day, less than a year.'
Expert from Spam Resource explains that one way to monitor spam complaints is to setup feedback loops, and that senders must authenticate their mail to participate.
Expert from Email Geeks recommends focusing on reducing high complaint rates rather than relying on statistical probabilities.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that factors like sending to purchased lists, not honouring unsubscribes, using misleading subject lines, and having poor list hygiene can significantly affect spam rates. They emphasize the importance of permission-based marketing and maintaining a clean, engaged list.
Expert from Word to the Wise states that one factor that affects the spam rate is IP reputation. It's important to maintain a good IP address reputation by following best practices for sending emails to avoid being flagged as spam.
What the documentation says6Technical articles
Documentation from Google states that senders should keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher. Maintaining rates below 0.10% allows for error margin, and consistent rates above 0.30% will cause deliverability issues.
Documentation from SparkPost mentions that deliverability metrics, including complaint rates, are crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation. High complaint rates directly impact inbox placement and can lead to blocks. They recommend monitoring and addressing any significant changes in these metrics.
Documentation from RFC explains that SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records are a DNS TXT record that specifies which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain. SPF records help prevent spammers from forging the sender address on your emails.
Documentation from Microsoft explains that factors affecting deliverability include sender reputation (based on IP address and domain), authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene (removing invalid addresses), complaint rates, and content quality (avoiding spam triggers).
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an email authentication protocol that builds on SPF and DKIM to provide a policy for handling emails that fail authentication, helping to protect domain names from being used for phishing and spam.
Documentation from DKIM.org defines DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) as an email authentication system designed to verify the DNS domain of an email sender and the integrity of the message. It uses cryptographic signatures to assure that the email was not altered in transit.