Why do my cold emails go to spam and how can I fix it?
Summary
What email marketers say16Marketer opinions
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that unsolicited email is typically regarded as spam and is often flagged by major email providers.
Email marketer from Woodpecker.co Blog highlights the importance of personalization, relevance, and respecting unsubscribe requests in cold email campaigns to maintain a good sender reputation and avoid spam filters.
Email marketer from Reddit says ensure the email is actually personalized and relevant to the recipient's needs. Generic emails are often flagged as spam. Also, double-check your sending IP address isn't blacklisted.
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog suggests warming up your IP address, segmenting your email list, and engaging subscribers with valuable content to improve deliverability and avoid the spam folder.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that receivers often mark unsolicited emails as spam, regardless of unsubscribe links, due to a lack of trust or interest in the sender. They might avoid clicking on links in such emails.
Email marketer from Reply.io Blog advises starting with a well-researched and targeted list, crafting personalized email sequences with clear value propositions, and testing different approaches to find what resonates best with your audience.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that the nature of the email content and the recipient data are problematic in cold email scenarios. Temporary fixes may exist, but a better approach involves examining and refining the data and content to maintain a sustainable program. The process is essentially a continuous cycle of tweaking, testing, and repeating because the email filter algorithms will generally prevail.
Marketer from Email Geeks refers to a Litmus study that indicates 50% of people mark emails as spam due to the absence of a clear or easily accessible unsubscribe option. Therefore, including an unsubscribe link is crucial.
Marketer from Email Geeks says an email is spam if it's equally applicable to many recipients and the recipient hasn't explicitly granted permission to receive it. One-to-one email is only legitimate way to cold email without it being spam.
Email marketer from Litmus Blog explains how email authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC work to verify the sender's identity and protect against spoofing, improving email deliverability.
Email marketer from Warrior Forum suggests gradually increasing sending volume to warm up the IP and domain reputation. Avoid sending large volumes of emails too quickly, which can trigger spam filters.
Email marketer from Mailchimp Resources recommends using a recognizable 'From' name, cleaning your audience regularly, and testing your email content with tools like Mailchimp's Inbox Preview to see how it appears in different email clients. Authenticating your domain is also crucial.
Marketer from Email Geeks recommends limiting the number of emails sent per day, restricting the number of emails sent to a single domain, avoiding attachments, and including an unsubscribe link in cold emails.
Email marketer from Neil Patel Blog shares several tips for avoiding spam filters, including avoiding spam trigger words, authenticating your email (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), maintaining a clean email list, and providing an easy way to unsubscribe.
Email marketer from Gmass Blog shares that avoiding URL shorteners and ensuring your HTML is clean, can help to improve deliverability. It's also important to monitor your sender reputation regularly.
Email marketer from Hubspot Blog advises cleaning your contact lists and removing inactive subscribers, as well as using double opt-in and making sure that your email content is valuable and relevant to your subscribers.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains that unsolicited emails often land in spam folders. The content might be irrelevant to the recipient. Sending emails to the wrong audience increases the likelihood of being marked as spam.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that if recipients mark emails as unwanted, it is a sign they don't want the email. Likely the emails are being sent to the totally wrong audience. Also being cute like "oops, just one more try to see if you forgot to reply" just frustrates people.
Expert from SpamResource explains that proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is critical for establishing credibility with mailbox providers. Lack of authentication is a common reason for emails ending up in the spam folder, as it makes it difficult for providers to verify the sender's identity and legitimacy.
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that building and maintaining a good sender reputation is crucial for inbox placement. Factors like sending volume, complaint rates, and engagement metrics all influence how mailbox providers view your emails. Consistently sending relevant, wanted content to engaged subscribers is key to building a positive reputation.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from RFC defines the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and how it helps prevent email address spoofing. Implementing SPF records in your domain's DNS settings tells receiving mail servers which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that senders should authenticate their email using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Also, keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and avoid sudden spikes in email volume.
Documentation from DKIM.org explains that DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) enables email senders to cryptographically sign their email messages, which email receivers can then verify using the sender's public key published in DNS. This confirms that the message was sent by the authorized domain owner.
Documentation from DMARC.org describes DMARC and its use with SPF and DKIM to provide email authentication. DMARC allows domain owners to specify how they want email receivers to handle messages that fail authentication checks, and it provides reporting mechanisms for monitoring email authentication results.
Documentation from Microsoft 365 Documentation outlines sending limits and best practices for avoiding being marked as a spammer. Staying within these limits is important for avoiding spam filters.