Avoiding Spam Filters
We all know that bulk emails must be permission-based, must have an unsubscribe facility and should conform to industry guidelines. However, getting your email through the myriad of rules and spam filters should also be a consideration, as you have to overcome at least three obstacles: ISP spam filters, company spam filters and server settings and/or client side spam rules and filters.

There are many types of spam filters, but for the most part they all work on the same basic principles.

Points allocation

Each message receives points based on certain rules.
These rules are structured and based on:
  • If a font is too big or too small
  • Amount of images
  • The words used within the email
  • The font colour
  • Subject lines
  • The from wording
  • The from and reply addresses
  • The unsubscribe messages
  • Percentage of HTML code in email

Bulk email messages are stopped if:
  • There are too many messages coming into a company or flooding a domain at the same time.
  • The IP address from which you send messages has been blacklisted.

Spammers use many tricks to try and get around these rules and filters and with each new trick, the rules will change. We need to stay ahead of the game and understand the industry and do the research, so that we remain one step ahead.

Avoid being seen as spam

There are simple steps you can take to avoid having your email being seen as spam:
  • A close relationship with ISPs is needed – they should know who you are, what you send and the fact that all your emails are legitimate, permission-based messages.
  • Monitor 100% success rate on domain or 100% bounce rate on a certain domain. If there are a huge number of people on either of the domains that are completely successful or bouncing, you will most likely have a problem with the company or ISP. A simple call usually results in the white-listing of the IP address. 
  • Send your emails through a spam checking tool; identify what issues you can fix without detracting from your message. 
  • Ensure that the fonts are a standard size and try not to vary the size of fonts within the email. Rather use bold or underline, to highlight the important parts.
  • Unsubscribe: Spammers usually have an unsubscribe link in the email, so that it looks like a legitimate email and the link doesn’t work. As a result, the word unsubscribe is usually picked up as spam, so vary the wording and use ‘de-list’, or ‘to be removed’ as examples. 
  • Subject lines should never sound like spam, so stay away from the hard sell and don’t fool recipients into opening the email by making the subject line sound like a reply or a personal message between friends. 
  • Colours: Colours in images don’t really matter, but the colours of text and links should be taken from the web-safe palette in Photoshop, as anything else gets picked up by spam filters. Furthermore, making fonts various colours could get picked up as spam. Stay away from red and flesh colours as much as possible.  
  • Words never to use:
    Free;Sex;Money;Profit;Special; Girls;Power;Powerful; Discount;Over 18; Your debt
  • What to avoid:
    $ signs; Exclamation marks!; Currency values; Click here (use visit the site or go online); Go here; A series of symbols or punctuation marks (#*!); Don’t use CAPS; Spelling errors (including South Africanisms, like “lekker”); Grammatical errors
Of course, for many marketers in the financial industry, many of these words are necessary (for example: handling your debt, you must be over 18 to get a credit card, etc.) Rewording is all the more important. For example, ‘Your Debt’ gets a far higher score than just using the word Debt. Age limit could be written as follows: The legal age for a credit card is 18 years.

Spammers will constantly change the way they send emails and so rules and spam filters get refined. It is vital that digital marketers, stay abreast of trends and changes. Digital marketing is an evolving route to market and stagnation will result in your newsletters starting to decline in terms of deliverability and open rate.

  • Concerned your emails are being stopped by spam filters? Get advice from an eMarketing specialist, contact us or let us call you back