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If your emails are receiving a lot of spam complaints, you may have established a reputation as a spammer. Email service providers (ESPs) may start filtering your emails into spam folders, causing your engagement metrics to decrease. Additionally, coming across as a spammer can erode the trust your audience has in your brand. This can lead to lost customers, bad word-of-mouth, and ultimately slower growth for your business.
But how do you know if you’re reporting too many? Major ESPs like Yahoo and Gmail have set clear benchmarks: your spam complaint rate should not exceed 0.3%, with 0.1% being the ideal metric.
For many businesses, accumulating reports is easy.
- Some subscribers may find it more convenient to report emails as spam rather than unsubscribing.
- Others may mistakenly mark your email as spam.
- 78% 100% of consumers will report an email as spam simply because it “looks like spam.”
If you’re worried about your spam complaint rates, you can fix the issues and keep your email deliverability rates good. So where do you start? Here are six common mistakes that can cause your emails to be marked as spam.
Related: 5 Simple Tweaks to Improve Email Deliverability
1. They didn’t ask for permission
Sending emails without permission is one of the riskiest things you can do for your business – people don’t like receiving emails they didn’t sign up for and may mark it as spam, which can quickly damage your reputation and lower your deliverability.
To avoid this, get explicit permission before adding someone to your email list. Using the double opt-in method, you can ensure that your subscribers want to receive emails from you by verifying their email address. Respecting your subscribers’ preferences helps you build long-term relationships with them.
2. You can’t unsubscribe
A common reason consumers mark emails as spam is because they can’t find a way around it, so make sure recipients can easily unsubscribe if they no longer want to receive your emails.
“You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to opt out of receiving unwanted messages from specific email senders.” Written Neil Kumaran, group product manager for Gmail security and trust at Google, adding that unsubscribing “should be a one-click process.”
In February 2024, Google and Yahoo enacted new email sending rules, which include:
- All emails must have a visible and functional unsubscribe link.
- Users should be able to unsubscribe with one click.
- Senders must remove unsubscribed email addresses from their lists within two days.
These guidelines have been common knowledge in the email industry for decades, but they are now hard and fast rules for sending email to Gmail or Yahoo users.
3. Using misleading subject lines
Your subject line is the first impression your email makes in someone’s inbox, so you want it to be eye-catching. But if your subject line is misleading or doesn’t match the content of your email, people will feel deceived and report your email as spam.
To avoid confusing your subscribers, think of your subject line like a newspaper headline: What’s the most newsworthy and compelling element of your email? Include it in your subject line and don’t forget to add preview text. Often, the preview text that appears right after the subject line is more likely to entice a click than the subject line itself.
4. You’re emailing too much
If you bombard your subscribers with emails, they will become overwhelmed and annoyed, and more likely to hit the “mark as spam” button. Balance your email frequency to keep your readers engaged without being intrusive.
An easy way to decide how many emails to send is to go back to what you promised your subscribers when they signed up: If they wanted to subscribe to your weekly newsletter, don’t bombard them with additional promotional emails.
5. Send the same email to everyone
Sending generic emails to all your subscribers without considering their preferences and behavior can result in disinterest and spam complaints. If your subscribers don’t feel like your emails are targeted to them, you’ll lose their attention within seconds.
Segmenting your lists and providing a more personalized experience for each group of customers and prospects is a much better approach. Once you have these segments in place, it becomes easy to continue adding new prospects to your funnel and sending them relevant emails.
Related: Your inbox is overloaded. How to keep your email spam-free.
6. Email design needs improvement
It only takes a few seconds for someone to form a first impression about your email, and every element counts. Poorly designed emails, such as excessive images, no clear call to action, or too much text, come across as unprofessional and may trigger spam filters.
To avoid coming across as a spammer, pay attention to details like the email address you’re sending to, your brand, layout, and image-to-text ratio. If your subscribers don’t like your email template, chances are they won’t either. Consider giving it a fresh design, making sure everything fits your brand, and making your emails easy to read.
Final tip: Eliminate complainers immediately
It’s always a surprise when a company emails you again after you report an email as spam. This is something you should never do, as it will only result in more spam reports. So, set up a process to quickly remove complainers from your mailing list. Stop contacting people who let you know your emails are annoying and instead focus on people who open and click on your content. This will improve your email deliverability and increase the success of your email campaigns.
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