The best way to avoid Spam filters when sending email campaigns:
- Run a spam score test.
- Don’t send with your shared host server, use a dedicated ESP instead. Choose your delivery method.
- Authenticate your emails by setting up DKIM and SPF for your emails.
- Ask users to add their email addresses to the address book or a whitelist.
- Check your subject line/text and avoid words that are used in spam emails.
- Never send to subscribers who didn’t sign up for your newsletter.
Also, make sure you follow your local legal guidelines.
Run a Precheck
Mailster has a built-in option to run a precheck on your campaign which gives you a good overview of what you can improve.
An excellent service that gives even better information is mail-tester.com. Run a test by sending the email provided by this service and wait for the result.
Don’t send with your shared host server, use a dedicated ESP instead
If your website is hosted on a shared server many other users are also hosted on the same server with the same IP address. If others send emails through this server and their emails get marked as spam your emails also get marked as spam more easily. This happens because the IP address of your server gets listed on blacklists.
To prevent this go with a private server or send your emails from a dedicated server. Even better is to use a professional service as explained here.
Authenticate your outgoing emails with DKIM, SPF, and DMARC
If you send from your own server (which you shouldn’t do as pointed out above) you should sign your email address so receivers can check if the email is actually from you. This helps to prevent the spam folder in most cases. Read more about DKIM here.
Ask users to add their email addresses to the address book or a whitelist
If users add your email address to their address book email clients hardly will mark your message as spam as it’s from “a known person”.
Check your subject line/text and avoid words that are used in spam mail
Avoid using spammy words in your campaigns as they can quickly trigger spam filters. There are some great lists available to check for these words.
Never send to subscribers who didn’t sign up for your newsletter
Build your own list and never send buy lists. Never send campaigns to subscribers who didn’t ask for them. Implement double opt-in and offer an unsubscribe option in every email you send out.
Bonus Tipp: Don’t send SPAM
This is a no brainer but in case you are just evil and like to send spam – Just don’t 🙂