22+ Reasons Why Your Emails Are Ending Up In Spam Folder

Digital marketers are spending a generous amount of time on finding content that can be perfect.

But the authentication process, as well as the spam filters, can end up preventing your readers from seeing the message.

There are a lot of brands who don’t even realize how many of their messages don’t even end up in the inbox; instead of that, it gets filtered out by the spam.

However, there are some basic reasons why it happens, and it’s important to find out first.

List Of Reasons Behind Emails Ending Up In Spam Folder

On a global level, the email has an involved placement rate of around 83%, which is considered okay.

This means there are hardly 1 in 6 emails that are sent to the spam or get blocked.

And even if the percentage is 83% which is considered good, here is what you should be asking, are you okay that you are getting only 83% of your earning potential?

The more your emails end up in spam, the more profits you are losing. So you need to pay attention to the reasons why your emails are getting in spam instead of inbox.

It includes :

You Are Targeting The Wrong Audience

Subscriber engagement has a crucial role when it comes to the deliverability of your email.

So when the email gets marked as spam, it might be because of the low engagement rates.

One of the reasons behind this is having the wrong audience on the email list.

It’s important to improve the email list first to get engagement in your email.

Instead of getting more subscribers, as a marketer, you should first focus on getting the attention of the right subscribers.

Your Email Doesn’t Have Unsubscribe Option

Your email should have the physical addresses along with unsubscribing options, and these are the two extra areas where the spam regulations are strict.

If you don’t want to end up paying the fine, make sure you are not omitting these two, and also it will help boost the deliverability.

If your email doesn’t have an address, especially the owners of small businesses end up making such common mistakes but are aware that it’s important.

Also, the readers want to have subscribed buttons that should be easy to access and conspicuous.

Having No Permission From The Subscribers

One of the rules of email marketing is the important one – always have permission before you send the email first.

And it’s important that you never purchase the list of email addresses as you can end up violating the CAN-SPAM act, which has penalties of more than $16000 per email.

So sending the automated email series to those who didn’t give you permission in the first place simply puts you in dangerous situations where you have to pay the fines.

In order to get permission, you require the opt-in form on-site, which clearly states that visitors are subscribing to the email list.

Your IP Address has a Record Of Spamming.

Even if you are never sending spam, your emails are still getting flagged if the IP addresses were used for this in the past.

Suppose you are sending the campaign via an email marketing service. The emails are believed through the services.

So if there are any other customers sending the spam, it might affect your email deliverability too.

However, if you are using an email service provider with a reputation, this won’t have such problems.

Consider the service providers who take their email deliverability more seriously, so they don’t spam your IP address.

Your Campaigns Are Way Too Frequent

Well on festivals or holidays, brands tend to spend a lot of emails.

As a reader, receiving different emails from the same domain means the same brand can be annoying and also a reason why they reported it as spam.

Even though they might be interested in what you are offering, getting so many emails in one day can be too much.

Not just that, sometimes seniors also add attachments, which worsens things.

So, it’s important to consider how many times you will send your reader’s emails.

Your subscribers should not get overwhelmed; in such cases, the frequency should be around 2 or 3 times a week.

If you are sending it on a daily basis, choose one time and send it once, no more or less.

The Engagement Rates Are Low

There is huge importance in having high engagement rates.

The top webmail provider stated that they take the consideration of the emails and the open rates. So they can delete the factors which are leading to spam filters.

If you have low rates in reading or opening, there is a high risk that your email will get the flag as spam.

That’s why you need to focus on increasing engagement rates.

So apart from making sure that you have the right audio, here you need to send emails at an ideal time along with the perfect subject lines and generation of lists and keep it fresh by filtering it on a daily basis.

Sudden Increase In Emails Messages Numbers

Well, another reason that might be ending your emails in spam folders is the number of emails you are sending.

If you are suddenly sending more than before, for example, if you used to send around 10,000 subscribers and now you are sending 200.000, this will spike and trigger spam folders.

The email client might consider the spoke unexpected and mark it as a spam attack.

So if you want to increase the list of your contacts, it’s important that you do it but in a gradual manner.

The Subscribes do Not Recognize You

The second most common reason is that your subscribers might not remember you anymore, which is why the emails end in spam complaints.

So every time your subscriber does the report and marks the email as spam, the mailbox provider records the complaint. Also, it doesn’t matter if the email was spam.

Once the campaign crosses the limit, all campaigns in the filter will skip to the inbox as they all will get directly sent to the spam folder.

So why are your emails getting flagged as spam even though it’s not spam?

There are high chances they will forget about you and have no idea to give permission to you.

So when they get the emails, they believe it’s spam.

To percent, you need to make sure that you are sending emails in a format that is easy to remember.

Also, you have the branding is done, which matches the website, including voice, typography, images, color, etc.

You Switched From One Email Service Provider To Another

So, switching from one ESP also impacts the sender’s reputation score.

Every time you do it or plan to change the marketing tool for email, it’s important that you warm up the domain’s sender reputation.

It will help in keeping your emails safe from the filters and won’t identify your address as a spammer.

You Have The Spammy Text in Email

Spammy words are a major concern, and it’s important that you look carefully when it comes to your email content.

Your subject line should not have any spammy sentences or words, such as free, how, hurry, etc.

These are the determining spam filters, and even for eCommerce emails, such words are vital, but they should be actionable and scarce.

That’s why you need to take a look at your inbox, and you will notice a lot of examples.

Even though it’s not all about spammy words that harm the email deliverability, adding exclamation signs, all caps, making your subheading spammy, etc., are the pointers that trigger the spam filters.

You Are Not Providing What Subscribers Want

Here, sending too much, too generic, or too little are considered top factors which make the deliverability poor.

Depending on the subscribers, they have their own peers’ feces which improves the chances of your livelihood, not just about the right frequency.

You also need to give them what they want so subscribers have more control over their subscriptions.

Segmentation and sending relevant content can help in reducing spam-like situations.

You Have Misleading Subject Line

The CAN-SPAM act states that having anything which intentionally misleads someone in the subject line to induce viewing the message will be considered against the law.

According to the survey, which was conducted by litmus and fluent, more than 50% of the participants stated that they feel deceived, tricked, and cheated after they open the promotion email to read as they have the subject line, which is mostly false.

Having subject lines which are misleading or give a false impression makes your subscribers lose their trust, so don’t add such subject lines, for example.

Did I leave myself…? Such an email subject line makes you look like someone they know.

RE: Currently in office, well, such subject lines are doubly sneaky as the readers might think it’s something related to the work.

Urgent – Update, if something starts with the word urgent, it should be something urgent.

Thank You For Placing your Order! Such ones are poor form which is used in the transactional like subject line, and don’t use it for emails that have nothing to do with it.

Even though you find some grey area tactics, it’s important not to use such things at all.

Even though you get the clicks, it will end up damaging the reputation, which is not worth the risk.

You Have a Bad Image To Text Ratio

Well, HTML emails need to pass through the filters of spam, and here you have two points to consider i.e. image-to-text ratio and spam words.

Here, the image-to-text ratio is more for the B2B sales email marketing, and for the retailer, it can be irrelevant after the email provider starts caching images and default displaying.

However, it’s important that you include the text elements in an HTML email, and all kinds of attachments should be removed.

It’s important to keep the language of your brand and email content, as spam filters won’t bother you.

Your Mailbox Has Low Usage

In your spam filtering algorithm of yours, the email service providers need to look at the ratio of the email accounts in the list divided into active and inactive accounts.

The inactive accounts are those that haven’t been used for a longer period of time or are rarely used by anyone.

So if you are mailing a huge number of email addresses that are not active, it gives a red flag to the spam filters.

In order to avoid this, you need to clean up your email list first. So remove the observers who are not showing engagement in the campaign, and it has been a while.

Here you can send the emails back in order to boost the engagement, and it will offer the last chance to engage with the company before you remove their email address from the list.

Make Sure Subscribers Want Your Emails

It means that the subscribers require to agree explicitly that they want to receive promotional emails from you via email.

And that’s why you need to have the opt-in; much better to have GDPR compliant.

To achieve this, you need to add sentences of consent in the signup forms, so it makes sure that your emails are wanted and that you are not spamming them.

Your Are Email Size Is Too Big

Well, a test performed by the Email acid team reported that they created text-only and HTML emails in different sizes ranging from 15 to 650kb.

Here they found of that –

The emails with sizes between 15kb – 100 kb were considered okay as they successfully passed the spam filters.

But emails with more than 100 kb started to show the deliverability issue.

Emails that had 110 kb to 650 kb failed in different spam filters.

Once the file size was more than 100 kb, the spam filters that failed those emails were the same; they got caught in 7 different spam filters.

It shows that your email size also has a vital role in why they end up in spam folders.

That’s why ensure the email size is between 15 kb – 100 kb, as it will ensure deliverability.

You Are Not Familiar With CAN-SPAM ACT

The most common reason here is that you are not following the CAN-SPAM ACT. And if you get caught, you might have to pay a fine of more than $40,000 or more.

So to make sure that you are familiar with this as FTC ( United States) came up with a short guide.

Here are the seven important points to know about.

Monitor others and see what they are doing on your behalf.
Honor opt-out should have a prompt.
You need to tell the recipient about how they will opt out of getting emails.
You need to tell them about your location.
You also need to identify if your message is an add
You should never use deceptive lines for the subject
Never use the misleading or false header information

It Has Been a Long Time since You Sent Anything

Another reason that you can consider is not sending anything for a long period of time.

And since they don’t know you, they might have deleted the emails or reported them as spam.

And that’s because when you build the email list, which is based on opt-in forms.

So not sending them any emails and then deciding to do it suddenly might trigger the spam, too.

That’s why you need to remove all the old, fake and inactive addresses every time you start the campaign.

And next, you should ask if they are still interested in receiving emails.

You Have Big Images With No Or Little Text

Another spam reason is adding images in the emails; even though it’s beneficial, the size is important.

Adding images that are too big and have no text or little might be flagging your email as spam.

The images increase the chances that your email will end up in spam, but there is no guarantee. But when you have more triggers, this will keep the emails in spam.

You Are Sending Bogus Addresses

Well, if you haven’t sent the emails for a while, and especially if you purchased the list or used the opt-in, this will lead to having an email address that is bogus.

So sending emails to emails with unused and inactive accounts will hut the open rate.

And this will boost the chances of getting the spam flag.

That’s why you need to clean the list after the email list verification.