Help Centre

Overview

An email ends up in the spam folder for one of several reasons:

• Sender reputation is low
• Domain authentication issues
• Shopper marked the email sender’s address as spam
• The subject line, email or SMS content raises a red flag

We recommend integrating with Google Postmaster Tools to monitor your spam score. Find out how to set up Postmaster Tools here (1). 

Sender Reputation Overview

• Sender reputation is a measure of how inbox providers evaluate your trustworthiness as a sender. Your sender reputation is determined based on various differently weighted factors, which can impact whether your emails land in a customer’s inbox or in spam. 
• Senders with a positive sender reputation are more likely to have their emails delivered to a customer’s primary inbox, while senders with a poor sender reputation are likely to see their emails placed into spam or not delivered at all. 

Sender Reputation Metrics

• Key metrics that contribute to the sender’s reputation score include:

1. Low engagement
2. High sending volume and frequency. Sending too many emails to a mail server in a short period of time can overwhelm shoppers and could likely lead to higher spam complaints. Without following a warm-up process, it is more likely that emails will be marked as spam. 
3. High bounce rates. Senders should aim to have email bounce rates under 2%. 
4. High spam complaints. Senders should aim to have a spam complaint rate under 0.01%. Google Postmaster (1) 
5. High unsubscribe rates. Senders should aim to have an unsubscribe rate under 0.3%. 
6. Poor data quality. Unengaged profiles on the list are more likely to lead to deliverability issues. 

Domain Authentication Issues

• Mail servers use email authentication protocols to ensure that incoming emails are from legitimate senders, protecting your brand and your shoppers from malicious attacks. 
• If your email fails this verification, it can cause your emails to be rejected or to go into spam. 
• To authenticate your domain with Salesfire please follow these recommended steps. 

Importance of Using a Subdomain

• By default, you will send from a shared subdomain, under the Salesfire brand, if you don't set up your own subdomain.
• Gmail and Outlook will apply spam scores to your domain or subdomain separately. This means that if you get flagged for spam, a subdomain acts as a shield for your main domain. It also means you can brand your domain and send from your own business name and details. 
• Without a branded domain, you risk customers not recognising your emails, and your campaigns going straight to spam.

Setting up an email subdomain

• The term “subdomain” refers to a word that precedes your main brand domain, otherwise known as your root domain. 
• Every domain and subdomain is assigned a spam score.
• Subdomains act independently from the top-level domain.
• If you damage a subdomain, you can restart the process. 

Subdomain Example: 

Warming Your Domain

• Not warming your domain can be detrimental to your sending reputation. Sending a high-volume email send as your first campaign will likely see all your emails enter spam, as will any future campaigns. Once this has happened, you will need to create a new subdomain and start this process over again.
• Most emails from untrusted or new domains are flagged by spam filters if not properly warmed.
• Future campaigns will also likely be marked as spam, dramatically reducing deliverability rates. Once this happens, fixing the domain is difficult. 
• If this happens companies will need to create a new subdomain and restart the warming process, which can take 4–6 weeks.

Anti-Spam Email Recommendations

Image and Colour Recommendations

1. The maximum recommended file size for email images is 1MB per image. Large files can trigger emails to go into spam. 
2. You should include alt text and use a few words to describe your image. This allows screen readers to describe what the image is and helps towards a good spam score. 
3. Emails that are image and link-based only are much more likely to be flagged as spam. This is because email providers cannot read the content of your email, and therefore cannot make a decision about its legitimacy. 
4. Avoid designing entire emails in tools like Photoshop and uploading them as a single image as this impacts load speed and may trigger spam filters. 
5. Avoid using too many bright colours to draw a shopper’s attention as this can trigger spam filters. 

Email Content

Inbox providers use spam filters to determine whether or not your emails or SMS messages reach the inbox rather than spam. Here are some email content best practices:

1. Avoid spammy subject lines
2. Find a balance between images and texts
3. Limit the number of URLs
4. Avoid spelling mistakes or using too much jargon
5. Use personalisation in your messaging
6. Make it easy for shoppers to unsubscribe from your content

Anti-Spam SMS Recommendations

SMS Content

Carriers look for several cues that could be harmful to shoppers. Here are some SMS best practices to reduce the likelihood of being marked as spam:

1. Avoid using ALL CAPS throughout your message. ALL CAPS are typical of spammers trying to get a shopper’s attention and create urgency. 
2. Don’t include many emojis or special characters in your messages. Using a single emoji or special character in a text message reduces the character limit to 70 characters as an emoji can count as 90 characters. It’s recommended not to use special characters or emojis in SMS marketing.
3. Limit the number of URLs pushed. The recommendation is to push only one URL per text message sent along with the unsubscribe link.  
4. Keep your message to 160 characters. Shoppers are more likely to engage with messages that are shorter in length. 
5. Avoid spelling mistakes, using too much jargon or poor grammar.
6. Short messages with personalised information are viewed favourably by shoppers. Shoppers prefer to receive messages that provide value.  

References

1. Set up Postmaster Tools | Google