3 Tips To Avoid Getting Bad Sender Reputation

In this day and age when 90% of all emails are considered spam, how does one avoid being blacklisted? There are a few tips you can  you can assure your emails land in your recipient’s inbox not in the dread Spam folder.

With services like Mailchimp (a free to use mass e-marketing tool) becoming ever more accessible and easy to use,  we’ve put together some handy tips so that you can avoid spam filters and never end up with a bad sender reputation.

1. Monitor  your levels of complaints, hard bounces and spam rates.

If you’re emailing in large volumes, it is critical that your complaint, hard bounce and spam rates remain low.  A complaint occurs when a recipients hits the ‘report spam button’ at the end of the email. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will assume that you are a spammer based upon the amount of recipients hitting that button.

2. Don’t hesitate to pull any emails. 

Hard bounces are the amount of emails that are being sent back to a sender. This can occur when you are emailing to unknown or non-existent email addresses.

3. Make sure your Internet Provider knows who you are. 

You can authenticate your emails through Sender Policy Framework, Sender ID or Domain Keys. Just know that you should not rely on authentication alone, since spammers are known for also authenticating their IP addresses.

If you do find yourself with a bad reputation, no need to panic, it can be fixed. It’s just a matter of taking the time to assess your levels of complaints and making sure you are emailing to real addresses.

Here’s another freebie:

DON’T USE ALL CAPS OR EXCLAMATION POINTS IN THE SUBJECT LINE!!!

Seriously though – people actually do this, and it’s a sure fire way to have your email blocked before it even hits an inbox.