How to prevent emails going to spam

Every time you send supporters a fundraising appeal, a newsletter, or any other email, there’s a good chance that it will never be seen. Why? Because it may end up in their spam folder, never to see the light of day.

 

The problem is that almost 50% of emails are spam, according to Statista, so almost every email provider filters incoming messages to prevent customers being overwhelmed with unwanted ones.

 

But spam filtering is an inexact science, so it’s inevitable that some spam messages get delivered and some legitimate messages get diverted to the spam folder. Here some of the most important things you can do to stop your charity’s emails being mistaken for spam.

 

 

1. Watch your words

 

Spam filters learn the type of language that spammers employ and use this knowledge to try to identify messages as spam. That means it is important to try to avoid using the spam trigger words or phrases that the filters look out for – unless they are directly relevant to your email.

 

Common spam trigger words and phrases include:

• Extra cash
• Free gift
• Incredible deal
• You are a winner
• Dear Friend
• Investment
• Risk free
• Amazing

You can find more comprehensive lists of spam trigger words at ActiveCampaign and Snovio Labs.

 

You should also pay special attention to your subject line, and avoid using unnecessary capitalisation, spacing, and special characters (like “R  I  S   K     F  R   E  E  ! !”).

 

 

2. Ask constituents to whitelist you

 

One of the most effective ways of preventing your emails being classified as spam is by asking your recipients to “whitelist” messages from your charity.

 

Many email services like Gmail and Outlook offer a simple way for users to click on a message and specify that messages from that sender should never be classed as spam.

 

Most email services won’t classify a message as spam if it comes from someone in the recipient’s contact list (or address book) so a simpler whitelisting method is to ask recipients to add your charity’s email address to their contact list.

 

Whitelist Guide provides instructions on how to whitelist senders for many popular email systems.

 

 

3. Don’t get classified as spam by recipients

 

When people receive your email communications, they usually have the opportunity to mark it as spam. This moves the message to their spam folders, but it also very harmful to your charity.

 

That’s because every time one of your messages is marked as spam, the spam filters used by the email provider takes note and your reputation takes a hit. If enough of your messages are sent to spam, then the filter will decide that all your messages should be sent directly to spam.

 

There are several reasons why people may send your messages to their spam folder and some specific measures you can take to minimise this:

 

They don’t recognise your emails as coming from your charity, or they have forgotten who you are.

 

Solution: Add branding, including your charity’s name and logo, to your emails. This may seem obvious, but a small image at the top or bottom of your email can make a big difference to how the message is received.

 

They no longer want to receive them, so they classify them as spam as a quick way to make them stop.

 

Solution: Make it easy to unsubscribe to your emails. A simple “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of your email should ensure that it is easier to unsubscribe than to classify your message as spam.

 

They didn’t realise that they had signed up to your email list, so they regard your messages as spam.

 

Solution: Take care when adding someone to your charity’s email list that they really do want to be added. Asking people to untick a box if they don’t want to be added may be an effective way of increasing the size of your email list, but it doesn’t mean that they genuinely want to be added.

 

A good strategy is for your charity to adopt a “double opt-in” approach. This means that whenever someone chooses to be added to your email list, they receive an email asking them to click on a link to verify that they do indeed want to be added.

 

 

4. Take care who you email

 

Spam filters look at the engagement that your emails receive: if a high proportion of your emails are deleted before they are opened, or they are sent to email addresses that are largely inactive, then they are more likely to be marked as spam.

 

That means that you need to build your email list with care to ensure that people who are on it are genuinely interested in your messages, and it also means that you need to “scrub” it regularly by ensuring that anyone who is not reading your messages is removed promptly.

 

The implication of this is that your charity should not buy mailing lists from other organisations, and the addresses of emails that bounce back (perhaps because the email address no longer exists or because the email box is full) should be removed.

 

Using a double opt-in approach (described above) can help ensure that people are not added to your list inadvertently, and it can also prevent automated bots from signing up to your email lists.

 

 

5. Authenticate your emails

 

One trick that spammers employ is to send their messages from another organisation’s email address or email servers. To prevent this, a number of authentication systems have been introduced which help prove that a message from an organisation really does come from that organisation.

 

Spam filters take account of this, so if an email comes from an organisation using a popular authentication system such as SPF, DKIM, or DMARC, it is less likely to be classified as spam.

 

Introducing one or more of these authentication systems is technical but not necessarily expensive, so it is worth asking your charity’s IT staff or email provider about this.

 

 

6. Use a spam checker before sending your messages

 

A spam checker will analyse an email you are planning to send and alert you to anything – such as the use of spam trigger words or lack of authentication that could cause your message to be identified as spam.

 

Most will give your message a score which indicates the likelihood of being identified as spam, and hints on what to change in order to get a better score.

 

There are many free and paid-for spam checking services, including MailTester, Unspam, Litmus, and Postmark.