The ESP / email marketing tool plays a role in deliverability, but it’s not the sole reason why emails land in spam.
Out of the hundreds of signals mailbox providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) use to decide if emails should go to spam or not, there are 5 main ones to pay attention to:
- Mailing server IP (controlled by the ESP)
- Email content (controlled by the sender)
- Domain reputation (controlled by the sender)
- Domain authentication (the ESP will give some “data” to be put into the sender’s DNS (domain name system); the sender needs to correctly input this “data”)
- Subscriber engagement (controlled by the sender)
Out of the 5 main things, the ESP is only in control of 1. The other 4 are in the hands of the sender.
However, when emails go to spam, most people blame it on the ESP.
And rightly so — since they’re not well trained on the topic of email deliverability.
They might have heard or read a few tips here and there, but they don’t really understand the deep workings of deliverability.
One of the biggest myths regarding emails going to spam is: I can 100% prevent emails going to spam.
The truth is — there will always be emails going to spam, no matter if you’re sending a one-to-one email personally or using an ESP to send bulk emails.
Even the biggest and most reputable ESPs have emails landing in spam, guaranteed.
Emails from Google themselves have even landed in my Gmail spam folder. Go figure 🤷
There was also this one time where personal reply emails from me to my vendor landed in spam. Bear in mind that this was us exchanging emails back and forth — and Gmail decided that my reply emails should go to spam. What gives?
Here’s another reply email I got from a subscriber who replied to my email and yes… you guess it right — Gmail put it in spam too:
Furthermore, here’s an article from Gmail themselves. Pay attention to this section:
Also, an email message lands on your spam folder doesn't mean it also lands on your subscribers' spam folder.
So for you, it might land in the spam folder. For John, it may land in his inbox.
Mailbox providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) use thousands of signals to determine where to place your email message (spam, promotions tab, or primary inbox).
One of the signals is your subscriber's history engagement (if they have previously opened / clicked / replied to your email). The more engagement, the better.
If you do email marketing correctly, most emails (99%) won’t go to spam.
So what should you do to the remaining 1% that go to spam?
If you’ve already been following email marketing best practices (see below), then you don’t have to do anything else.
If you zoom out and see the OVERALL picture and view this as a business for the long term… making sure you’re getting good engagement with subscribers is (very) good enough. This means focusing on the AVERAGE open, click, bounce, and spam rates… instead of fussing over a few emails here and there that land in spam.
What I’m trying to say is:
If you’ve already been following email marketing best practices (see below), then you just need to focus on the OVERALL health of your emails instead of worrying about the very minuscule number of emails that land in spam.
Here are some best practices to REDUCE emails going to spam: