These instructions will provide some helpful tips to avoid getting your e-mail marketing campaigns marked as spam by your clients' inboxes. While it's not possible to predict everything that spam filter algorithms will decide belongs in a user's Junk Mail, there are some best practices involved in creating effective, targeted marketing that doesn't get judged as spam.
​
​Subject Lines
Having a catchy subject line is critical to getting your clients to open marketing e-mails, but it's also important to avoid words like "free," "click now," or "huge savings." It's also important to avoid the excessive use of punctuation or unnecessary capital letters. Think about the things you see that appear in your own junk mail. It's likely most of them contain these elements.
​
​Body Text
Spam filters perform some checks on the content of your message. It's important that your marketing addresses your clients by name. You will want to make sure to use the Insert tags to include the first names of your clients. If a spam filter thinks the sender doesn't really have any business sending e-mail to the recipient, it's more likely to trash messages.
​
Filters will also check your clients' address books. You may want to consider adding a line of text requesting that your clients add your marketing e-mails to their "safe list" in their e-mail account settings to ensure that future e-mails are properly received. You should also make sure to honor your clients' requests if they do click that Unsubscribe link. Avoid is the use of link shorteners like bit.ly or goo.gl. If you do use any links, make sure they work properly and only take clients to sites that are not full of pop-ups.
​
​Formatting & Layout
Be sure to create marketing campaigns that balance text and image content appropriately. Don't take up too much space describing your business by means of introduction or company goals and do not send an e-mail that's nothing but a picture of a coupon you're offering. This will likely get picked up as an advertisement, which will certainly trigger a spam filter. You should also refrain offering your clients ways to win anything or enter contests. This is part of avoiding ALL CAPS!!! to achieve effect. If you're unsure how to create all of this yourself, your software provides some pre-made templates that you can use. If nothing else, take a look at them to get yourself started. They conform to the guidelines in this article.
​
​Test Your Content
If you're sending marketing campaigns and you or your employees are not created as clients in your software database, you should be. Add e-mail addresses to each of these clients and use them to test your campaigns when you have added new templates. Use a variety of free e-mail providers and send any new campaigns you generate to these addresses first to make sure nothing is being flagged when it really shouldn't. In addition, keep in mind what you see in your own e-mail's junk mail. Don't send your clients anything you wouldn't want to receive yourself.