Every single day, around 65 billion spam emails are sent, with the vast majority of these ending up in a user’s junk mail. With fantastic security tools that help to sift through emails and find those that are purely spam, we’re saved from the majority of emails that would be a waste of time to read.
However, what happens when an email you send ends up in someone else's spam? The vast majority of the time, people don’t check their spam inbox, meaning any correspondence you send that ends up there will never be read.
But, if you’re worried about your emails ending up in the wrong location, there is something you can do about it. In this article, we’ll cover the main reasons that your emails are going to spam. By working through this list, you’ll be able to fix your email format and email signature to ensure your emails land in the correct inbox every single time.
We’ll be covering:
- You’re Missing Sender Information
- Your Writing Triggers the Spam Filter
- Your URLs and Link Target Don’t Match
- You’re Using Too Many Images
Let’s get right into it.
You’re Missing Sender Information
Sender information is how an email provider knows that the sender of an email isn’t simply spamming out emails to a list they’ve found online. There are several technical authentication pathways that email providers use to ensure the person sending emails is actually real. These tactics, like SPF and SKIM, are vastly used but are not the only features to look out for.
Another trigger that can send your email straight to the spam box is if you’ve mismatched your personal information with the info you’ve provided in the email. A very common accident that triggers this is having your full name within the email account's personal records but then signing off with a nickname.
For example, if your name is Alexandria, but you’re signing off with Lexi, then the email provider might not make the connection and flag your account.
Equally, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) requires users to include a physical address on any marketing emails that they send out. This physical address can easily be looked up by the FTC to see if it actually matches to a registered business address. If there is no address, then your emails could instantly be considered spam.
One of the easiest ways of incorporating a business address into an email is by simply including it at the bottom of your email signature. When using a free email signature generator, there is often the option to add your address when filling out the template.
Your Writing Triggers the Spam Filter
Especially in professional emails, writing quality really does matter. One of the ways that you can accidentally trigger an email provider to consider your email as spam is to fall into bad writing habits. While missing the odd comma here and there won’t have an impact, if your email is horrendously structured, filled with misspelled words, and lacking all punctuation, you could be flagged.
Equally, if you take things too far with a range of writing features, your email could be seen as spam:
- Too Many Emojis – If your email consists of lots of emojis that fill up the text, it could be perceived as spam and filed out of the recipient’s main inbox. This happens a lot with marketing emails, where the subject line includes too many emojis and looks like spam.
- Overly Expressive – Filling your email with exclamation marks is often something that will lead to a spam filter being placed on it. While using them at the end of sentences is okay, always only use one. If you have a large number of them in a row, no matter how much you want to emphasize something, your email might be marked as spam.
- Capitals – Try to use capitals only with proper nouns and at the start of sentences. If you capitalize large parts of your email, it could be tagged as spam.
In short, try to stick to conventional writing rules and make sure to give your email a quick once-over read before hitting send.
Your URLs and Link Target Don’t Match
One common method that spammers use to get people to go onto nefarious sites is by including a range of links within their emails. A tactic they use is by embedding a malicious URL on a word or phrase that doesn’t seem suspicious at all.
The mismatch between the link text and the link itself could trigger a spam alert. For example, if the link was going to Google’s homepage, but the link text was for something completely unrelated, the mismatch could trigger a spam alert. Always try and match what you're saying to the link itself.
Be sure that you’re not using any link shortening software additions. If you’re using Tiny Link or anything else that changes the structure of a URL, you might be accidentally flagging your emails from this simple mistake.
You’re Using Too Many Images
Finally, too many attachments or images can instantly trigger a spam alert with an email provider. That doesn’t mean you can’t use images within your emails, but be sure that there is a good balance of actual text to images. Instead of inserting one phrase and a whole host of supporting images, you should try to include more text than images.
Also, try and pay attention to the size of the images that you’re using. If your email is just one large image, your email provider might instantly flag you. This is due to the fact that scammers are now using images of their emails instead of typing in an attempt to get around the above spam filters.
Just be sure to balance your emails with a blend of text and images, and you should be fine here. Equally, if you’re going to include a range of attachments, make sure you mention that in your email, so it’s not automatically flagged.
Final Thoughts
Email spam is mostly just junk mail sent by bot accounts in the hope of phishing contact information or inserting malware onto a device. With this in mind, very few people are actively checking their spam email. If one of your emails ends up in someone else’s spam box, it’s likely never going to be read by them.
To help you ensure this doesn’t happen, start to incorporate the above tips whenever you write an email. With this, you’ll ensure your emails always stay in the inbox and are never relegated to spam by a security filter.
