At KickoffLabs, we do several things to help improve the deliverability rate of emails to your leads. However, there are various factors you should take into account when trying to avoid the spam folder:
- Quality of email subject line and body
- Safety of links in email
- Presence or absence of images
- Ratio of images to text and links to text
- Relationship with subscriber
If you or your customers notice KickoffLabs emails ending up in the spam folder, here are some tips to help prevent that from happening.
Use your own custom domain email address.
You should always be sending email from your own custom domain email address. If you use a personal email address such as john@gmail.com or paul@aol.com, services like Yahoo will block your email. Why? Google and AOL tell them to.
Click here for more info on why & how to setup a custom domain email address.
Link your email to a trusted email provider.
In some cases, linking your email to a trusted email provider, like the ones included in our email domain best practices guide can improve the deliverability of emails. These usually have good sender reputations.
Try using a real ‘From Name’.
In some cases, using a From Name such as ‘MyBusiness.com’ can increase the chances of being filtered for spam. Reason being is the ‘.com’, which can be considered spammy text.
We recommend using a more personable From Name, such as ‘Josh at KickoffLabs’ or ‘KickoffLabs Team’. It’s a proven strategy to help increase open rates.
Watch your image to text ratio.
Using too many images in comparison to text can trigger a spam filter. You can still use images, but if you see any issue with emails ending up in the spam folder… try removing some images from your email.
Keep in mind that lots of email clients block images by default, so don’t rely heavily on these. If there’s any important information within images, be sure to place it as email body text as well.
Keep your email short and to the point.
In certain cases, more so when using our Advanced Fraud Prevention Confirmation Email, you may want to limit the amount of content within the email body.
Not only is this to limit the amount of potential spammy text, but to focus the reader on the primary conversion goal of the email.
Avoid unnecessary special characters & punctuation.
Spam filters automatically detect junk formatting, you should always avoid doing things like:
- WRITING IN ALL CAPS.
- using words like ‘free’, ‘cash’ or even just including dollar signs ($).
- using excessive punctuation!!!???, especially in your subject line.
- d0ing w3ird th1ngs with letters and numbers.
- using too many different font colors.
- using large font sizes (anything greater than 10pt or 12pt).
Include the correct required email information.
In compliance with the CAN-SPAM act, your emails must include 2 things: your physical address and a way for recipients to opt-out of future emails.
By default, KickoffLabs requires the postal address be set under your campaign’s Email Settings. The unsubscribe message is automatically included in all emails, you may edit this but do not attempt to hide the unsubscribe.
Ask signups to check their spam folder.
Consider using your viral thank you page to ask leads check their spam folder. Try adding a disclaimer text to the page copy saying something like:
“Be sure to check your inbox! If you do not receive an email within a few minutes, please check your Spam folder. If so, select the confirmation message and mark it Not Spam, which should allow future messages get through.”.
Ask signups to click the ‘Not Spam’ button.
If leads contact you about emails ending up in their spam folder, respond politely asking them to click the ‘Not Spam’ button within their email client.
Major ESP’s (Email Service Providers) will see this behavior and whitelist your emails. This can help build your long-term email reputation, especially if you’re a new business.
If you have any further questions on avoiding the spam folder, please email support@kickofflabs.com