Why are my emails going into spam?

Most of us will wrongly have our sent or received items labelled as spam at some point, which can affect your business and is very frustrating for all involved.

It’s often not due to anything you’ve done wrong, but certain factors can trigger more sensitive spam filters.

For this reason it's important to check your spam or junk folders regularly and encourage your clients to do the same — it’s simply good email practice.

Assuming we host your emails for you, then you are on industry-standard Google or Microsoft platforms, which are among the most reliable services available. If a message ends up in spam, it is not a fault with your email service. It’s more likely related to how the email was sent, its content, or an occasional misclassification by Google or Microsoft’s filtering systems.

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Here are the most common reasons your emails may be going into your customers' spam folders:

1. You are attaching files to emails

You can attach the odd picture to your emails, however if you're sending lots of images, large files or things like PDFs, then you should be using a service like WeTransfer or Google Drive or asking us to provide you a website page to link people to instead.

Attaching files to emails can look suspicious, and email programs may suspect it contains a virus, meaning you get labelled as spam.

2. Your email signature contains odd wording or formatting

Check the wording or format of your email signature. Including images can cause you to go into spam. Remember that email providers are working to stop sales emails getting through, so make your signature simple, personal and as brief as possible. But do make sure you have one, as the absence of one can be just as bad.

3. You are wording your emails like generic sales emails

Depending on your wording, filters may label you as spam. They are looking for cold-call style emails. Re-word your emails to make them more familiar, as if you're talking to someone you already know. These are more likely to get through.

4. Sending to new email addresses

If you are sending emails to addresses you've never used before, this can trigger spam as it looks like cold-emailing. There's not much you can do about this, but it's a factor.

5. Mass sending emails without using proper software

There is a limit on the number of emails you can send a day. If you are getting close to or over this limit, Microsoft/Google may assume you are emailing cold-sales emails and send you to spam. If you're sending out a message to a group of customers, you should ALWAYS use something like Mailchimp. It is against GDPR to just mass-send a normal email.

6. Duplicating content

Similar to above, if you're copy and pasting email content and mass sending emails, this is almost guaranteed to put you in spam. And rightly - as that is the definition!

7. You are not using a professional, paid email address

If you're using a free @gmail, @hotmail or similar, this will look like spam. You NEED to use a professional, paid-for email address. We supply these at retail price - let us know if you're interested.

What is the WORST THING you could do?

If you want the scenario that will most likely label you as a spam sender, it would be sending sales-type emails to multiple contacts all with similar content. As this is, by definition, spam. This will get you blacklisted, meaning you will continue to go into spam in future.

What if I am already blacklisted?

Blacklisted = you have been labelled as a spam sender.

If you have been doing any of the things above and are being told that your customers' are finding your emails in their junk/spam folder, you may have been blacklisted by Google/Microsoft. This means you are not trusted. This is a national register.

We can check if you've been blacklisted.

Just let us know if you suspect this and we will look into it and put in a request on your behalf to remove you from the register.