Although spam isn't as common as it used to be, it is still estimated to make up over 50% of all emails sent. Given roughly one in every two emails may be spam, email providers can be very aggressive in how they categorize emails.
At Movio, we're constantly working to ensure all emails originating from Movio are considered legitimate. Our services provide a world-class email platform that follows all industry guidelines and best practices.
But that's only part of the picture.
If your emails are (unintentionally) badly targeted or contain content that could be considered spammy, this can also have a negative impact:
- Increased likelihood of emails being marked as spam or blocked by ISPs.
- Higher bounce rates.
- Lower interaction rates (opens/clicks).
- Damage to your sending-domain reputation leading to ISP domain blocks.
For these reasons, it's important to follow best practices when creating marketing emails.
Targeting
Targeting is the most important way to make sure emails end up in recipients' inboxes. If the wrong people are contacted, it can negatively affect your business. Sending to addresses that email providers have dedicated to catching spammers, commonly known as spam traps, can significantly affect your email server’s reputation.
Best practices
- Target engaged users, frequently: An engaged user interacts with the emails you send them (via opens and link clicks). Email providers track low engagement to determine whether communications are spam.
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Exclude unengaged recipients: Exclude from further campaigns contacts who haven't engaged with your emails at least once in the last three to six months. Start by reducing the frequency with disengaged contacts, and then exclude them completely if they continue to be disengaged.
Content
Email providers run automatic checks to determine whether an email looks like spam or falls under user-generated ‘spam complaints’.
Best practices
- Use short subject lines (ideally, no more than 7–10 words).
- Avoid excessive emojis and spammy words or symbols, such as "free gift", "today only", and "$".
- Avoid an image-heavy email. Have a good balance between text and images.
- Ensure your text is easily readable against the background
- Be mindful of unintentionally ambiguous words that might appear spammy (for example, the movie name ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin'’). Make sure you include context and structure to differentiate the words from spam content.
- Ensure the links you include are valid.
Spam complaints
A recipient marking an email as spam results in an unsubscribe, and the sender gets tracked by the recipient’s email provider. If the rate of complaints goes over 0.1%, it could affect deliverability.
Best practices
- Ensure recipients are receiving content they have signed up for.
- Ensure targeted and relevant content by using propensity-based segmentation and dynamic content in emails.
- Ensure your emails always include an easy-to-find ‘unsubscribe’ link (in the footer).
Email length and file size
Keep the email file size (the weight of the HTML code) low. This can be achieved by using shorter email content. Otherwise, providers like Gmail will ‘clip’ emails, meaning the full content and the unsubscribe link won't be displayed, and the tracking pixel used to calculate email opens won’t load.
Best practices
- Reduce the amount of content, and create a more personalised email by using dynamic and conditional content. For example, instead of having multiple sections with a comprehensive list of movies, use dynamic content to show only a single section with movies relevant to the recipient.
- Ensure your email file size stays below the 102KB Gmail limit by sending a test to a Gmail account.
Optimise your email templates
If you feel your current email templates won’t allow you to implement these best practices, please contact your Account Manager to discuss modifications.
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