Avoid Spam Folder Pitfalls and Boost Your Email Engagement

Email is still king when it comes to contacting prospects, customers, or peers in most industries. But you could write the most beautiful, engaging email in the world and still fail to avoid spam folders. Imagine putting in all that hard work, and your message doesn’t even land in an inbox!

Recent calculations show nearly half of all emails worldwide are identified as spam. Even if you’re following best practices to avoid the spam folder, it can take some practice to ensure you send polished, highly deliverable emails. We’ve pulled together our best practices for crafting engaging emails that don’t fall victim to spam filters. While many of these tips apply to mass marketing emails, they also often apply to one-off, personalized emails. Even if you’re sending a message to a single contact, you still need to consider how to avoid spam folders.

Managing your sender reputation

The first step to avoiding spam folders is understanding your email reputation. According to Sendgrid, these actions may hurt your email reputation:

• Sending a large volume of emails in a short period, especially if it’s not within your usual pattern

• High rates of people marking your emails as spam

• Email bounces, or emails that fail delivery to a recipient’s inbox

• Receiving few clicks, opens, or other interactions on your emails

• Many people deleting your emails without reading them

• Being on a blocklist that organizations use to track domains sending spam

Understanding Sender Score

A Sender Score is an easy and free way to measure your email deliverability rate. A sender score gives your IP reputation a ranking from 0-100: 0-70 being a poor score, 70-80 being fair, and above 80 being good. If your score is below 70, you may have been flagged for poor sending behaviors. Higher scores have a higher chance to avoid spam folders.

The data used to calculate your Sender Score comes from the Validity Data Network, consisting of more than 80 message and mailbox security providers.

Keep in mind, if you’re working with a third party to send emails, their Sender Score can impact your own! At Covideo, we have a Sender Score of 98. (Not to brag, but that is extremely hard to beat!) When a business uses our platform to send a video message to a contact, it can help boost their Sender Score and avoid spam folders.

Do video emails avoid the spam folder?

As a video messaging company, we have to address the elephant in the room: If you add a video link to an email, is it more likely to be flagged as spam?

The short answer is no. A properly formatted email with an embedded video should arrive safely in your contact’s inbox. (If this wasn’t the case, there is no way we’d be able to cultivate a near-perfect Sender Score over the past 20 years!)

In fact, a well-formatted video email should perform better than a plain-text email. Why? Because viewers want to see a video. When they click the thumbnail to watch a video, their engagement goes up, which is good for your overall deliverability health. Studies show that including a video in your email can increase open rates by 19% and click-through rates by 65%.

However, if you include a video as an attachment in your email, you run the risk of being marked as spam. Videos are almost always large attachments, and large files are a red flag to spam filters. That’s why a tool like Covideo is so helpful. Covideo embeds your video as a link and stores it on our servers; it doesn’t eat up any of your storage space and improves your deliverability. If you want to avoid the spam folder, turning a video into a link is the way to go!

Tips for creating emails that avoid spam folders

For the most part, if you create thoughtful emails your audience wants to read, you will have a solid email reputation. There are a few best practices you can follow to improve your deliverability health and better connect with your audience.

1. Don’t purchase email lists

Have you ever been tempted to grow your following by millions with the click of a button? Purchased email lists may seem too good to be true, and in many cases, they are! These lists can be loaded with dead emails or poorly matched contacts that may flag you as spam.

Though it’s much more work, building your own email list from scratch is a safer bet to avoid spam folders. Over time, you’ll cultivate a target audience that appreciates your outreach. Growing your email list organically is a better path to the long-term health of your email reputation.

2. Avoid specific trigger words

Spam filters are savvy at scanning specific words and phrases that may denote an email as spam. There are no magic words to avoid spam folders, but there are some obvious triggers. Phrases that suggest urgency (limited time offer, hurry, last chance), make unrealistic claims (no hidden fees, risk free), or relate to money or special deals (free gift, exclusive deal) can (even accidentally) trigger spam.

There are also some unexpected culprits that may land you in spam, like writing “Dear [first name]” as your salutation. Once again, there is no secret sauce, so try to be authentic and honest to avoid any issues.

3. Don’t include too many images compared to text

Mailchimp reported that the main issue people face with deliverability is creating emails that contain way too many graphics and little text. Spammers caught onto the fact that filters couldn’t read images, and spam filters responded. But now, innocent professionals need to consider their image use, too!

Graphics are important but be sure to balance them with readable text. Use HTML to build out headers and text sections when possible, and do not convert your text blocks to images.

4. Avoid all caps, weird fonts, and other funky formatting

Crazy font combinations and colors, all-caps headlines, and even using multiple exclamation points can signal to filters that a message is potentially spam. To avoid the spam folder, make sure your email is polished, readable, and formatted in a visually pleasing way.

When in doubt, keep it simple!

5. Consider how many emails you’re sending at once

Even if your email itself is free of spam triggers, email providers may scan to see how many emails you’re launching at a time. If your list is too large or irrelevant to your audience, it may have a higher chance of going to spam.

Set up your server so it slowly releases emails or set up a cadence of smaller lists to avoid the spam folder. And never target someone who has opted out!

6. Provide a clear “unsubscribe” link

That brings us to a related point: including an unsubscribe option in your emails isn’t just polite, it’s the law!

If you work with a U.S.-based audience, you’re required to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. This law requires you to offer opt-outs and honor them promptly. No matter how engaging your emails or loyal your audience, you must include this option. Not only will this help you avoid the spam folder, but it could also protect you from fines.

Pro tip: This doesn’t just apply to mass emails! If you email individuals, you still have to give them a chance to opt out.

7. Avoid the spam folder with clean email lists

Some of your recipients will unsubscribe from your content if they are not interested over time. But some of your contacts will simply ignore your emails and let them sit in their inbox—spam or not.

Unfortunately, keeping these contacts around hurts your engagement rate. ISPs will view your emails less favorably, and it will eventually become difficult to avoid the spam folder.

To avoid this pitfall, regularly clean up your email lists by removing unengaged users and bounced emails.

8. Increase your open rates

Email providers like Gmail and Yahoo look at how many emails are opened (and how many are deleted before they’re opened) to decide if an email is spam. This is called “engagement-based spam filtering.”

So, if you send an email to the same address repeatedly without any opens, it’s probably time to say goodbye to that contact. The trick is to keep your audience engaged before they lose interest and entice them to open as many emails as possible.

Some simple steps to boost your open rate include:

• Perfect your subject lines – Avoid spam-triggering words while still creating a sense of urgency and compelling enough content to encourage your reader to learn more.

• Send your messages at the right time – Experiment with the best times to send an email to your audience. This may vary by industry, but data from Brevo found 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays has the highest open rate, with Wednesdays amassing the highest click-through rates.

• Keep your email list fresh – Once again, we want to emphasize the importance of cleaning up your list, managing opt outs, and removing unengaged users when it comes to avoiding the spam folder.

• Add “video” to your subject line – Remember earlier when we said emails with videos have a higher engagement rate? To get to that point, your reader needs to expect video content. Adding the word “video” to your subject line can increase opens 19%!

Avoid the spam folder with engaging video emails

This may seem like a lot to remember, but keep in mind small steps can help you avoid the spam filter and build a loyal following. If you’re creating meaningful content that provides value, you’re likely to land safely in your contacts’ inboxes.

If you want a boost to your email deliverability and engagement, it may be time to consider video emails! With Covideo, you can take advantage of our excellent Sender Score, easy interface for embedding videos, and unlimited video storage to make every email a win.

See how it may work at your business with a 15-minute demo.