Don't Fall Into Spam: Essential Tips for B2B Marketing Emails

How to ensure your marketing emails don’t fall into spam

Noticed a sudden drop in open rates? Don’t panic! Your leads might not have seen your emails because they could have been flagged as spam. Ending up in the spam folder can damage your domain's reputation, erode trust, and reduce conversion rates. Here are effective strategies to help your emails land in the right place— the inbox.

Understanding spam filters

Spam filters are the gatekeepers of the inbox, designed to protect users from unwanted and potentially harmful emails.They assess various factors like sender reputation, email content, subject lines, formatting, and user preferences to determine if an email is legitimate or spam. Understanding how these filters work will help you craft emails that sail smoothly past them.

Building a strong sender reputation

A strong sender reputation is like having a stellar Uber rating; it ensures your emails reach their destination. Your sender reputation is a metric used by email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook to evaluate the trustworthiness of your email domain. It’s determined by various factors, including email engagement rates, spam complaints, and bounce rates.

A high sender reputation means your emails are more likely to land in the inbox rather than the spam folder. Here’s how to build and maintain it:

• Warm up your domain: Start by sending a small number of emails and gradually increase the volume. This helps establish your domain's credibility.
• Maintain a strong sender reputation: Your sender reputation is a score based on the quality of your email campaigns, their frequency, size, and subscriber engagement. Think of it as your personal rating; if you follow best practices, you maintain a high score.

Key factors that can negatively impact your sender reputation include:

• Spam complaints: When recipients mark your email as spam.
• High bounce rates: When emails are sent to invalid addresses or recipients who haven't opted in.
• Spam traps: Addresses set up to catch spammers, which flag your domain if you send emails to them.
• Inconsistent sending patterns: Sudden spikes or drops in your email volume can be a red flag for email providers, suggesting potential spam activity.
• Avoid spam trigger words: Certain words and phrases commonly used in phishing and scam emails can trigger spam filters. Examples include:
  • 100% Free
  • Discount
  • Urgent
  • Free Gift Inside
  • Limited Time
  • Ends Soon
  • % Off

Take a look at my inbox below– notice how these trigger words are marked as spam.

Nothing in life is free, and spam filters know it. Keep your language genuine and avoid these red flags to ensure your emails land in the right inbox.

Crafting effective email content

The content of your emails is crucial for avoiding spam filters and ensuring your messages reach your audience. It's not just about what you say, but how you say it and structure your email.

Following best practices can increase engagement, boost open rates, and improve deliverability. Here are some key strategies:

• Personalize your emails: Use recipients' names and tailor content to their interests. Personalized emails are more likely to be opened and less likely to be marked as spam.
• Create clear and concise subject lines: Avoid all caps, excessive punctuation, and misleading phrases. Make sure your subject lines are relevant and straightforward.
• Provide value: Focus on delivering valuable content, whether it's insights, tips, or useful resources. Your goal is to engage, not just sell.
• Optimize your image-to-text ratio: Spam filters often flag emails with a high image-to-text ratio. Aim for a balance, such as 70% text and 30% images, to ensure better deliverability.
• Check your link quality: The domains you link to can affect your sender reputation. Ensure you link only to reputable sites and avoid using URL shorteners, which can be associated with spam.
• Limit the number of links: Spam filters flag emails with too many links as they often resemble spam. Limit your email to a few essential, relevant links. This reduces the risk of being marked as spam and keeps your email focused and easy to read.

Check out our blog: The power of a persona-driven content strategy in B2B marketing.

Regularly clean your email list

Not only do you need the right content, but you also need to make sure to review and clean your list often to see how things are going.

Over time, subscribers may unsubscribe, ignore emails, or mark them as spam, which harms your sending reputation if you don’t address it (like removing them from your list). A smaller, engaged list is more valuable than a large, inactive one –so be sure your recipients are active.

• Remove inactive subscribers: Eliminate contacts who haven't engaged recently.
• Clean bounced emails: Remove email addresses that consistently bounce.
• Identify and remove spam traps: Regularly update your list to avoid spam traps.
• Use double opt-in: Ensure new subscribers confirm their email addresses.

Don't be discouraged by natural email list turnover; it's normal. Regularly cleaning your list improves delivery rates and reaches engaged recipients.

Technical considerations

Let’s talk about the more technical side of email sending, as these can also impact your email performance. Here are some of the technical aspects of your emails to improve deliverability:

• Authenticate your emails: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols to verify your emails' legitimacy.
• Use a dedicated IP address: This gives you more control over your sender reputation and prevents your emails from being affected by others sharing the same IP.
• Enable double opt-in on your signup forms: This helps ensure that new subscribers are genuinely interested and reduces the risk of spam complaints.
• Leverage email deliverability tools: Use tools designed to improve your email campaigns' performance and reputation. Options like MailerCheck, NeverBounce, and MailTrap offer features such as blocklist monitoring and DMARC compliance.

Legal compliance

Depending on your company, where you’re located, or where your recipients are located, you might need to abide by email marketing laws and regulations. Compliance is of course essential for maintaining trust and avoiding legal issues:

• Adhere to the CAN-SPAM Act: Ensure your emails include a clear unsubscribe option, accurate subject lines, and your business's physical address.
• Comply with GDPR: For EU recipients, obtain explicit consent before sending emails and provide clear information about data usage.

Monitoring and improving email deliverability

In addition to reviewing your email list and other items listed above, you need to monitor your email campaigns in order to improve. That means, you need to take a close look at  your email deliverability metrics so you can identify and address potential issues (or successes). Here are some strategies:

• Track key metrics: Use email deliverability tools like Neverbounce, Unspam, and Sender Score to monitor open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints.
• A/B test your emails: Experiment with different subject lines, email content, and sending times to optimize your campaigns.
• Segment your email list: Send targeted and relevant content to specific segments based on subscriber preferences and behaviors.

Monitoring your email deliverability and spam rates is crucial for accurate outbound metrics. Ensure any outbound tool differentiates real opens from those triggered by spam filters or preview panes. Automated scans can falsely register emails as opened. Don't be misled by inflated numbers; they might not reflect genuine engagement.

Last chance: Don’t let your emails fall into spam

Avoiding spam filters in B2B email marketing requires a combination of best practices, technical considerations, and legal compliance. By building a strong sender reputation, crafting effective email content, and regularly monitoring your email deliverability, you can significantly improve your chances of reaching your audience's inbox.

Need help with your email marketing or need marketing support? Reach out to us!