Melon Corporate Blog
Spam ACT and you - 5 things to increase your deliverability
The best way to check if your message is going to be caught by a junk mail filter is to test, test, test.
There are many different types of email browsers and ISP settings behind them. If you have access to an email browser checker like litmus then use that, otherwise set up a ‘test database’ of email addresses going to Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook and Thunderbird.
Both Hotmail and Gmail have very good spam checkers and a problem with either of these should indicate a problem across the board with your message.
If the email gets caught by your ISP there are a few things you can try…
The first is to try sending the message as a plain text version only. This will alert you to something in the HTML if it doesn’t get caught.
The second is to ensure that you have all necessary CAN SPAM elements within your email (view online, unsubscribe, sender details, etc).
The third is to make sure there are no honey-pot addresses in your list. These are addresses intentionally set up to catch spammers. If your email lands in one - it affects your deliverability. Basically give your list a once over and remove any suspect addresses.
Fourthly make sure that your sender details are appropriate - that your email and subject will be what people are expecting.
Finally it is a good idea to always over-communicate that you will be emailing your clients. Put it on the website, let them know what address it will be coming from and ask that they white-list it. Suggest users to check their junk folder - if you have indicated you will email them and it doesn’t arrive then you want to have a prompt there to ensure it doesn’t get lost. You want your clients to become familiar with your email.
Unfortunately there is no cure-all for ensuring deliverability (otherwise we would be flooded with emails for cheap medications) but these steps will all help towards building your open rate.
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And don’t forget about the Pam Anderson coming to Australia Press Release disaster.
The agent for her sent out a huge amount of emails telling everyone she was coming, and due to the filters everyone had, it was hardly seen by anyone.
This has happened with emails containing Paris Hilton as well, so you have to be careful about the commonly used words by the spammers as well.
By Nick - Graphic Designer on 15 07 2009
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