How do I stop my emails being treated as spam?
Being blocked by spam filters is a combination of many factors - and works on a score basis. To make it even more complex, different email providers use different criteria to create the score.
10 tips on reducing your spam score
However, there are various steps you can take to minimise the chances by keeping your score low:
- Make sure your email sending server is not blacklisted - mxtoolbox.com is a good place to start. If you are, you can ask to be removed. It's best to send from an address associated with your sending source and add an SPF identification for your domain.
- Avoid URLs in the email unless absolutely necessary, and any links should be "natural" links
- Add an unsubscribe link and never send to those who have chosen to opt-out!
- Create a text version. The email message should have a text version. The textual content of it should not completely differ from the HTML message.
- Avoid numbers in your 'from' address - e.g. or
- Do not capitalize your from address or subject line. Avoid using capitalization in your message body.
- Avoid spammy words in subject and message - e.g. $ or £ signs, Rolex watches, sexually oriented activities or drugs, or debt treatment and definitely no attempts to disguise these! Use normal conversational language, be sure not to use excessive spacing and or capitalization on your subject.
- In HTML emails, make sure all coding is compliant and error-free
- Keep images of reasonable size and a good text-to-image ratio - about 60:40 - in other words two-thirds area of text. However, we also recommend text of 500 characters or more for best results.
- If possible, include the recipient's name in the body, e.g Dear John,... This helps to let filters know that you "know" the recipient.