How to keep your email going into the inbox
The 10 Most Common Reasons Why Emails Go to Spam
1. You Weren’t Given Permission
2. The Sender's Information is Inaccurate
3. There’s No Physical Address
4. You’re Using Spam Trigger Words
5. Your Headline Is Weak
6. You’ve Included Attachments
7. There’s a Large Image with Minimal Text
8. There’s No Opt-Out Link
9. You’re Sending Emails to Inactive Addresses
10. You Have Incorrect Spelling and Grammar
1. You Weren’t Given Permission
The first rule of email marketing is to always have permission before sending an email.
It should go without saying, but you should never buy a list of emails or obtain them through any other unscrupulous means. Not only is it unethical, but it’s also ineffective and can potentially land you in some hot legal water.
So email addresses should only be added when someone willingly opts in. It’s really that simple. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that it will end up as spam. Or in a worst-case scenario, you could be subject to a fine.
2. The Sender's Information is Inaccurate
Here’s what the Federal Trade Commission has to say about the sender's information.
“Your ‘From,’ ‘To,’ ‘Reply-To,’ and routing information—including the originating domain name and email address—must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.”
In other words, you must clearly state who you are (or who your company is) and not include any inaccurate information that could mislead someone.
For example, the sender information on my email might say, “Email from Brokerkit.”
3. There’s No Physical Address
This may be surprising to some email marketers.
But the FTC also states, “Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.”
Otherwise, you’re not following their requirements and your email could be marked as spam. It’s all about having some degree of traceability. So you’ll notice that nearly all legit businesses include their physical address toward the bottom of each email. It doesn’t have to be conspicuous. It just has to be there.
The ones who most commonly make this mistake are the small business owners who work out of their homes simply because they don’t want to have their home address advertised to the masses.
And that’s understandable.
In this case, your best bet is to get a P.O. box that you can use in lieu of your home address.
4. You’re Using Spam Trigger Words
Email spam filters still look at the content within your email to decide whether it goes into the spam folder of your customer’s inbox. Saying things like “Double your income!” or “You’re a Winner!” is a surefire way to gain unwanted attention from those filters.
If they notice questionable “trigger words,” it’s a red flag, and your email will likely be sent to spam even if you have the best intentions. So it’s important to know which specific words to avoid like these 438 email spam trigger words.
This brings us to the next key point...
5. Your Headline Is Weak
An email’s headline is everything. Besides the name of the sender, it’s the only thing a recipient has to go on when deciding whether it’s legit or not and whether they should open it. Data shows that 69% of email recipients report email as spam based solely on the subject line.
So you need to nail it.
Besides steering clear of trigger words, there are some other subject line best practices you’ll want to follow to keep your emails out of the spam abyss.
These include:
- Not using excessive capital letters, which indicates that you’re shouting at recipients
- Not going overboard with exclamation points
- Not making false promises
- Not sounding overly pushy or "salesy"
When coming up with a headline, I recommend putting yourself in your subscribers’ shoes. Is there any way that someone might think that your email is spam based on the headline? If so, tweak it until it’s presentable.
6. You’ve Included Attachments
Attachments should be avoided like the plague for two reasons:
- First, they alert spam filters and reduce the chances of your email making it to the recipient’s inbox. For all they know, an attachment could be carrying some hardcore virus that’s just waiting to overtake an unsuspecting victim’s device.
- Second, they can slow down the load time of the email, especially if they’re big and bulky. Generally speaking, there’s no need to send a commercial email with an attachment.
All of the information, offers, and CTA should be included right in the body of the email.
7. There’s a Large Image with Minimal Text
Incorporating visuals into marketing campaigns has never been more popular. In fact, creating visual content is a top priority for 55% of B2C content creators. So it’s easy to see why many marketers would want their emails to be image-heavy. It’s simply a matter of aesthetics.
And some of the best, most professional-looking emails I see contain images.
But Email on Acid explains that using a large image with minimal text can sometimes get you into trouble.
Here’s what they have to say on the matter:
The idea is that image heavy emails without much text can raise a red flag for spam filters. This theory was formulated because spammers sometimes display information in large images instead of text so that the filter programs cannot ‘read’ the content.
And this makes sense, and I can see why they would be wary of image-centric emails. But at the end of the day, spam filters could easily misconstrue this type of email and think you’re a scammer when, in reality, you’re simply trying to give subscribers some eye candy.
So you need to be aware of this fact.
Now, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use images. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But you should be aware of your text to image ratio and strive for 60/40, meaning that your email should be roughly 60% text and 40% image. Stick with this formula and you should be in good shape. 
8. There’s No Opt-Out Link
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you absolutely didn’t want to receive any more emails from a particular company, but there was no way to unsubscribe? Best-case scenario, you annoy subscribers or wind up in the spam folder. Worst-case scenario, you actually get fined by the FTC. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation.
So it’s vital (not to mention legally required) to have an opt-out link like this one on a LinkedIn email. 
9. You’re Sending Emails to Inactive Addresses
I think we’ve all seen a message that looks like this at some point.
This means that the email was sent to an inactive address and, therefore, was not delivered.
Spam filters will often penalize your domain or ISP if you do this on a large scale and consistently send emails to inactive email addresses. In turn, this greatly increases the odds of your emails going to spam.
The solution?
Make sure that you’re continually “cleaning” your email list and deleting inactive addresses.
10. You Have Incorrect Spelling and Grammar
Due to the surprising frequency of spelling and grammatical errors that occur in phishing emails. This is often the result of non-native English-speaking hackers using translating tools to convert their text into English. And they come out sounding strange, to say the least.
So spam filters are on high alert, and spelling and grammatical errors could land your email in the spam folder. Not to mention, you’re going to look unprofessional in the eyes of your audience.
So you need to be extra diligent about double and even triple-checking each email before sending it out. Although email spellchecks are good for catching most things, they certainly won’t catch everything.
Sometimes good old-fashioned proofreading by a human is your best bet for catching issues. Also, I recommend Grammarly. It’s a Chrome extension that ensures your writing is readable, and I find it highly effective at catching even the most subtle errors.
Although there are premium paid versions, you can use the basic version completely for free, which should be sufficient for most email marketers’ needs.
How to Test for Spamminess
At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what not to do. But there’s one tool that I want to point out, and it’s called Mail Tester. Mail Tester will allow you to take an email that you plan on sending to your prospects and send it to Mail Tester first.
From there, Mail Tester will give your email a score based on its “spamminess", provide details on what’s good and what could use some improvement, and quickly identify any mistakes you’re making so that you can promptly fix them.
Conclusion
So you’re not a Nigerian prince looking to share a portion of your inheritance with someone in exchange for a nominal fee. You’re simply a conscientious email marketer looking to connect with leads and nurture them until they ultimately make a purchase.
But spam filters don’t necessarily know that.
And most people have very little patience dealing with any email that comes across as being the least bit spammy. In order to get your emails read, you must first get them opened.
To do that, it’s essential that your emails aren’t sent to spam. While there are a plethora of reasons why this happens, the issues outlined here tend to be some of the most common.
Fortunately, they’re preventable!
By understanding the logic behind spam filters as well as the thought process of actual human readers, you should be able to eliminate any spamminess.
As a result, more of your emails will end up where they’re supposed to—in lead inboxes.