Most people know the common reasons<\/strong>\u00a0why their emails are likely to wind up in the junk mail folder. Things like:<\/p>\n But those aren\u2019t the only reasons<\/strong>\u00a0why your messages could be missing your recipients\u2019 inboxes.<\/p>\n There are lots of smaller, easier to overlook reasons<\/strong>\u00a0why your emails might be winding up in your recipients\u2019 spam folders.<\/p>\n In this article, I\u2019ll cover eight of those little reasons that answer the question of \u201cWhy did my email go to spam?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n And I\u2019ll also provide solutions<\/strong>\u00a0so you can work around those potential pitfalls and get your messages into the inbox \u2014 where they belong.<\/p>\n There are two types of text links you can put into an email. There\u2019s hyperlinked text<\/strong>, like this:<\/p>\n GMass<\/a><\/p>\n Or there\u2019s a hyperlinked URL<\/strong>, like this:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.gmass.co<\/a><\/p>\n Both of those links go to the same place. But one can potentially trigger spam filters while the other one shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n When you track links in your email, your email service provider automatically replaces your links with tracking links that then redirect to the ultimate destination. That\u2019s how the tracking is done.<\/p>\n So while the GMass link in the email would ultimately go to the GMass website, the link in the email might be something like http:\/\/ec2-18-12-123-224.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com\/x?u=9203asa45-7712316-421316ec-8f1231231236d-1c49e7e7e95e.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s actually safe from a spam perspective. The email clients all \u201cget\u201d that.<\/p>\n But\u2026 they\u2019re not<\/em>\u00a0cool when you show<\/strong>\u00a0your recipients a specific URL and have it link elsewhere. \u00a0They think you might be trying to fool someone into clicking a link they <\/strong>think<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0goes one place but actually goes somewhere else<\/strong>.<\/p>\n So if https:\/\/www.gmass.co\u00a0is actually linked to a tracking domain, that\u2019s a red flag \u2014 because the email client doesn\u2019t know that tracking link ultimately redirects to the stated URL itself.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why using click tracking on URLs is an underrated spam red flag, whereas click tracking on linked text is fine.<\/p>\n At GMass, we make sure this isn\u2019t going to be a problem \u2014 by rule, GMass won\u2019t add click tracking to URL links in your emails<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At other email service providers, your options are less ideal:<\/p>\n Also, when it comes to the links that are click tracked, we strongly, strongly<\/strong>\u00a0recommend you use a custom tracking domain<\/a>. That replaces the shared tracking domain (like that long AWS one I used earlier) with your own, personal tracking domain.<\/p>\n It may very well be <\/strong>the<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0best thing you can do to improve deliverability<\/strong>\u00a0as it makes sure no one else can affect your sending reputation and<\/em>\u00a0makes your tracked links more enticing for recipients to click.<\/p>\n Plus GMass is one of the few email service providers that has secure custom tracking links<\/a><\/strong>, giving them even more of a deliverability boost.<\/p>\n Please do it. (That\u2019s like my personal version of the Nike slogan, just needier.)<\/p>\n The earliest spam filters worked by looking for notorious trigger words in emails (miracle cure, Xanax, luxxxury, and so on).<\/p>\n So spammers quickly got wise to that hurdle and figured out a workaround: Send emails with no words. Instead, they\u2019d just make their emails one large image with the words as part of that image.<\/p>\n The email clients\u2019 rebuttal: Detect the content of the images.<\/p>\n And they\u2019ve found two traits in images that they overwhelmingly associate with spam<\/strong>:<\/p>\n First off, try to avoid images that are packed with text<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In cold emails, that probably<\/em>\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be an issue; I don\u2019t see many cold emails sporting text-heavy images. But in marketing emails, it\u2019s worth keeping in mind.<\/p>\n Second, take advantage of Gmail and GMass to turn a potential deliverability negative into a positive.<\/p>\n There are two ways you can bring images into an email campaign in GMass<\/strong>: Embedding it or externally linking to it on a server<\/a>. (Versus, say, on Mailchimp or any email service provider that works outside of Gmail, where the only option is linking to images on a server.)<\/p>\n When you send regular emails in Gmail, you\u2019re embedding your images. You\u2019ll want to do the same in GMass. That sends a much clearer non-spam signal to Gmail<\/strong>\u00a0and the email clients receiving the message as well \u2014 and keeps third-party image links out of the equation.<\/p>\n You\u2019re doing the right thing, both legally and ethically, and including an unsubscribe link in your emails. Great! But the words you\u2019re using could be sabotaging you.<\/p>\n There are some spam detectors or other filtering apps that search for the word \u201cunsubscribe\u201d \u2014 and use it to flag emails<\/strong>. Even if you don\u2019t wind up officially going to the spam folder, your message may get hit with an automatic label and get thrown into a purgatory folder where it\u2019s unlikely to ever be seen.<\/p>\n There are two potential strategies for this, depending on your balance of ambitiousness and risk.<\/p>\n The riskier, more ambitious strategy is the \u201creply to stop\u201d strategy<\/strong>. Here, you don\u2019t include an unsubscribe link in your emails. Instead, you make the last line of your email something like: \u201cDon\u2019t want to hear from me anymore? Reply to let me know and I won\u2019t write you again.\u201d<\/p>\n With that line, not only do you eliminate the word \u201cunsubscribe\u201d \u2014 you also theoretically improve your deliverability rate by getting coveted replies<\/strong>. (Even though those replies are telling you to, um, please die, a reply is a reply in the eyes of the email clients.)<\/p>\n But\u2026 here\u2019s where the risk comes in. It\u2019s a big ask to have someone reply to unsubscribe, much bigger than getting them to click a link. So the odds increase they won\u2019t reply to unsubscribe \u2014 they\u2019ll click the deadly \u201cmark as spam\u201d button instead<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Are you willing to take that gamble? Do you think you\u2019ll get enough unsubscribe replies to more than make up for the spam reports? There\u2019s no data, unfortunately, on this so you\u2019ll have to go with your gut.<\/p>\n Which brings us to the safer strategy, option two. And that is: Include an unsubscribe link, just don\u2019t use the word unsubscribe<\/strong>. For instance, instead of linking the word Unsubscribe<\/a>, you could write, \u201cClick here<\/a>\u00a0to stop receiving our messages.\u201d<\/p>\n GMass\u2019s unsubscribe link<\/a>\u00a0does not contain the word \u201cunsubscribe\u201d in its URL or query string, so you\u2019re safe there, too.<\/p>\n SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) are security protocols that mail servers use to, in brief, authenticate that you are who you say you are<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If you fail any of those tests, it can affect your deliverability.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re using GMass or Gmail\/Google Workspace, none of these should be a problem. Google handles SPF, DKIM, and DMARC automatically for you<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re not using Gmail, or you want to test to see if you have any problems, you can start off by using GMass\u2019s <\/strong>free Email Analyzer<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0tool<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And here are Google’s instructions<\/strong> to fix problems with SPF<\/a>, DKIM<\/a>, and DMARC<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a misconception that sending 1,000 emails in a day can get you branded as a spammer.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n Sending 1,000 emails a day can<\/em>\u00a0get you branded as a spammer \u2014 if the most emails you\u2019ve ever sent in a day before was, like, eight.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ramped up your account to the point where you\u2019re consistently sending high volumes of email \u2014 and you\u2019re getting good engagement (opens, clicks, replies, low bounces, low spam reports) on those emails \u2014 you\u2019re not sending spam<\/a>. And the email clients know it.<\/p>\n But if your email send volume sees a crazy spike in volume every once in a while, that could cause you deliverability problems<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s harder to ramp up your email send volume in our post-warmup world<\/a>\u00a0than it used to be. However, it is still possible.<\/p>\n And in general, once you\u2019ve started sending out campaigns \u2014 keep sending<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If you have a mailing list, engage them regularly. (It doesn\u2019t have to be daily, but it should be more often than monthly.)<\/p>\n If you\u2019re sending cold email, pick a reasonable sending frequency<\/strong>\u00a0and try to stick with it.<\/p>\n As long as you\u2019re sending emails that provide legitimate value<\/strong>\u00a0to the recipients (not just to you<\/em>), people won\u2019t mind receiving them more often.<\/p>\n There are three major, public domain blacklists<\/a>: SURBL, URIBL, and the Spamhaus DBL.<\/p>\n If the domain from which you\u2019re sending is on those lists, that\u2019s a clear red flag. Less obvious? If you\u2019ve got a link anywhere in your email (the body of your emails or the header) to a domain on one of those blacklists, that can also doom your entire email<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You can check whether your own domain is on any blacklists using the GMass Email Analyzer<\/a>\u00a0tool.<\/p>\n Odds are you aren\u2019t linking to a bunch of high-risk websites in your emails \u2014 at least not intentionally. But you might be doing it unintentionally<\/strong>\u00a0via a shared tracking domain.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why, as I mentioned before, you should absolutely be using a <\/strong>custom tracking domain<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for open and click tracking<\/strong>. When you use a shared tracking domain, you open yourself up to risk.<\/p>\n If some bad actors use a shared tracking domain, there could be a window of time before any email service provider catches them and fixes things where that domain becomes toxic. So if it\u2019s in your emails, it brings down your<\/em>\u00a0reputation.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another stylistic choice that spammers ruined \u2014 but, frankly, which good taste probably precludes anyway.<\/p>\n Lots and lots of large text is another hallmark of spam messages<\/strong>. After all, they know they aren\u2019t writing compelling, targeted copy, so they\u2019ve got to try to catch your eye by writing FREE BITCOIN or YOU\u2019VE BEEN HACKED in as large of a font as possible.<\/p>\n If you employ the same tactics and go \u201call 72-point, all the time,\u201d you\u2019re going to get lumped in with the spammers.<\/p>\n This really shouldn\u2019t be tough\u2026 but keep your font sizes under control<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t mean you should avoid using HTML heading tags<\/strong> in your newsletters or anything like that; just don\u2019t go overboard with giant text and nothing but giant text.<\/p>\n Ultimately, all the reasonable font sizes, untracked URLs, and text-free images in the world aren\u2019t going to save you if Google\u2019s decided you\u2019re a bad seed.<\/p>\n Google won\u2019t tell you if your email address\u2019s domain name has a bad reputation.<\/strong>\u00a0But suddenly, your messages will start going to spam more often. A lot<\/em>\u00a0more often.<\/p>\n It\u2019s tough, but not impossible, to repair your domain\u2019s reputation<\/strong>\u00a0with Google.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll need lots of recipients to start noticing your emails in their spam folders and marking you as \u201cnot spam.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0The more people who do that, and the more people who then engage with your emails once they\u2019re back in the inbox, the more likely you are to work your way back into the inbox.<\/p>\n Again, you won\u2019t know when your domain reputation has been fully repaired \u2014 but you can get an approximation using <\/strong>GMass\u2019s Spam Solver<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Spam Solver is a tool for GMass users that sends a test of a campaign to 20 different real email addresses and gauges how often the message goes to the inbox versus spam.<\/p>\n It also suggests tweaks to improve your inbox number (and then, you can make those tweaks and retest to see if they worked).<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve made every possible change and you\u2019re still going to spam, it\u2019s likely that you\u2019re still in the doghouse. Continue to slowly inch your way back<\/strong> into Google\u2019s good graces.<\/p>\n Or, of course, you could do what the most hardcore cold emailers do: Declare that email address is \u201cburned,\u201d trash the domain, and move on to a new one.<\/p>\n There are lots of common and widely-known reasons why emails go to spam<\/strong>: Sending from a new address or domain, using an unmaintained list with lots of bounces, including lots of spam trigger words, or getting lots of spam reports.<\/p>\n But there are also plenty of smaller, less discussed reasons<\/strong>\u00a0why your campaigns may be going to spam.<\/p>\n At GMass, we\u2019re eternally working to help you avoid the traps listed above \u2014 and to make sure you have the best possible deliverability<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We offer things like:<\/p>\n Which is why 99% of GMass users report the <\/strong>best deliverability<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0they\u2019ve ever had<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Ready to give GMass a try? You can get started in literal minutes<\/strong>\u00a0by downloading the Chrome extension<\/a>\u00a0and signing in with your Gmail or Google Workspace account (no credit card required<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n
Why Did My Email Go To Spam? Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
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1. You had click tracking on URL links<\/h2>\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
![\"Track](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/whydidmy-savevsunsafe-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n
2. You use text-heavy, linked images<\/h2>\n
![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/whydidmy-spamimage-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
3. You include the word \u201cunsubscribe\u201d<\/h2>\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
![\"Using](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/whydidmy-unsub-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n4. You have DKIM, SPF, and\/or DMARC issues<\/h2>\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
![\"GMass's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/whydidmy-emailanalyzer-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n5. You send an inconsistent email volume<\/h2>\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
6. Your emails include a domain that\u2019s listed on SURBL, URIBL, or the Spamhaus DBL<\/h2>\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
![\"Checking](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/whydidmy-blacklist-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n7. You\u2019re using too large of a font<\/h2>\n
![\"Using](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/whydidmy-bigfont-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nThe solution<\/h3>\n
8. Google has deemed the domain in your \u201cfrom\u201d address to be low reputation<\/h2>\n
The solution<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gif_-Spam-Solver_final_GIF_v05.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhy Did My Email Go to Spam? Takeaways and Next Steps<\/h2>\n
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