How to avoid your email being flagged as spam
The truth is, anyone's email can be flagged as spam. The best play here is defense. Let's take a look at some common reasons why emails get flagged as spam, and what Levitate can do to help you avoid these situations:
- You can be flagged as spam by sending emails to people who don't know you and never wanted to receive your email in the first place. Here at Levitate, we have always believed in quality over quantity. We do not recommend sending to purchased lists, nor do we recommend sending an email to thousands of prospects with whom you have no relationship. As part of the CAN-SPAM Act, you are required to give recipients a way to unsubscribe. Levitate will automatically add a line below your email signature to let the recipient opt-out of receiving emails from you. Please go to Settings to see the message we have set for you, and how the feature works (it's more authentic than the old "Unsubscribe" link that you are used to with other email marketing platforms).
- You can get flagged by sending to invalid email addresses over and over again. The first time you do a Group Email with Levitate, we will automatically validate email addresses for you, tag contacts with undeliverable emails with the "Email Bounced" tag so you can find them, and automatically remove those email addresses for you in Levitate.
- For some email providers, sending a high volume of emails in short amount of time can get you flagged as well. Levitate by default will provide certain safeguards for older email providers such as Exchange and IMAP. We operate within your daily send limits, we add a 30-second buffer between each email send, and we can make sure you are only sending during business hours instead of in the middle of the night. Please note that we do not recommend sending large group emails with consumer ISPs, such as bellsouth.net and sbcglobal.net.
- Bad email content can get you flagged as spam. There are keywords to avoid here like "FREE" or "MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE". Typing in all caps certainly won't help either. Luckily Levitate has a content library that is pre-written for your industry, so we can just be your marketing team without you having to worry about it.
- Don't sound like a marketing ad. This goes with #4. Nowadays 80% of traditional email marketing content ends up in spam. The quickest way to make sure your email never gets read (or worse, being marked as spam) is by adding a ton of branding, marketing images, and content into an email. Talk to your Success Manager and Marketing Coach at Levitate about how to make sure your email is delivered to the right person and READ by the right person. Personalization and authenticity is our goal.
Furthermore, properly setting up SPF and DMARC records would ensure the health of your email server. You can always check if you are on any blacklist, or whether your email server is configured correctly by going to MX Tool Box.
We have guardrails in place, like daily and hourly send limits, that keep your emails from being flagged as spam! Keep up with your email health, your sending habits, and your email content to avoid being flagged and to make your emails look and feel genuine.