No one wants SPAM in your inbox, but to an email marketer a SPAM label has other consequences. All commercial electronic mail communications have been under regulation by the Federal Trade Commission for years. Internet Service Providers (Verizon, Comcast, BrightHouse) and Email Service Providers (MailChimp, Constant Contact, Bronto) watch accounts closely. Knowing these industry best practices are vital and will help prevent your account from being flagged and suspended for SPAM violations:
List Collection
Every email address is valuable, but even more valuable is the way that you get them! Buying lists or adding addresses of people that haven't opted-in to receiving your emails will throw up red flags on your account from:
- High Hard Bounce Rates - Invalid email addresses
- Abuse Complaints - Direct Complaints to ISP/ESP
- High Unsubscribe Rates - Includes unsubscribes and abuse complaints
Take inventory of all the ways that your business interacts with your audience for opportunities such as whitepaper and resource downloads, event registrations, special promotions, and communications. The choices are endless, just make sure that they want to be on your list!
Design & Creation
Hard bounce rates mentioned above are only half the story. Soft bounce rates are caused when an email cannot be delivered to a valid email and can also affect your marketing campaigns. This can come from factors outside of your control such as a server being down, but there are far more factors that are within your control.
- Message Size: If image sizes or files are too large for the recipients inbox they will bounce.
- White Space: This is desirable in design, but too much could be flagged by SPAM filters.
- Text: Using overly large fonts or images with no text is impersonal and should be avoided.
- Hyperlinks: Invalid or redirected hyperlinks are a red flag for both providers and customers.
Message Crafting
One of the biggest email mistakes comes before anyone even sees the content: The Subject Line!
Subject lines should never be misleading or vague. It could get your email flagged as SPAM, but it is also just good practice to have in general. Your customers don't want to waste their time opening an email if they don't know from the subject line what it is about and they are more likely to unsubscribe if the subject line doesn't relate to the content of the email.
Using industry best practices will avoid issues with SPAM violations, but it will also produce better marketing results. Rely on the experts, and contact Informatics today for more information on our email marketing services.
