How to stop your email newsletters going to junk
If you’re sending regular email newsletters, but they see to always land in junk here are my top tips to get your emails to land in the inbox, where they belong.
Authentication
If your email domain isn’t synced up to your website domain, spam filters can flag your emails as suspicious and send it straight to the junk pile. If you’ve recently set up your account your ESP may not allow you to send emails/ build landing pages until this is done.
The Authentication process differs slightly depending on your ESP and your website set up. The jist is that you need to put a couple of pieces of code (SPF, DKIM and DMARC records) into the back end of your website. These pieces of code authorise your ESP to use the domain you own.
Most email platforms have excellent how-to’s that you can follow and the best news is, once you’ve done this, you don’t need to do it again.
If you’re using Mailchimp the Authentication process for each website is listed here: Set Up Email Domain Authentication | Mailchimp
If you’re using Mailerlite the Authentication process is outlined here: Domain authentication - MailerLite
If you’re set up with Flodesk, the guide is here: How to verify your custom domain manually | Flodesk Help Center
If you have a website company on board, absolutly speak to them as its a five minute job.
Subject Lines
Certain words or phrases, like FREE, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’RE A WINNER, the use of capital letters, over punctuation, use of exclamation points and emojis in your subject lines can trigger the spam guardian. Use relevant, clear subject lines to avoid being caught in the spam trap. Subject lines are a whole topic themselves (I’ll write a blog about them soon), but in the meantime, while you are getting used to subject lines, check out this handy tool: Free Email Subject Line Tester | Boost Open Rates | Omnisend
Are you sending too many or repetitive emails?
You want to send emails that are relevant to your audience. If subscribers regularly mark your email as spam, this will have an affect on your sender reputation. Ensure you send newsletters that are interesting to your audience and don’t ‘resend to all’ if an email you see as important hasnt hit as well as you’d like. Try a resend to non-openers, do an A-B test on your subject lines to see what works best and rejig the content.
Check the size of your attachments
Using images is a brilliant way to bring interest and personality into your emails. But beware of using large, complex files. As part of my email set up I always optimise my client image bank, so that all graphics are perfectly sized and the correct format. Sending emails that are too large is a sure fire route to junk-town. Resize your images before adding them to your ESP bank. If you have just a couple of images to resize, you can use the free version of this handy tool: TinyJPG – Compress WebP, PNG and JPEG images intelligently
Rubbish formatting
Using a consistent brand asethetic in your emails is not only important for your company presence, using random, mismatched fonts can set off the spam trip wire. Set up your brand kit within your ESP, create a standard template that sits beautifully within your other branded assets and make it really easy to send beautifully uniform newsletters that hit the inbox. Alternatively, have me do it for you.
Are your subscribers uninterested in your newsletters?
Having a large list is not always a good thing. If your emails aren’t being opened or interacted with, your newsletter will be bumped down the list. It may feel bonkers, but its a great idea to regularly clean your list and remove any inactive subscribers. This can acutally have a really positive effect on your sender reputation. You can also segment your list, perhaps create a VIP list of people who regularly open, read, reply and link click, and share more content with only them.
If you’d like to download a free checklist, click on the link below.
Making a few simple tweaks to your email set up and your email content can make a world of a difference, and make sure that the valuable content your sharing with your audience actiually reaches them.
If you’d like support with your email set up, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email barbara@barbaragillmarketing.com.
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