Check to See if You're Using Any of These Spam Triggers

In The World Of Cold Email, Not Getting Flagged As Spam Is One Of The Biggest Challenges

You’ve crafted the perfect cold email, but what good is it if it never reaches your recipient’s inbox? One of the biggest challenges in cold email outreach is ensuring that your email doesn’t get flagged as spam. Email providers, like Gmail and Outlook, have strict spam filters, and crossing the line—even unintentionally—can result in your emails being diverted to the spam folder 🥶

In this newsletter, we’ll walk you through how to avoid spam triggers in your cold emails so you can boost your deliverability, increase your open rates, and achieve better outreach results.

What Are Spam Triggers?

Spam filters analyze every email sent, scanning for red flags that indicate an email might be unsolicited or harmful. These filters look at various factors, including your email's content, sender reputation, formatting, and even the behavior of your previous campaigns. Triggering these filters can severely harm your sender reputation and send your emails straight to the spam folder.

Here’s a breakdown of common spam triggers and how to avoid them.

Content-Based Triggers

Spam filters pay close attention to the content of your email. Here’s what to watch out for:

1. Spammy Language

Words like “free,” “urgent,” “guaranteed,” and “limited time offer” are often associated with spam. Overuse of exclamation marks, all caps, and over-the-top sales jargon can also flag your email as suspicious.

💡 Tip: Use natural, conversational language in your emails. Instead of sounding overly promotional, focus on offering value and solving a pain point for your recipient. Personalization is key!

2. Too Many Links

Including multiple links or using URL shorteners can appear suspicious to spam filters. Emails with excessive links are often associated with phishing attempts.

💡 Tip: Stick to one or two relevant links, and avoid URL shorteners. Always make sure your links lead to legitimate, secure websites.

3. Image-to-Text Ratio

Emails that contain too many images and not enough text are often flagged as spam. Spam filters prefer a healthy balance between the two.

💡 Tip: Maintain a good text-to-image ratio by focusing on delivering your message with words. If you use images, make sure they are optimized for email.

Sender Reputation Triggers

Your email domain’s reputation plays a crucial role in determining whether your email lands in the primary inbox or the spam folder.

1. Lack of Authentication

Not using proper email authentication like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can raise red flags. These protocols help email providers verify that your email is legitimate and not sent by a spammer.

🎯 Tip: Make sure your email infrastructure is set up correctly with authentication protocols in place. This will significantly improve your sender reputation.

2. Low Engagement Rates

If your previous cold email campaigns have resulted in low engagement—such as poor open or reply rates, or high bounce rates—spam filters may penalize your future campaigns.

🎯 Tip: Clean your email lists regularly to ensure you’re only contacting people who are likely to engage. Segment your lists for better targeting, and use tools to monitor your sender reputation.

Format and Design Triggers

The design and structure of your email can also raise suspicion with spam filters.

1. Poor HTML Coding

If you’re using HTML in your emails, poorly coded or bloated HTML can trigger spam filters.

🎨 Tip: Ensure that your emails are coded cleanly and use a reputable email service provider (ESP) to avoid issues. Consider using plain text for a more personalized and less promotional feel.

2. Overuse of Caps and Special Characters

Excessive use of capital letters, emojis, or special characters (e.g., “$$$”) can cause filters to flag your email.

🎨 Tip: Avoid writing in all caps and using unnecessary special characters. Keep your design simple and professional.

Frequency and Volume Triggers

How often you send emails and to how many recipients also matters. Sending too many emails too quickly can raise a red flag.

1. Sudden Spike in Email Volume

If you go from sending 50 emails a day to 500 overnight, this sudden increase can alarm spam filters.

📨 Tip: Gradually ramp up your sending volume to build trust with email providers. Consider using email warming tools to maintain a good sender reputation as you scale.

2. Mass Email Blasts

Sending mass emails without proper targeting or segmentation can result in high unsubscribe or spam complaints, which damages your reputation.

📨 Tip: Segment your list and personalize your outreach to make your emails more relevant to each recipient. Sending smaller, targeted batches helps improve engagement.

And Lastly… Email List Hygiene

Using unverified or outdated email lists can lead to bounces and spam complaints, which hurts deliverability.

1. Sending to Unverified Emails

Email addresses that are no longer active or never existed (typos) will bounce back and harm your sender reputation.

✏️ Tip: Always verify your email lists using an email verification tool before sending a campaign. Remove invalid, inactive, or risky addresses to ensure a clean list.

Avoiding spam triggers requires careful planning and ongoing monitoring of your email campaigns. By focusing on clean, value-driven content, using proper email authentication, and regularly cleaning your email list, you can drastically improve your chances of landing in the primary inbox. Take the time to implement these strategies, and watch your cold email campaigns become more effective 🚀