Inbox Providers like Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com want to reduce the amount of irrelevant, junk and spam email that they process in order to protect their users and reduce their hosting costs. Think of it this way: every message that isn’t marked as Junk, Spam or Trash gets lodged in the Inbox forever. For them, the cost of keeping spam around in the Inbox is staggering considering the millions of Inboxes each of these companies support.
Improved Relevance Means Less Risk
Email is incorrectly seen as a nearly free way to advertise your product or service: simply buy a list and start hammering away until you get new clients. Unfortunately, this method has really low relevance to the recipient. With no context and no connection to your product or service, you are simply part of the ever-increasing deluge of spam they receive. For Inbox Providers, you are indistinguishable from fraud and phishing emails that do not overtly carry malware. In short, your lack of relevant connection to the recipient is a risk and a burden, and a cost!
Google’s Spam Rate
With the introduction of Bulk Sender Requirements, Google (and Yahoo!) have defined new Spam Rate standards for email acceptance alongside the requirement for DMARC compliance. Google has even gone so far as to define a threshold: 0.3%. Anything over this rate and all email from your domain is likely to be blocked. This now provides a definite reason to be more relevant: if more than 1 in 300 of your emails is marked as spam by a recipient, your entire domain could be considered a source of spam.
This may seem draconian, but the benefits to Google are immense: They can decide to refuse acceptance of spam at the gateway level, foregoing all post acceptance processing like DMARC, content analysis, malware screening, etc. They simply refuse to touch it, saving them time and money. For their users, the benefit is also large: tidier inboxes, more relevant mail, less guesswork as to what is potentially good and bad, and less to delete.
How do you maintain a good Spam Rate?
Email list hygiene
If you are buying email lists, stop now. If you bought email lists, throw them away. 3rd Party email lists are poisoning your email spam rates. If a recipient has not interacted with an email or your site in a significant period of time, consider pruning it from your lists.
Configure and abide by the 1-Click Unsubscribe
Unsubscribe links are mandatory in all email communications. With Bulk Sender requirements, Inbox Providers have increased the necessity to manage and monitor email unsubscribes in a way that makes it easier for recipients to say “no” to your emails. 1-Click Unsubscribe enables a recipient to get off your list with zero friction.
Separate your transactional email from your marketing email
Separating the points of origin of your transactional email and marketing email can improve your email acceptance rates. While this may seem counter-intuitive, mixing transactional email with marketing email will only reduce the acceptance of transactional emails. Clear delineation of email types, including using different subdomains means better identification and acceptance of transactional email.
Monitor you Spam Rate
Email delivery requires regular monitoring to ensure that your email campaigns stay below Google and Yahoo! Spam Rate limits. Monitoring on-going email operations and testing email campaigns before you release them can help keep you off their spam lists.
How does MxToolbox help?
MxToolbox Delivery Center provides the email delivery management and monitoring that you need to keep your messages flowing.
- Monitor DMARC compliance rates across all senders
- Closely monitor your Gmail Spam rate
- Check your email for 1-Click Unsubscribe, a requirement of Google and Yahoo! bulk sender rules
- Analyze your campaigns for other potential reasons to miss the inbox with Inbox Placement
- Notify you of issues while they’re occurring to enable quick resolution and damage control