Email marketing is an important  part of your overall digital marketing success. However, “How to avoid spam filters” is a question that can often thwart your efforts. The fact is, over 20 percent of email marketing messages never make it to their destination (a recipient’s inbox). The major reason for this is spam filters, which score emails and reject ones with too high a risk score.

The score is based on a variety of factors, and knowledge is power. So here a few tips on how you can increase your emails’ chances of making it to the inbox – avoiding the pesky barrier of spam filters.

1. Design Inbox-Friendly Emails

There are plenty of things that will trigger a spam filter and prevent an email from reaching its destination. Some best practices include avoiding JavaScript, Flash, and videos. Similarly, keep images to a minimum, and make sure they’re small. Finally, it’s best not to include forms or attachments.

Learn more about Creating Cold Emails.

2. Make Sure You Have Permission

If you send  commercial messages to people who don’t want to receive them, there is a good chance that your emails will be deleted or reported. Especially in countries where strict anti-spam laws apply , such as  CASL. However, if  you obtain permission, you can avoid this and ensure that the people who want to receive messages do . To comply  with the latest laws, you should always include an unsubscribe option.

Learn more about Non Permission Based Email Marketing.

3. Avoid the Bad Words

Certain words epitomize the sleazy snake oil salesman sales pitch and automatically trigger spam filters, including:

• Free
• Promo
• Buy
• Prize
• Bonus
• Guarantee

It’s also wise to avoid using all CAPS, and don’t overuse exclamation points. Considering that nearly 70 percent of people report emails based on the subject alone, it’s especially important to avoid overusing exclamation points in a subject line.

 Learn more about Content Marketing.

4. Be Up Front

In the past, many dirty tricks were used to get recipients to open emails, but this is not longer possible . These include  deceptive subject lines and misleading claims (e.g. claimimg to have  won a prize when this isn’t the case).

5. Remove Hard Bouncers

When you want to know how to avoid spam filters, you must consider your sender’s reputation. This is basically a rating that determines the deliverability of your emails. The higher your reputation, the better the chances that emails will get through.

One major factor that can affect your reputation is a hard bounce, which happens when you send an email to a defunct or non-existent address. Therefore, to keep up your reputation, remove addresses from your list if sent emails have bounced in the past.

Learn more about Sender Reputation.

6. Build a Relationship With Recipients

This is probably one of the best tips we can give you for avoiding spam filters, because it covers so many different aspects, including:

• Use a familiar name in the sender field.
• Personalize the “To”field with the each recipient’s name.
• Ask subscribers to add you to their address books.
• Use a reputable email marketing service that has whitelisted your domain or address.
• Send regular emails  so subscribers remember you and don’t automatically delete or report your emails.

Learn more about Personalized Emails.

7. Keep It Professional

There are many reasons to spell check your emails before sending. On top of avoiding embarrassing auto-correct mistakes like writing incontinent when you mean incompetent, you’ll also increase the chances that your emails will be delivered and not flagged.

Testing your emails before sending them will help to ensure that your important marketing messages are getting through properly. When you use Clickback’s email lead generation software, you can easily design professional emails that get through and get attention.

Just as importantly, you can also send emails to clean purchased contact lists through Clickback without fear that emails won’t get through. Thanks to the software that ensures all the names on your list are legitimate, you can keep your reputation high and get access to a brand-new network of people.

Ultimately spam filters exist to save consumers from endless streams of unwanted, fake mail. As marketers, we often have a love-hate relationship with the parameters but learning how to avoid spam filters will help us get our message to the right people.