Steps to avoid the Junk Filter
Spam filters are always changing and unfortunately it can sometimes be difficult for marketers to send out legitimate messages to their clients and prospects. We recommend you always send test emails before sending your email blast. If you find your test emails are getting sent to the "junk" folder, follow these steps to try to remedy the issue:
1.Test a text version of your message. This will help you diagnose if the issue is content related or code related. If the text version gets through to your inbox but the multipart version does not, the issue may be with your images or the source code for the HTML. You will want to make sure you are not using external CSS links - all styling should be online (see Can I use CSS in an email or email template? for more information).
2.If you have determined the issue is content, remember that certain words and phrases can be considered spammy, especially those related to money, discounts or free offers. Below are a few links to lists of words and phrases to avoid in your email messages. If you see anything like this in your message, try changing out a few key words (or even omitting them completely, for testing purposes) until you pinpoint the issue. You may also need to strip out content sentence by sentence to find the issue.
- Spam Trigger Words To Avoid (http://www.bloomtools.com/articles/spam-trigger-words-to-avoid.html)
- Microsoft Junk E-Mail Filter Readme (http://www.responsemagic.com/pdf/junk_mail_filters.pdf)
- How Spam Filters Think (http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/how-spam-filters-think/
- Words and Phrases that Trigger Some Spam Filters (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter_phrases.htm)
3.Check your image to text ratio. Too many images (or too large of an image) compared to text in an HTML email can be considered spammy. Adding more text and/or reducing the number and size of images may help. Also, make sure your images include alt tags (for more information, review Get the Most of Your Email Images with Alt Tags).
4.Check your text styling. Using all caps excessively, including too many different font colors (especially red, green or blue), or using larger than ordinary fonts (ordinary is 10-12pt) can be spammy.
Make sure your content does not include styling from Microsoft Word. If you are pasting in content from Word, you will want to use the "Paste from Word" button in the WYSIWYG editor (WYSIWYG Image Here) to avoid having extra styling tags pulled in, which can make the HTML spammy.
5.Have you added SenderID and DomainKeys records to your DNS? These steps will improve deliverability of emails sent through PUBLITRAC. Here are the instructions for generating and adding these TXT entries. You can read more on the benefits of email authentication here.
Use PUBLITRACGold Email Package to preview your message in major email clients and browsers and test your email against major spam filters and junk folders. Please contact support (at) publitrac.com if you'd like to add this package to your account.
If you are sending test emails (with "Proof" in the subject line), try also sending the message to yourself as a prospect (see Sending Test Emails with Yourself as a Prospect). This will also allow you to see variable tag data in the message if applicable.
If you are still unable to get your message through to the inbox after trying the steps above, you can email PUBLITRAC Support and we will review your email to see if we can find anything that should be changed. While we cannot guarantee we will be able to get it past the junk folder, we also have partners that can assist you.
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