11 Tips to Avoid Promotions/Spam Folders

Getting your emails inboxing and dodging spam and promotions folders are key parts of maximizing their ROI. But this can be tricky. Inboxes are smart and if you are going to outwit them, you need to adapt a handful of tactics. 

• Reduce your use of images. Although postmasters and deliverability experts argue about specifics, in general, images should be leveraged in no greater than a 30:70 ratio of images:text. Plain text emails are great but not required. 
• Avoid open link URLs: If you are going to use links, make sure they are hyperlinked behind the specific relevant text, open URLs will fast-track you to promotions or spam. 
• Ask them to put you back in Primary: Encourage anyone who receives a message from you that lands in promotions or spam to drag that email into their primary folder and then when the prompt says “Always allow emails from this address in primary”, hit yes!
• Ask for replies: A huge factor behind if you inbox is the ratio of your sends to opens and clicks. If you ask a question in your email or on the opt-in form let people know you will be emailing them a question to get started, that will help. Also, tell them to check their promotions folder (or spam folder) if they don’t see it within a few minutes. 
• Don’t send from the standard generic catch-all addresses: Avoid sending emails from info@, marketing@, sales@ etc. Instead, use either a named address [email protected] or something like [email protected] or [email protected].
• Segment and personalize: Don’t send the same generic email blast to everyone. The more you segment and send specific users the most relevant content, the more engagement you will get and your reputation will go up. We use ActiveCampaign and they work great. 
• Avoid excessive linking: If you want to be treated like a personal email, you need to write like a personal email, which means not having tons of images or tons of links. The good news is, emails with focused CTAs (Calls-to-Action) do far better than those with 8 different things a customer can do anyway. So include a link or two and never more. 
• Avoid promotional words and language: Avoid words like “free”, “giveaway” or “offer” in your subject lines and body text. These greatly increase your chances of hitting promotions or spam. Here is a great list compiled by Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30684/the-ultimate-list-of-email-spam-trigger-words.aspx
• Seed test your emails: There are a handful of platforms on the market, from 250ok, to glockapps, to Return Path that will essentially test how your emails perform across different ISPs (inbox service providers). This will allow you to catch if you are say blocked on hotmail. This is a good idea for higher volume senders or people struggling with deliverability.
• Test on mobile: Because so much content is consumed on mobile nowadays it is absolutely vital that you preview how your content looks on mobile. Many of the major ESPs help with this, but it’s always worth testing. 
• Don’t have a pitchy subject line: If you want to boost your reputation and dodge promotions more often you have to lose email headlines that are salesy. The obvious is headlines like “Special offer on x gift” but this also means headlines like “5 ways to beat the summer heat” because nobody emails their friends that. Put yourself in the mindset of what subject line would I use to talk with a friend.