E-mail going to spam

[Mattonella Tile Studio]

Is there anything I can do to stop our company e-mails outwards going to spam?

It's not all of them, but I've had too many people complaining I haven't responded, when in actual fact I have, it's just gone into their junk/spam folder.

These are mainly emails that are replys to enquiries, so not unsolicited. I also know that they are leaving here ok as I very often bcc a copy to my gmail account.

Any help appreciated as I'm now wondering how many sales I'm missing out on. Feel free to ask any relevant questions but I'm non too technical with the 'puter so may give a nonsense reply :redface:

 

[KM-Tiger]

The decision to classify your email as Spam is taken by the recipient - or their software. So there is no single action on your part that can change that. But there are some steps to take that will reduce the risk of it happening:

Ensure that your sending email server - probably your ISP, maybe your hosting company - is not on any blacklists.

If you are using your domain email address, make sure SPF records are set up correctly.

Send email in plain text only, no HTML.

Consider Subject and content carefully, so your email doesn't look 'spammy'.

That said, both AOL and Hotmail have a history of problems with legitimate mail disappearing into Spam blackholes.

 

[Mattonella Tile Studio]

Thanks Tiger

What are SPF records?

The subject line usually has [enquires] xyz, as it is taken from the contact form on the website. Could that cause problems?

 

[computer storm]

It stands for sender policy framework, you can read more on it here = http://www.openspf.org/

 

[KM-Tiger]

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. Your domain doesn't have an SPF record.

It's part of the DNS records for your domain, and tells mailservers receiving email from you whether the sending server is a legitimate one for your domain.

It hasn't been very widely adopted, but has been found to make a difference, in some cases. Presuming your hosts look after DNS, they should be able to do that for you.

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

- SPF as the others have said
- DomainKey's
- Verify hosts RDNS is setup correctly
- Check hosts mail servers aren't in any blacklists

If you drop me an email and let me know via pm when you have I will do a couple of checks for you.

 

[JElder]

And avoid certain things in your emails:

• Words commonly seen in spam emails, such as sales, special, offer, bonus, watches, viagra, free, adult, sex, xxx, opt out, opt in, etc, etc, etc The words change as spam emails change to try to get past spam filters!
• HTML emails are not too bad, as so many people use them now spam filters are more lenient. However, avoid ones with too many images - I try to have one header, one background and one footer. If you do use images, linking rather than embedding makes the emails faster
• Do not use all CAPITALS anywhere - annoying, and looks like spam
• Use a valid address from the from and reply-to
• Emails tat are very short. Add a standard disclaimer or signature with some company information (you are supposed to at least give company name, registered address, registration number, etc. This will make your email longer and (as long as you avoid 'bad' words) less like spam
• Avoid using fonts with colours similar to the background
• Take out special punctuation (such as the []) ad try to use regular alphabet only is possible

As has been said - the spam filter is controlled by the recipient, but you can hopefully do as much as possible to get past it. Most spam filters have an ability to white-list senders, so ask them to do that.