Facing serious issues with messages going into spam folder

[connersz]

I am having a massive problem at the moment with my messages going into client spam folders. I have contacted various email providers and my hosting company but have not found a solution.

I take messages through my website via the contact form and I send out replies to them. Pretty simple stuff.

The messages I receive are from potential clients and I am losing a lot of money because they never see my responses and I have no way to contact them. It seems that Hotmail is the worst. I have done some testing and 100% of messages go into spam. There are issues with other providers as well.

This is an example of one of the Hotmail messages that went into spam:

"Hi Laura,


Thanks for getting in touch.


I am fully booked at the moment for the rest of August but I have quite good availability in September. The earliest date I have available is the 13th (PM) and then I also have 19th/20th (AM&PM) available.


Are any of those convenient for you? Would you like me to give you a call to tell you a bit more about the outdoor photoshoot?"

As you can see it is not overly spammy sounding. The advice I have been given is to make it look less like spam. I have been asked by the email providers to ask every recipient to add me to their whitelist which is of course impossible because I am unable to contact them.

Can anyone help with this? I'm losing money from this because I can't get in touch with 50% of my potential clients.

 

[ryedale]

Are you replying to mails directly from the contact email you get from the website

If you extract the person's email from the enquiry and then start a new message to them, do any more get through

It's possible that any html source included in the body of the contact form html email is triggering spam filters.

 

[connersz]

Are you replying to mails directly from the contact email you get from the website

If you extract the person's email from the enquiry and then start a new message to them, do any more get through

It's possible that any html source included in the body of the contact form html email is triggering spam filters.

The message comes through from the website with their (the email address they entered) in the from field, along with the website name which prefixes it.

I usually just hit reply and let and use the email address in the from field.

I do understand what you're saying and I should probably give it a go. It kind of feels like if I am replying to a message that it should have more chance of getting through rather than starting a new message but perhaps not.

The issue is that I'm running out of ways to test this out without creating loads of false email accounts and it's always worrying having to try things with real emails.

 

[ryedale]

I'd try that and give it a go, it's quite possibly the cause

Let us know

 

[connersz]

I'd try that and give it a go, it's quite possibly the cause

Let us know

I've been doing it this way for years though and all of a sudden it just went really strange.

 

[silentjay]

Have you checked to see if your mail server has been blacklisted?

 

[connersz]

Have you checked to see if your mail server has been blacklisted?

Yes I have checked with Hotmail and they can't give me a reason why they're being blocked.

 

[silentjay]

If all your emails to different hotmail address are getting rejected then its fairly safe to say you're on a hotmail blacklist or your email content is triggering the spam filter. Check the bounced email or your server logs for details.

I'd speak to your webhost about helping you sort this out.

All the above is assuming you're not using your personal account i.e. [email protected]

 

[webhostuk]

It can be a case where your server IP is blacklisted , you can even try to check if you have SPF record and reverse DNS set for your server IP to avoid such issues.

 

[fisicx]

Hotmail and others often junk unsolicited emails (which yours are). There is almost nothing you can do about this as the recipient needs to change the security settings on their account.

Make sure you strip all HTML and links and everything else from the email and make sure your hosting has enabled spf on your account.

 

[KM-Tiger]

... It seems that Hotmail is the worst.

AFAIK Hotmail have implemented DMARC, which does give you the opportunity to correctly authenticate your email with DKIM and SPF. That may well make a difference.

DMARC is complex, your hosts should be able to assist.

 

[connersz]

For those of you that have suggested that I am blacklisted, I have already been in touch with Hotmail and as I mentioned previously they could see no reason why it was being blocked. They had received a copy of one of the blocked emails and I also send them the sending server IP address.

I'm aware that there are various things you can join to become whitelisted but they charge quite a lot of their services. I shouldn't really have to go through such great lengths just to reply to peoples emails.

It's not always peoples contact form messages either. It's often the case that mid-conversation my emails will just start going into spam without explanation.

 

[fisicx]

It's not always peoples contact form messages either. It's often the case that mid-conversation my emails will just start going into spam without explanation.

And that's because something in the email triggers the spam filter.

Speak to your host not hotmail. They need to set up DKIM and SPF as suggested.

 

[KM-Tiger]

I shouldn't really have to go through such great lengths just to reply to peoples emails.

In an ideal world no, but real life is take steps or risk your email going to Spam.

The problem is that the SMTP protocol, which is used to transmit email, was designed before the internet existed, when computer networks could trust each other. It is wide open to fraud, abuse and spoofing, and thus Spam filtering is a necessary evil.

Spam filters are not perfect, they are full of ifs, buts, and but ifs, and false positives are par for the course. They work by calculating a score from many different parameters. You can make a permanent difference to that score, and thus lessen the risk of your email going to Spam by taking the steps mentioned.

 

[paulears]

if you let us have your email address we could try sending you emails that don't have your original post copied into it, then you'd know if it was the copy of your mail that triggers the problem? Any use?

 

[Bill1954]

The simple fact is that people are sick of spam emails and set their junk filters accordingly. As has been said strip out any html including logos from your emails and try them again (Set up a temp hotmail account to check whether they are getting through or not)

 

[connersz]

The simple fact is that people are sick of spam emails and set their junk filters accordingly. As has been said strip out any html including logos from your emails and try them again (Set up a temp hotmail account to check whether they are getting through or not)

I don't know many people that set their spam filters. You can add and remove approved senders but that's about it as far as I know, especially for Hotmail.

I have already created temporary accounts to check and can see that the messages don't get through. I have stripped the email contents and ran the online spam checks that all came back with either 100/100 or 10/10.