en:email_is_marked_as_spam

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Why is my e-mail classified as spam?

One or more of the following factors could be increasing the e-mail’s spam score and causing it to be filtered

into the spam folder:

  • Suspicious content. Avoid spam-typical words like Rolex, Viagra and casino in both the subject line and the e-mail’s content. Even words that don’t seem immediately suspicious - such as “free” - may be marked as suspicious if they appear multiple times. An “unfortunate” combination of words may also be mistakenly marked as suspicious by a spam filter, leading to an increased spam score. Most often, only a thorough test by process of elimination can identify the part of the e-mail that led to its classification as spam.
  • Suspicious subject. Avoid e.g. question- and exclamation marks, especially in combination with CAPITAL LETTERS, €-icon, $-icon
  • Phishing Links. Avoid spelling out URLs as plain text in html e-mails and linking them to a tracking link. This is common practice in phishing e-mails. Example: “Please register on www.promio.net”. Better alternative: “Please register here”.
  • Too many emails per unit of time. Emails with identical or similar content were sent repeatedly in a short period of time (e.g. while sending test e-mails). Typical spam mails are often sent frequently within a short time. For this reason, some spam filters filter out e-mails of this kind.
  • Unknown or suspicious e-mail attachment. A file attachment is regarded as a potential virus carrier.
  • Suspicious image-to-text ratio. The e-mail is graphics-intensive. Whenever possible, convey your sales message in the form of text rather than images. Use more text, small images, and as few images as possible. Of course, this must be balanced against the sales goal!

Generally speaking, it is often difficult to reconstruct why a particular e-mail was classified as spam. Frequently, the e-mail is marked according to personal rules that the e-mail client in question (e.g. Outlook) has learned over time.

We recommend viewing quality control before dispatching an e-mail. Check the integrated phishing control of the links as well as the spam score and the SpamAssassin alerts. Most e-mails receive a maximum spam score of 3 points. Also, the advance control via spam filter test (in the preview block found in the e-mail details) can give you an impression of which clients are likely to classify the e-mail as spam.

en/email_is_marked_as_spam.1578911038.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/01/13 11:23 by bk