Abuse complaints can arise when recipients mark your campaign as spam. While this doesn’t necessarily mean you're a spammer, it often happens when subscribers no longer wish to receive your emails and can’t find the "unsubscribe" link, even after attempting to opt out.

In this video, the SendPulse marketer shares actionable tips to avoid spam folder. Check it out!

In this article, we’ll review types of email abuse and provide some effective tips to avoid it. We’ll also unveil how email complaints affect your email deliverability.

Types of Email Abuse

Users can encounter different types of email abuse. In this section, we’ll cover the most popular ones for you to be aware of.

  • Spam. It refers to unsolicited bulk emails sent to recipients who haven’t opted in to receive them. They don’t contain any valuable information for individuals or organizations, so they end up in the spam folder. The main purpose of spam is to promote products and advertise them to many people. Spam emails are repetitive, irrelevant, and frequently contain links to suspicious or harmful websites.
  • Phishing. Phishing emails are designed to look trustworthy and often attempt to steal sensitive information. Pretending to be from reputable sources like banks, legal agencies, or well-known organizations, these emails aim to deceive recipients into revealing payment details, login credentials, or personal data. The consequences for victims can include financial loss, unauthorized access to accounts, and identity theft.
  • Email bombing. This refers to flooding individuals or businesses with lots of messages. These might be automated subscription confirmations or some repetitive offers that overwhelm receivers, making it difficult to manage their important emails. It can result in account suspension.
  • Malware distribution. Individuals and companies often receive emails containing viruses, ransomware, and spyware. Malware emails include links and attachments that lead to infected websites. Accessing them might result in sensitive data leaks, laptop issues, and financial loss.

Now that you know the most common types of email abuse, it’s time to figure out how you can avoid being reported for email abuse and how to communicate with people correctly.

Tips to Avoid Email Abuse

If you don’t want your recipients to make reports against your company, it’s necessary to take care of the emails you send, the quality of your mailing list, and compliance with laws and regulations. There are even more points to consider when delivering your emails to people worldwide. We’ll share some effective tips below.

  • Create your email list. Building your email list is a serious process requiring you to collect email addresses legally. You can do it by adding subscription forms and providing users with some perks so that they eagerly share their contact information. To prevent spam complaints and unexisting email addresses, you can use double opt-in. It will help you create a healthy mailing list with people seeking to hear from your brand.
  • Consider using a double opt-in. A double opt-in not only ensures that email addresses are valid but also confirms that recipients genuinely want to receive updates from your company. This process helps maintain a clean mailing list, free from individuals who aren’t interested in your brand. By sending email campaigns to engaged subscribers, you'll achieve higher response rates, better engagement, and, ultimately, improved sales.
  • Clean your mailing list. Maintaining a clean mailing list is crucial, as the quality of your contacts directly impacts your sender reputation, audience engagement, and email deliverability. Regularly clean your list to remove invalid, non-existent, or inactive email addresses. Continuing to send emails to inactive subscribers increases the risk of them marking your messages as spam, which can harm your sender reputation. It’s better to stop emailing those who are no longer interested in your products or services and allow them to unsubscribe. This proactive approach helps protect your reputation and ensures better email performance.
  • Comply with Internet privacy laws. Ensure that your email campaigns adhere to regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other applicable laws. These laws help confirm that your emails are legitimate and protect recipients from unwanted messages. While compliance may not directly improve email deliverability, it is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation and fostering trust with your subscribers.
  • Deliver relevant information. By sending email campaigns that resonate with your audience’s needs, interests, and problems, you can drive their attention and boost engagement. When you provide interesting content at the right moment, your subscribers won‘t mark you as spam, and your open and click-through rates will improve.
  • Use spam checkers. Spam checkers help ensure that your email header, body, and preheader don’t trigger spam filters. By running your emails through these tools, you can identify spammy words or phrases, check for issues like a blacklisted IP address or domain, and spot inappropriate content. Services like SendPulse offer valuable recommendations to improve the quality of your emails and enhance deliverability.
  • Personalize your content. To avoid spam reports, you should provide your subscribers with relevant content tailored to their preferences, needs, and interests. Ensure that your email campaigns include personalized product recommendations, problem solutions, and enticing special offers.
  • Add a visible unsubscribe button. Make sure every email you send includes a clear and easy-to-find option for subscribers to opt out of receiving future newsletters. While you may lose some contacts, it helps keep your mailing list clean and reduces the risk of being reported as spam. Offering an easy unsubscribe process is important for maintaining your sender reputation, especially when recipients are no longer interested in hearing from you.

Now that you know some valuable best practices for avoiding customer complaints, it’s time to unveil how they influence your email deliverability.

How do email complaints affect email deliverability?

Email complaints can significantly impact your deliverability. When subscribers mark your emails as spam or report complaints, it signals that your messages are perceived as harmful or irrelevant. This can damage your sender reputation and reduce the likelihood that your emails will reach inboxes in the future. Here are some additional consequences these complaints can have on your business.

  • Lower engagement. When subscribers mark your content as spam, it signals to email service providers that they find your emails irrelevant, unhelpful, or uninteresting. This can lead to lower engagement metrics, such as reduced open rates and click-through rates.
  • Trust issues. When users often report your email campaigns, others might also question your credibility. It leads to more opt-outs and fewer people subscribing to your email newsletter. In the long term, it might influence relationships with subscribers, conversions, and email marketing ROI.
  • Delay in email delivery. Frequent spam reports and complaints can prompt email service providers to slow down your sending speed and scrutinize your email content more closely. As a result, your email campaigns may experience delays in delivery and higher rejection rates.
  • Problems with reaching the primary inbox. Email complaints can prevent your messages from landing in the primary inbox. Due to low user satisfaction with your content, email service providers may route your emails to the promotions, updates, or even spam folders. This limits the visibility of your campaigns, as recipients rarely check these folders. As a result, your engagement rates decline, leading to lower conversions.
  • Blacklisting. Your IP or sending domain can be blacklisted because of the high number of complaints. As a result, you can’t seamlessly deliver emails. To solve this problem, you’ll need a lot of time and effort later.
  • Sender reputation issues. Email clients like Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo track your sender reputation based on user complaints and reports. A high number of complaints can harm your reputation, causing your emails to be sent to subscribers' spam folders or even blocked entirely.
  • Spam filters. A poor sender reputation can cause email service providers to flag your messages as spam. Even if some subscribers are eager to receive your emails, a high volume of complaints can lead to your messages being routed to spam folders, reducing their visibility and engagement.

Overall, email abuse complaints hurt your email marketing strategy, resulting in problems with sender reputation, email deliverability, trust, etc. That’s why you should pay close attention to the content you send to subscribers, add unsubscribe buttons, and keep your mailing list healthy. It will help you avoid being marked as spam and increase engagement with your email campaigns.

 

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