Understanding Spam Complaints

What are spam complaints and how do I reduce them?

Through a direct feedback loop with major ISP's like AOL and Hotmail, the system can automatically detect if many of your recipients flag your campaign as spam.

How does an email campaign get marked as SPAM?

ISP's are increasingly adding spam reporting facilities that allow their customers to mark emails they don't remember opting in for as spam. For example, Gmail features a "Report SPAM" button into their email software (highlighted in green on the picture below). By clicking this button, Gmail lets us know that one of our customers may be potentially sending spam.

What happens if my campaigns gets reported as SPAM?

When a recipient of your campaign clicks the "Report SPAM" button, 2 things happen

1. The recipient who made the spam complaint is immediately unsubscribed. This means you will no longer be able to send any campaigns to that individual.

2. The complaint is recorded in your reports for that campaign

What is an acceptable spam report number?

Your goal should be zero. However, if your spam report number is less than 1 per 5,000 emails sent, then you are within today's industry norms. Industry norms will change over time and we will continue to keep you up-to-date.

How does this affect my account?

While discretion is used, ISP's still consider every spam complaint as an official complaint from their customers. This basically means that if enough recipients mark your campaign as spam, the ISP will punish the offending sender. This is done by either adding the sender to their blacklist or removing the senders' whitelist status.

This means that if enough of our customers get reported as spammers, we risk losing our important position on the whitelist of major ISP's. If your campaign gets more than a typical number of complaints (calculated as a percentage of your sending size), you will receive an email warning, explaining what has happened and giving you some ideas on how to prevent further problems.

For a very large number of complaints (above 1%), your account (if you sent the email) or your client's account will be locked automatically, and will not be able to send further campaigns until the problem is resolved.

What can I do to avoid getting reported as a spammer?

You can minimize the chances of your campaigns being reported as SPAM by following best practice email marketing, including:

1. Using our confirmed opt-in subscribe process to ensure a high quality subscriber list.

2. Informing the recipient why they are receiving this email and how you obtained their details in a clear location at the top of each email.

3. Including a single-click unsubscribe link in every campaign you send.

Why are Hotmail and Yahoo moving my emails to the junk folder?

With many of today's email services like Yahoo mail and Hotmail, customers can configure their email account to more efficiently process their incoming mail. Typically, a person is able to create a list of "known senders", or a "friends list", and email that comes from the people on the list goes straight through to the inbox.

If you are sending mail to someone who has not put you on these "known" lists, your mail is still being delivered. The downside to not being on these safe lists, though, is that your mail is likely going into a bulk folder or will be subject to email filters. Although there is not much you can do about landing in the bulk folder at this time, there are some steps you can take to minimize it.