Spam Reports Aren't All Bad News

How to turn email mistakes into best practices

by Tara Natanson, Constant Contact Manager, ISP Relations

No one who follows the rules and best practices of permission-based email marketing wants to get branded as a spammer. However, sometimes even the most reputable, best-intentioned businesses and organizations can send email communications that trigger spam reports.

Has this happened to you? If it has, don't get upset. Spam reports can provide valuable insights so you can correct what you may be doing wrong and can get back in the good graces of both the Internet service providers (ISPs) and your mailing list subscribers.

Let's look at some of the most common causes of spam reports and how to fix the problems -- and how to get your email campaigns back on track.

What Is a Spam Report?

A spam report is submitted when a recipient indicates that your email is unwanted or unsolicited. This can occur in a couple different ways:

  • When someone using a web-based email account (e.g., AOL or Hotmail, or through an ISP such as Comcast) decides -- for whatever reason -- that an email message is unwanted and clicks the "spam" button
  • When someone forwards or reports an unwanted email to a spam reporting service or to Constant Contact directly

Sometimes people who are cleaning out their inboxes will check off all the emails on a page and then hit the "spam" button instead of "delete." A few accidental cases like that aren't red-flag causes for concern.

Rules to Respect the Inbox

On the other hand, repeated spam complaints about your mailings will attract the attention of ISPs. When this happens to our customers, often they'll say, "Well, I'm not a spammer, and these people asked to be on my mailing list. Why did they report me as spam?"

Here are the three most common reasons for that, as well as some ways you can ensure your emails will be welcomed by recipients.

1. From and Subject Line: Make it recognizable. The number-one reason permission-based email gets reported as spam is because recipients don't immediately recognize the message as something they asked for. Use a name subscribers will instantly recognize in the From field -- either your business name or your own name, whichever people know best. Do not use the name of the staff person who is sending out the campaigns. That's an honest mistake, but one that can lead to your email communications getting reported as spam.

Make sure your subject line identifies you as well. If you send a weekly newsletter, use a consistent name for that newsletter in the first part of your subject line. Another big mistake is trying to sell a product in the subject line. Instead, focus on being recognized as something subscribers are looking forward to.

2. Frequency: Don't overcommunicate. If you're sending out email campaigns more than once a week, you need to have a very good reason for it. Regardless of your frequency, though, set the expectation for how often you'll be emailing subscribers when they sign up for your mailing list. Something such as "Get our monthly newsletter along with weekly promotions" would do it effectively.

And try not to deviate from that frequency. For example, if you're having a sale, the natural inclination may be to send a lot of reminders. Resist this temptation. Send one notice the week before and another a day or two before the sale date. Don't email subscribers every day. Annoyed recipients may simply unsubscribe. Angry ones are more apt to hit the "spam" button.

3. Relevancy: Send subscribers what they signed up for. Go back to what you promised subscribers when they signed up for your permission-based email list. They're expecting content that's valuable and relevant to what they want and need. If people think they're signing up for one thing, and you send them something else -- say, about totally different products or services -- they might get frustrated and report your email as spam. You can even remind them of where/how they signed up by using a permission reminder at the top of each message.

Spam Reports Are a Golden Opportunity

We like to say, "Spam is in the eye of the recipient." Consumers are challenged to manage all the email that makes it to their inboxes, as well as the wanted email that gets mistakenly snagged by spam filtering software.

Pay attention to the comments people provide in their unsubscribe forms (also known as "opt-out comments"), and look for reasons why they're opting-out of your mailing list. They could be unhappy with frequency, relevancy, or something else that you can very easily fix. 

If you do get notified of a spam report, consider it a golden opportunity to analyze what you're doing and fine-tune your email practices to show the greatest respect for your subscribers. Then, you'll have their attention -- and their appreciation.

(To learn more about permission-based email marketing best practices in our free Spam Report Reduction Guide.)

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