How To Avoid Spam Filters - Guest Blog by Annie Cooley

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How To Avoid Spam Filters

by Annie Cooley

Deliverability is key to a positive ROI.  If your email never makes it to your recipients inbox, your ROI won’t grow.  Fortunately there are some practical and easy ways to ensure inbox deliverability.

Focus: Subject Lines

• Don’t use special characters in your subject line.
• Make sure your content is relevant and consistent from subject line to closing sentence.
• Use neutral language in your subject line.

• Stay away from buzz words, especially around prescription drugs, stock quotes and other financially focused verbiage.

Focus: Email Content

• Again, make your content consistent and relevant to your target audience.
• Keep your HTML content to less than 50% of the total message.  Spam filters will choose simple HTML to pass through far more than complex HTML.
• Make sure the outbound links in your email are set up correctly.  Make sure to include the http:// on the destination URL and don’t link to domains that use IP addresses in lieu of a domain name.

Focus: Behind the Scenes

• Send a test of your email campaign through a spam check tool to check for any red flags.
• Ask your new contacts to add you to their safe sender list.
• Ask your email marketing service to provide you with their sending IP addresses and register them as your own. Go to http://www.Openspf.org or http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/senderid/default.mspx to do this.