sales prospecting is a lengthy process that requires a lot of effort.
from finding a new client to sending your email directly to your spam folder. the latter often happens, leading to less interaction while you as a sales professional do your best to break the ice.
Globally, 17% of emails sent never make it to the main inbox folder due to spam filters and promotions. this drastically affects the email deliverability of your campaign (sequence). So, you might be wondering, how to prevent emails from becoming spam in gmail?
Before we get into the question, let’s first explore why you should care about spam deliveries to gmail.
This will help us better understand the phenomenon by managing expectations and making changes and corrections earlier in the sales process.
how does sending spam affect gmail?
When your sales emails get filtered into gmail spam, it’s not just that your prospecting efforts fail.
has consequences far beyond lower response rates. More of your emails are likely to be redirected to Gmail’s spam filters, and this affects the conversion rate later in the process.
All of this would mean more of your emails will be filtered directly as spam without reaching your prospect’s main inbox.
As a result, your initial emails and follow-ups (steps) go unread, rendering your outreach efforts useless. this will slow down your sales cycle, reduce performance and consequently affect your bottom line.
how does the spam filter work in gmail?
gmail uses a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning in its spam filter. This is how the spam filter works in gmail:
1. reputation of your email sending domain
The first thing gmail checks is if your domain and IP address are present on any blacklists. you need to prove that you are a genuine sender. if your domain passes the first step, the next step it checks is the content.
2. content of your email
gmail checks your email content for malicious links and the presence of spam/promotional words.
3.user action
once your email passes all of the above criteria, gmail verifies your participation as a user. they first see if their recipients are deleting the email before they even open it, because they think your subject line is misleading or not relevant. second, if your users frequently mark your email as spam.
4. shipping history
new ip addresses must be prepared when using a dedicated ip. For the first 2-24 hours, Gmail temporarily blocks new IP addresses. then a few emails are sent to the inbox to check the recipient’s reaction.
Most future emails will likely be classified as spam if this initial test results in a high rate of complaints. conversely, if recipients click “this is not spam”, gmail will consider the address safe for inbox.
these are some of the ways gmail spam filters work. Now let’s learn how to prevent emails from ending up in spam.
how to prevent emails from becoming spam in gmail?
In this section, we’ll detail 12 tips on how to prevent emails from becoming spam.
12 tips to prevent emails from becoming spam in gmail
1. create warm connections before reaching out2. use short and relevant subject lines3. remove spam trigger keywords4. Optimize content for response rates5. ask users to create a filter6. avoid spam reports7. use the correct email client8. follow the laws. remove unnecessary html and urls10. stay away from blacklists11. add domain authentication records 12. test your emails
1. create warm connections before communicating
One of the factors driving low response rates and spam reporting is unsolicited and out of context emails.
When potential customers receive emails from unknown senders, they’re less likely to open them, let alone reply. this is the case for most promotional and sales emails.
however, if you connect with your prospect outside of email, for example social media platforms like linkedin or twitter, you can start your conversation there.
Social media messaging channels are less noisy compared to email and promote connection and networking more than is possible through email.
suppose your potential customers are using some of the rare and unique social media platforms that are not available in your region. in that case, you can use various services to get secure connections and build your sales reach.
Once you’ve introduced yourself and started the conversation on social media, you can continue the engagement via email, now with a higher chance of getting open responses.
2. keep subject lines short and relevant
As soon as your email arrives in your potential customers’ inbox, the subject line is the first thing they see.
Depending on how you’ve framed it, it could increase or decrease your chances of interacting with them. Based on what you know about prospects through your research, craft subject lines that engage their interests and compel them to act.
As you do your research, look for your potential customer’s interests and activities that can be drawn in parallel with your products and services.
This will help set the tone and topic of the conversation according to your prospect’s needs, making it easier for them to open and respond to your emails, rather than finding them irrelevant and marking them as spam.
Pro tip: Personalize your subject lines for better open and response rates.
You can easily customize your subject lines using the handy merge tags.
3. Remove spam triggering keywords
One of the ways email services can recognize and filter promotional content is by scanning the content for certain keywords.
Marketers and salespeople often use phrases and words intended to grab the attention of potential customers, hoping to get better results from their campaigns (sequences).
regardless of the quality and intent of your content, these keywords end up triggering content filters in gmail.
In the case of gmail, where emails are also filtered into folders like promotions and updates, the filtering caused by unwanted keywords has a much more pronounced impact on your email interaction.
These are some of the most common spam trigger words:
- free
- sale
- offers
- discount
- best prices
- clearance
- be your own boss
- expect to earn
- get paid
- no credit card
see a list of these words and exclude these keywords whenever possible.
4. optimize content for response rates
Among other signals, email service providers like gmail also monitor your email engagement to judge your intent. this includes open rates and response rates.
getting replies in your reach tells gmail that your content is relevant and marks your future emails as important to the recipient.
To enable this, make your email content more action-oriented. ask questions that are likely to get an answer, offer value, and help nail down your product’s value proposition.
make your email content relatable and engaging to your prospects, making it easy for them to respond and move the conversation forward.
saleshandy helps you stay on track with your content engagement with its real-time writing assistance feature. offers four real-time suggestions as you compose your email to make sure your email is deliverable.
5. ask users to create a filter
If you’re reaching out to your prospects and not getting any responses, chances are your emails are already in your spam folder.
In such cases, you’ll need to ask them to create a custom filter for their emails and mark them as “never spam”. this ensures that all future messages are filtered based on the new settings.
Since your emails are probably delivered to Gmail’s spam folder, you’ll have to reach out to your prospects on alternative platforms where you might have better access to them.
These may include social media platforms, such as twitter or linkedin, where your potential customers may already be active.
6. avoid spam reports
As a continuation of what we discussed about subject lines, getting spam reports on your emails in gmail is one of the fastest ways to ruin your reputation as a sender.
a bad sender reputation is the reason why emails go to spam instead of inbox in gmail, and again, this would not be limited to gmail. email blacklists are public and shared among all email service providers.
Emails are marked as spam by potential customers for various reasons. one of them is that the content is irrelevant.
Unsolicited promotional emails, along with frequent follow-ups (steps), also tend to generate spam reports. this reinforces the importance of warm connections built outside of email, conducting thorough research, and personalizing content.
7. use the right email client
on the technical side of email content: your email sending ip address is also taken into account when it comes to filtering your email.
remember email blacklists?
well, blacklists also store promotional and spam ip addresses, as well as sending addresses and domains.
Your sending ip address depends on the email client you use. For example, if you are using email marketing services to send your sales email campaigns (sequences) in bulk, they are likely to end up in spam since your addresses are shared among many senders.
Instead, use services like saleshandy, which help you send personalized cold emails from your existing gmail, outlook, or smtp account.
saleshandy sends email using google/microsoft servers, just like it does from your web applications.
8. follow the laws
the can-spam law is a law established for commercial messages and emails to prevent the spread of misleading information.
The law gives the recipient the right to stop receiving email from you if they find it inappropriate. You can also be penalized if you do not comply with the law.
Under the law, it is prohibited to include any misleading subject lines or to send emails after the recipient has shown disinterest (i.e., unsubscribed from your email list).
9. remove unnecessary html and url
Continuing from the last point, the html content of your email is also likely to change depending on the email client you use.
Too much html in your email is a sign of heavy media content in the email, which is considered promotional in nature. importantly, formal emails are text based and don’t have much in terms of embedded media, which is why html is used in emails.
An ideal text to html ratio is 60:40, where at least 60% of the body content should be text.
If you’re using a third-party email client, you’ll likely find an option to edit the html content of the email using a built-in editor. With this editor, you can remove or add html code to your email.
Pictured above, you can see the HTML code in Saleshandy’s email editor, with minimal use of HTML. Emails with minimal HTML are delivered better in the primary inbox.
10. stay away from blacklists
as we discussed earlier, getting on a blacklist would mean your future emails would be filtered as spam, on all email services, not just gmail.
Using some online testing tools, you can check if your address is part of public blacklists.
What do you do if you find yourself on one of these blacklists? you can simply contact the administrators of these lists and ask them to remove your addresses, stating valid reasons.
The process is manual and can be time consuming, but it’s worth the effort. your emails will continue to go to spam unless you are removed from those blacklists.
While you’re at it, tweak your broadcast process and tools so you don’t get stuck in the same position again.
11. add domain authentication records
If you’re using your own domain to send sales emails, make sure you’ve added authentication records.
Domain authentication records are used to identify and authenticate emails coming from your domain by email service providers, so they know that the domain owners actually sent the emails.
Emails without authenticated domains are considered spam and malicious and therefore filtered to the spam folder. There are three authentication records that you need to add to your domain: dkim, dmarc, and spf records.
12. Test your emails
Once you’ve set up your sales email template, as a last step, be sure to test your email.
send it to yourself and your colleagues to check the format and if your emails reach the main folder.
You can also use tools like the mail tester that checks the content of your email and if your address is part of the blacklists. it also gives you suggestions to help you further improve the deliverability of your emails based on the analytics.
get here: 11 email deliverability tools to land in the main inbox
prevent emails from becoming spam
start implementing the strategies mentioned above and prevent emails from becoming spam. this separates your emails from hundreds of other emails your prospects receive each day.
consequently, you will always receive your emails in your inbox.
frequently asked questions (faqs)
1. what are the most common reasons emails end up in spam?
some common reasons why emails land in the spam folder are:
- use of spam trigger words
- promotional stuff
- too much html content in the email
- not following the law
- no unsubscribe link
- domain reputation is poor
- your recipients marked the email as spam
- using link shorteners
2. what are spam filters?
Email Service Providers (ESPs) implement spam filters to prevent their subscribers from receiving low quality and inappropriate emails. they’d land in your main inbox if spam filters weren’t installed, ruining the email experience for everyone.