How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam & What To Do Next

Nothing is more frustrating than not knowing whether your emails are getting through to the recipients that matter. You've crafted the perfect message, hit send, and ... nothing. No replies, no engagement, no interaction whatsoever. Instead, your carefully crafted emails seem to have vanished into thin air. The truth? They may have ended up in the spam folder of your recipient's email account. In this blog, we'll explore how to check if your emails are going to spam so you can confidently identify and resolve inbox delivery issues, ensuring your messages reach the intended recipients and improve engagement.

Inframail's email infrastructure solution can help you achieve your deliverability goals. The tool offers easy-to-understand metrics to help you identify deliverability issues and fix them fast, so you can get back to business.

Why Should You Care about Not Going to the Spam Folder?

person focused on his task - How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

Email deliverability is the cornerstone of successful email marketing. When your marketing emails land in the recipient's inbox, you're more likely to engage your target audience. It's a great scenario. But here's the catch – email service providers are equipped with sophisticated spam filters.

These filters analyze:

Your emails from different angles
Spam trigger words
Lack of sender information
Clickbait subject line
The balance of images
Attachments in the text

Spam Filters

If your email triggers these filters, it's a one-way ticket to the spam folder. Keeping your low spam score low is essential. You will minimize your email's chances of being seen and read. If the recipient's provider thinks you're sending spam emails, your engagement rates and your domain reputation will tank.

Protect Your Sender Reputation to Improve Email Deliverability

Internet service providers and email service providers keep tabs on your sending habits. If your emails frequently trigger spam complaints or are marked as spam by recipients, your sender's reputation takes a hit. This can lead to future campaigns being flagged by spam filters, regardless of their content. A high spam rate means that something is wrong:

You have a deceiving email subject
You're not providing an unsubscribe link
You send to your mailing list too often
A range of other spam issues

Sender Reputation

You can protect your sender's reputation. Follow the rules and guidelines like the CAN-SPAM Act, avoid poor ploys like those unfortunate clickbait headlines, and ensure your email content is relevant. This will result in better spam reports, and mailbox providers won't put emails from your IP address into spam boxes.

Stay Out of Spam to Improve Your Email Marketing ROI

One of the top goals of any marketing campaign is to see a return on investment. When your emails bypass the recipient's spam folder:

Your chances of engagement
Conversions
A higher ROI increase

Landing in the spam folder automatically:

Reduces visibility
Leads to lower open and click-through rates

Technical Know-How

Email marketing requires:

Crafting compelling content
Understanding and navigating the technical aspects

It's a safe way to prevent potential issues with emails in the future. You don't have to be a technical expert right away. Just understand the:

Workings of email spam filters
Use the goodness of technology such as automation or email authentication
Properly use a reputable email service provider

Improve Communication by Staying Out of the Spam Folder

Email marketing is also about more than just selling. It helps build relationships with your audience. Effective communication through email can establish trust, keep your audience informed, and encourage loyalty. For this to happen, your emails need to be seen. That's the long and short of it. If your emails alert spam filters, you lose the opportunity to connect with your audience. Regularly cleaning your email list and avoiding inactive email addresses can help you.

Audience Engagement

The point is that it's about more than avoiding the spam folder, getting the email to the customer, and improving inbox placement. All of this has a purpose: to ensure that your message is read and appreciated by the right people, who will perform a specific action. You want to ensure that users do not flag your message as spam, as mail servers may interpret it as being sent to the wrong audience.

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

When assessing email deliverability, there isn’t a reliable way to know what happens to an email message once it has been delivered. When a message is sent between a sender and recipient, an SMTP connection is opened between the two parties. The recipient’s mailbox provider will either send back a yes/accepted response letting the sender know the mail was accepted or a no/rejected response letting the sender know the mail was bounced back.

Connection Cut

Once this thumbs-up/thumbs-down exchange occurs, the connection between the two parties is cut. Inbox providers don’t report back to senders on how mail is handled or filtered once it has been accepted.

Inbox Placement

This keeps their mail filtering policies private so they can’t be intentionally bypassed by bad actors or by well-meaning marketers. No Email Service Provider can accurately report on inbox placement, since this data is not provided back from any recipient.

How to Test Email Deliverability Before Sending a Campaign

How do you test email deliverability? To start, you can use seed lists and inbox placement testing services.

Seed Lists: A Smart Way to Test Deliverability

Seed list testing involves sending your email to a predefined list of addresses (seed list) across various email providers. This method provides a real-world scenario and shows where your email lands across different platforms. It’s an effective way to test deliverability before launching a full campaign, as it offers a direct look at how different ISPs handle your emails. If your email consistently lands in Gmail’s spam but not Yahoo’s, you know where to focus your optimization efforts.

A/B Testing

It’s a great way to test changes in your email strategy, like different subject lines or sending times, and see their impact across various email services.

Inbox Placement Testing Services

Inbox placement testing services simulate email delivery to various ISPs. They:

Provide detailed reports on where your emails end up
Run a comprehensive analysis, including how different content or subject lines might perform
Can reveal whether your emails are landing in the inbox, in the spam folder, or not being delivered at all
Help identify different deliverability issues related to IP reputation, content, or other factors

This information helps tweak your approach to maximize inbox placement, especially when you’re trying new types of content or targeting different audiences.

Use Email Deliverability Tools

You don’t have to work with spam folders alone. Take advantage of available tools such as Bouncer. Mail Tester is a helpful tool for identifying issues that could be causing your emails to land in spam folders. It also helps you improve your email deliverability. To use it, send your email to a provided unique email address. Then, visit their website to get a report. This report includes a score and information on various aspects of your message.

Check Email Blacklists Regularly

Blacklists, maintained by email service providers, are list domains and IP addresses flagged for sending spam. Email clients will consider your business emails as spammy if you’re on these lists. If you’re on a blacklist, your emails are more likely to fail. This is not the best situation, as it damages your deliverability and reputation and won’t look great with your email marketing service. Bet on proactive blacklist monitoring, which allows for timely issue resolution and ensures the integrity of your email campaigns.

Email Hygiene

This practice also helps:

Understand your mass email performance
Guide email strategy improvements
Safeguard your brand’s credibility

Regularly checking your email address against email blacklists is a key part of:

Maintaining a healthy email marketing ecosystem
Avoiding disruptions in your communication with customers

Monitor Your Email Engagement Metrics

Going deeper into email engagement metrics opens up a wealth of insights. Monitoring metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates can show what is wrong and point out where your mass emails end up. Consistently low engagement metrics, especially open rates, might indicate that your emails are being filtered into spam folders. Or a sudden drop in open rates might indicate a change in how an ISP categorizes your emails. This method allows for ongoing monitoring, can highlight trends over time, and offers insights into the health of your email marketing efforts.It also aids in A/B testing different email elements to see what resonates best with your audience. You don’t need email deliverability tools to see if your emails are dangerous—just looking at your email marketing app will be enough to prevent deliverability issues with your future emails.

Set Up Feedback Loops with ISPs

Feedback loop information from this source is a goldmine for improving your email content and delivery strategy. It’s invaluable for understanding how recipients perceive your emails. It helps:

Identify problematic practices that might trigger spam filters with every incoming email
Pinpoint specific campaigns or content that may be causing issues
Better segment my audience
Tailor more engaging content and less likely to be marked as spam.
It also allows for targeted improvements

What to Do if Emails Go to Spam

man giving ideas - How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

Mark Messages as ‘Not Spam’ to Fix the Issue at the Receiver's End

When your emails end up in the spam folder, it can hurt your:

Sender reputation
Email deliverability

A quick way to fix the issue is to ask your recipients to mark your messages as Not spam. This solution solves the problem at the receiver's end. Once they do that, emails from you won’t end up in their spam inbox.

Add DNS Verification to Improve Email Authentication

When your emails are marked as spam, it’s often due to poor sender reputation or email authentication issues. You can verify your email with the help of DNS records. Two specific DNS records are used to verify email:

1. SPF (stands for Sender Policy Framework) record: Allows domain owners to specify which email servers are authorized to send emails on their behalf.

2. DKIM (stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail) record: Used for signing and verifying the authenticity of emails. It involves adding a digital signature to outgoing emails so that the recipient's email server can verify it.

These records are of TXT type and should be added to your domain's DNS zone.

Don't Forget IP Warming When Changing ISPs

ISPs and Email Service Providers (ESPs) closely monitor the behavior of senders to prevent spam and ensure the deliverability of legitimate emails to users' inboxes. And when you switch ISPs or send emails from a new IP address, you start with a clean slate regarding your sending reputation. A poor sender reputation can lead to your emails being filtered into spam folders or blocked altogether, derailing your email marketing efforts. That's where IP warming steps in.

IP Warming

IP warming helps you build and maintain a good sender reputation for email communications when switching ISPs. It can take several weeks to complete the warming process and gradually increase your email volume to normal levels. You must follow best practices during this period and avoid sudden spikes in email activity, as this can (and most likely will) raise red flags with ISPs. Stay away from cold email blasting because some online guru told you so.

Why IP Warming Is a Must When Changing ISPs

Establishing Trust

ISPs are wary of new IP addresses because they’re often associated with spammers who create new accounts to avoid detection. IP warming allows you to gradually build trust with the (new) ISP by demonstrating responsible and legitimate email-sending practices.

Gradual Ramp-Up

IP warming involves gradually increasing the volume of your email sending over time. By starting with a small volume of emails and then slowly increasing it, you show ISPs that you’re a legitimate sender with actual recipients.

Monitoring And Adaptation

During the IP warming process, you closely monitor your email performance and adjust your sending practices accordingly. If issues pop up — such as high bounce rates or spam complaints — you can identify and address them before your email sending volume hits full capacity.

Avoiding Blacklisting

Sending a large volume of emails from a new IP address without warming it up can trigger spam filters and lead to your IP being blacklisted. Once your IP is blacklisted, it becomes challenging to get emails delivered to users of that ISP, and it can take a considerable amount of time and effort to restore your sender reputation.

Maintaining Deliverability

You need a good sender reputation to maintain high deliverability rates and ensure that your emails reach your recipients' inboxes.

How To Do IP Warming Right

Assess your sending history: Before switching ISPs, review your email sending history with the previous ISP. Identify your average email volume and engagement metrics like:

Open rates
Click-through rates
Bounce rates
Spam complaints

This information will serve as a baseline for your IP warming plan.

Avoid Purchased Lists

Never use purchased or rented email lists, as they often contain stale or low-quality addresses that can harm your IP reputation.

Clean Your Email List

Before starting the warming process, ensure your email list is up-to-date and cleaned of invalid or inactive email addresses to avoid high bounce rates.

Create A Warming Plan

Develop a comprehensive warming plan that outlines the schedule for gradually increasing your email sending volume over time. This will be subject to changes in real-time as you start sending emails. The duration and specific volume increments will depend on your sending history and email list size.

Authenticate Your Emails

Implement authentication mechanisms like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to improve deliverability and show ISPs that you are a legitimate sender.

Start With Low Volume

Begin by sending emails to a small portion of your list, like 5%-10%. Choose your most engaged subscribers for the initial sends. This might include those who have recently interacted with your emails or have a history of opening and clicking on your messages.

Monitor Performance

During the warming process, monitor your email performance metrics closely. Pay special attention to bounce rates and spam complaints. This data will help you assess the health of your sender reputation.

Gradually Increase Volume

As your performance metrics remain stable and positive, gradually increase the volume of emails you send. This increase should follow the warming plan you created earlier. You increase the volume by 10% - 20 % every few days, but the exact increments will depend on your circumstances. The warming process usually takes 4-6 weeks to complete.

Segment Your Email List

As you increase sending volume, segment your email list based on engagement levels. Send to the most active and responsive segments before moving on to less engaged list members.

Watch Out For Red Flags

Be alert for any signs of deliverability issues during the warming process. If you notice a sudden drop in engagement or a spike in spam complaints or bounces, it may indicate a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

Warm Up Each Campaign Type

If you have different types of email campaigns, warm up each type individually. These include:

Newsletters
Promotional offers
Transactional emails

Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

Inframail revolutionizes cold email infrastructure with unlimited inboxes at a single flat rate. With our Microsoft-backed deliverability and dedicated IP addresses, we help agencies, recruiters, and SDRs scale their outreach efforts efficiently. Unlike traditional providers that charge per inbox, Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects. Whether you're an agency looking to scale outreach, a recruiter connecting with candidates, or an SDR driving sales, Inframail provides a robust email infrastructure without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs.

Say Goodbye to Cold Email Deliverability Headaches

With Inframail, you can stop worrying about deliverability issues and cold email performance. Our service comes with automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setups to ensure your emails arrive safely inside inboxes. Inframail also provides dedicated email servers for each user to boost deliverability rates further. 16-hour daily priority support guarantees help whenever you need it.

Buy Domains and Start Email Setup Today

Cold email success begins with a healthy email infrastructure. Inframail helps you build yours today. With our email infrastructure tool, you can start buying domains and setting up your email infrastructure immediately. Forget waiting for traditional providers to provision additional inboxes. With Inframail, you’ll have unlimited inboxes to scale your cold email efforts without delays.

Why Should You Care about Not Going to the Spam Folder?

Email deliverability is the cornerstone of successful email marketing. When your marketing emails land in the recipient's inbox, you're more likely to engage your target audience. It's a great scenario. But here's the catch – email service providers are equipped with sophisticated spam filters.

These filters analyze:

Your emails from different angles
Spam trigger words
Lack of sender information
Clickbait subject line
The balance of images
Attachments in the text

Spam Filters

If your email triggers these filters, it's a one-way ticket to the spam folder. Keeping your low spam score low is essential. You will minimize your email's chances of being seen and read. If the recipient's provider thinks you're sending spam emails, your engagement rates and your domain reputation will tank.

Protect Your Sender Reputation to Improve Email Deliverability

Internet service providers and email service providers keep tabs on your sending habits. If your emails frequently trigger spam complaints or are marked as spam by recipients, your sender's reputation takes a hit. This can lead to future campaigns being flagged by spam filters, regardless of their content. A high spam rate means that something is wrong:

You have a deceiving email subject
You're not providing an unsubscribe link
You send to your mailing list too often
A range of other spam issues

Sender Reputation

You can protect your sender's reputation. Follow the rules and guidelines like the CAN-SPAM Act, avoid poor ploys like those unfortunate clickbait headlines, and ensure your email content is relevant. This will result in better spam reports, and mailbox providers won't put emails from your IP address into spam boxes.

Stay Out of Spam to Improve Your Email Marketing ROI

One of the top goals of any marketing campaign is to see a return on investment. When your emails bypass the recipient's spam folder:

Your chances of engagement
Conversions
A higher ROI increase

Landing in the spam folder automatically:

Reduces visibility
Leads to lower open and click-through rates

Technical Know-How

Email marketing requires:

Crafting compelling content
Understanding and navigating the technical aspects

It's a safe way to prevent potential issues with emails in the future. You don't have to be a technical expert right away. Just understand the:

Workings of email spam filters
Use the goodness of technology such as automation or email authentication
Properly use a reputable email service provider

Improve Communication by Staying Out of the Spam Folder

Email marketing is also about more than just selling. It helps build relationships with your audience. Effective communication through email can establish trust, keep your audience informed, and encourage loyalty. For this to happen, your emails need to be seen. That's the long and short of it. If your emails alert spam filters, you lose the opportunity to connect with your audience. Regularly cleaning your email list and avoiding inactive email addresses can help you.

Audience Engagement

The point is that it's about more than avoiding the spam folder, getting the email to the customer, and improving inbox placement. All of this has a purpose: to ensure that your message is read and appreciated by the right people, who will perform a specific action. You want to ensure that users do not flag your message as spam, as mail servers may interpret it as being sent to the wrong audience.

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

When assessing email deliverability, there isn’t a reliable way to know what happens to an email message once it has been delivered. When a message is sent between a sender and recipient, an SMTP connection is opened between the two parties. The recipient’s mailbox provider will either send back a yes/accepted response letting the sender know the mail was accepted or a no/rejected response letting the sender know the mail was bounced back.

Connection Cut

Once this thumbs-up/thumbs-down exchange occurs, the connection between the two parties is cut. Inbox providers don’t report back to senders on how mail is handled or filtered once it has been accepted.

Inbox Placement

This keeps their mail filtering policies private so they can’t be intentionally bypassed by bad actors or by well-meaning marketers. No Email Service Provider can accurately report on inbox placement, since this data is not provided back from any recipient.

How to Test Email Deliverability Before Sending a Campaign

How do you test email deliverability? To start, you can use seed lists and inbox placement testing services.

Seed Lists: A Smart Way to Test Deliverability

Seed list testing involves sending your email to a predefined list of addresses (seed list) across various email providers. This method provides a real-world scenario and shows where your email lands across different platforms. It’s an effective way to test deliverability before launching a full campaign, as it offers a direct look at how different ISPs handle your emails. If your email consistently lands in Gmail’s spam but not Yahoo’s, you know where to focus your optimization efforts.

A/B Testing

It’s a great way to test changes in your email strategy, like different subject lines or sending times, and see their impact across various email services.

Inbox Placement Testing Services

Inbox placement testing services simulate email delivery to various ISPs. They:

Provide detailed reports on where your emails end up
Run a comprehensive analysis, including how different content or subject lines might perform
Can reveal whether your emails are landing in the inbox, in the spam folder, or not being delivered at all
Help identify different deliverability issues related to IP reputation, content, or other factors

This information helps tweak your approach to maximize inbox placement, especially when you’re trying new types of content or targeting different audiences.

Use Email Deliverability Tools

You don’t have to work with spam folders alone. Take advantage of available tools such as Bouncer. Mail Tester is a helpful tool for identifying issues that could be causing your emails to land in spam folders. It also helps you improve your email deliverability. To use it, send your email to a provided unique email address. Then, visit their website to get a report. This report includes a score and information on various aspects of your message.

Check Email Blacklists Regularly

Blacklists, maintained by email service providers, are list domains and IP addresses flagged for sending spam. Email clients will consider your business emails as spammy if you’re on these lists. If you’re on a blacklist, your emails are more likely to fail. This is not the best situation, as it damages your deliverability and reputation and won’t look great with your email marketing service. Bet on proactive blacklist monitoring, which allows for timely issue resolution and ensures the integrity of your email campaigns.

Email Hygiene

This practice also helps:

Understand your mass email performance
Guide email strategy improvements
Safeguard your brand’s credibility

Regularly checking your email address against email blacklists is a key part of:

Maintaining a healthy email marketing ecosystem
Avoiding disruptions in your communication with customers

Monitor Your Email Engagement Metrics

Going deeper into email engagement metrics opens up a wealth of insights. Monitoring metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates can show what is wrong and point out where your mass emails end up. Consistently low engagement metrics, especially open rates, might indicate that your emails are being filtered into spam folders. Or a sudden drop in open rates might indicate a change in how an ISP categorizes your emails. This method allows for ongoing monitoring, can highlight trends over time, and offers insights into the health of your email marketing efforts.It also aids in A/B testing different email elements to see what resonates best with your audience. You don’t need email deliverability tools to see if your emails are dangerous—just looking at your email marketing app will be enough to prevent deliverability issues with your future emails.

Set Up Feedback Loops with ISPs

Feedback loop information from this source is a goldmine for improving your email content and delivery strategy. It’s invaluable for understanding how recipients perceive your emails. It helps:

Identify problematic practices that might trigger spam filters with every incoming email
Pinpoint specific campaigns or content that may be causing issues
Better segment my audience
Tailor more engaging content and less likely to be marked as spam.
It also allows for targeted improvements

What to Do if Emails Go to Spam

Mark Messages as ‘Not Spam’ to Fix the Issue at the Receiver's End

When your emails end up in the spam folder, it can hurt your:

Sender reputation
Email deliverability

A quick way to fix the issue is to ask your recipients to mark your messages as Not spam. This solution solves the problem at the receiver's end. Once they do that, emails from you won’t end up in their spam inbox.

Add DNS Verification to Improve Email Authentication

When your emails are marked as spam, it’s often due to poor sender reputation or email authentication issues. You can verify your email with the help of DNS records. Two specific DNS records are used to verify email:

1. SPF (stands for Sender Policy Framework) record: Allows domain owners to specify which email servers are authorized to send emails on their behalf.

2. DKIM (stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail) record: Used for signing and verifying the authenticity of emails. It involves adding a digital signature to outgoing emails so that the recipient's email server can verify it.

These records are of TXT type and should be added to your domain's DNS zone.

Don't Forget IP Warming When Changing ISPs

ISPs and Email Service Providers (ESPs) closely monitor the behavior of senders to prevent spam and ensure the deliverability of legitimate emails to users' inboxes. And when you switch ISPs or send emails from a new IP address, you start with a clean slate regarding your sending reputation. A poor sender reputation can lead to your emails being filtered into spam folders or blocked altogether, derailing your email marketing efforts. That's where IP warming steps in.

IP Warming

IP warming helps you build and maintain a good sender reputation for email communications when switching ISPs. It can take several weeks to complete the warming process and gradually increase your email volume to normal levels. You must follow best practices during this period and avoid sudden spikes in email activity, as this can (and most likely will) raise red flags with ISPs. Stay away from cold email blasting because some online guru told you so.

Why IP Warming Is a Must When Changing ISPs

Establishing Trust

ISPs are wary of new IP addresses because they’re often associated with spammers who create new accounts to avoid detection. IP warming allows you to gradually build trust with the (new) ISP by demonstrating responsible and legitimate email-sending practices.

Gradual Ramp-Up

IP warming involves gradually increasing the volume of your email sending over time. By starting with a small volume of emails and then slowly increasing it, you show ISPs that you’re a legitimate sender with actual recipients.

Monitoring And Adaptation

During the IP warming process, you closely monitor your email performance and adjust your sending practices accordingly. If issues pop up — such as high bounce rates or spam complaints — you can identify and address them before your email sending volume hits full capacity.

Avoiding Blacklisting

Sending a large volume of emails from a new IP address without warming it up can trigger spam filters and lead to your IP being blacklisted. Once your IP is blacklisted, it becomes challenging to get emails delivered to users of that ISP, and it can take a considerable amount of time and effort to restore your sender reputation.

Maintaining Deliverability

You need a good sender reputation to maintain high deliverability rates and ensure that your emails reach your recipients' inboxes.

How To Do IP Warming Right

Assess your sending history: Before switching ISPs, review your email sending history with the previous ISP. Identify your average email volume and engagement metrics like:

Open rates
Click-through rates
Bounce rates
Spam complaints

This information will serve as a baseline for your IP warming plan.

Avoid Purchased Lists

Never use purchased or rented email lists, as they often contain stale or low-quality addresses that can harm your IP reputation.

Clean Your Email List

Before starting the warming process, ensure your email list is up-to-date and cleaned of invalid or inactive email addresses to avoid high bounce rates.

Create A Warming Plan

Develop a comprehensive warming plan that outlines the schedule for gradually increasing your email sending volume over time. This will be subject to changes in real-time as you start sending emails. The duration and specific volume increments will depend on your sending history and email list size.

Authenticate Your Emails

Implement authentication mechanisms like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to improve deliverability and show ISPs that you are a legitimate sender.

Start With Low Volume

Begin by sending emails to a small portion of your list, like 5%-10%. Choose your most engaged subscribers for the initial sends. This might include those who have recently interacted with your emails or have a history of opening and clicking on your messages.

Monitor Performance

During the warming process, monitor your email performance metrics closely. Pay special attention to bounce rates and spam complaints. This data will help you assess the health of your sender reputation.

Gradually Increase Volume

As your performance metrics remain stable and positive, gradually increase the volume of emails you send. This increase should follow the warming plan you created earlier. You increase the volume by 10% - 20 % every few days, but the exact increments will depend on your circumstances. The warming process usually takes 4-6 weeks to complete.

Segment Your Email List

As you increase sending volume, segment your email list based on engagement levels. Send to the most active and responsive segments before moving on to less engaged list members.

Watch Out For Red Flags

Be alert for any signs of deliverability issues during the warming process. If you notice a sudden drop in engagement or a spike in spam complaints or bounces, it may indicate a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

Warm Up Each Campaign Type

If you have different types of email campaigns, warm up each type individually. These include:

Newsletters
Promotional offers
Transactional emails

Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

Inframail revolutionizes cold email infrastructure with unlimited inboxes at a single flat rate. With our Microsoft-backed deliverability and dedicated IP addresses, we help agencies, recruiters, and SDRs scale their outreach efforts efficiently. Unlike traditional providers that charge per inbox, Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects. Whether you're an agency looking to scale outreach, a recruiter connecting with candidates, or an SDR driving sales, Inframail provides a robust email infrastructure without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs.

Say Goodbye to Cold Email Deliverability Headaches

With Inframail, you can stop worrying about deliverability issues and cold email performance. Our service comes with automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setups to ensure your emails arrive safely inside inboxes. Inframail also provides dedicated email servers for each user to boost deliverability rates further. 16-hour daily priority support guarantees help whenever you need it.

Buy Domains and Start Email Setup Today

Cold email success begins with a healthy email infrastructure. Inframail helps you build yours today. With our email infrastructure tool, you can start buying domains and setting up your email infrastructure immediately. Forget waiting for traditional providers to provision additional inboxes. With Inframail, you’ll have unlimited inboxes to scale your cold email efforts without delays.

Why Should You Care about Not Going to the Spam Folder?

Email deliverability is the cornerstone of successful email marketing. When your marketing emails land in the recipient's inbox, you're more likely to engage your target audience. It's a great scenario. But here's the catch – email service providers are equipped with sophisticated spam filters.

These filters analyze:

Your emails from different angles
Spam trigger words
Lack of sender information
Clickbait subject line
The balance of images
Attachments in the text

Spam Filters

If your email triggers these filters, it's a one-way ticket to the spam folder. Keeping your low spam score low is essential. You will minimize your email's chances of being seen and read. If the recipient's provider thinks you're sending spam emails, your engagement rates and your domain reputation will tank.

Protect Your Sender Reputation to Improve Email Deliverability

Internet service providers and email service providers keep tabs on your sending habits. If your emails frequently trigger spam complaints or are marked as spam by recipients, your sender's reputation takes a hit. This can lead to future campaigns being flagged by spam filters, regardless of their content. A high spam rate means that something is wrong:

You have a deceiving email subject
You're not providing an unsubscribe link
You send to your mailing list too often
A range of other spam issues

Sender Reputation

You can protect your sender's reputation. Follow the rules and guidelines like the CAN-SPAM Act, avoid poor ploys like those unfortunate clickbait headlines, and ensure your email content is relevant. This will result in better spam reports, and mailbox providers won't put emails from your IP address into spam boxes.

Stay Out of Spam to Improve Your Email Marketing ROI

One of the top goals of any marketing campaign is to see a return on investment. When your emails bypass the recipient's spam folder:

Your chances of engagement
Conversions
A higher ROI increase

Landing in the spam folder automatically:

Reduces visibility
Leads to lower open and click-through rates

Technical Know-How

Email marketing requires:

Crafting compelling content
Understanding and navigating the technical aspects

It's a safe way to prevent potential issues with emails in the future. You don't have to be a technical expert right away. Just understand the:

Workings of email spam filters
Use the goodness of technology such as automation or email authentication
Properly use a reputable email service provider

Improve Communication by Staying Out of the Spam Folder

Email marketing is also about more than just selling. It helps build relationships with your audience. Effective communication through email can establish trust, keep your audience informed, and encourage loyalty. For this to happen, your emails need to be seen. That's the long and short of it. If your emails alert spam filters, you lose the opportunity to connect with your audience. Regularly cleaning your email list and avoiding inactive email addresses can help you.

Audience Engagement

The point is that it's about more than avoiding the spam folder, getting the email to the customer, and improving inbox placement. All of this has a purpose: to ensure that your message is read and appreciated by the right people, who will perform a specific action. You want to ensure that users do not flag your message as spam, as mail servers may interpret it as being sent to the wrong audience.

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

When assessing email deliverability, there isn’t a reliable way to know what happens to an email message once it has been delivered. When a message is sent between a sender and recipient, an SMTP connection is opened between the two parties. The recipient’s mailbox provider will either send back a yes/accepted response letting the sender know the mail was accepted or a no/rejected response letting the sender know the mail was bounced back.

Connection Cut

Once this thumbs-up/thumbs-down exchange occurs, the connection between the two parties is cut. Inbox providers don’t report back to senders on how mail is handled or filtered once it has been accepted.

Inbox Placement

This keeps their mail filtering policies private so they can’t be intentionally bypassed by bad actors or by well-meaning marketers. No Email Service Provider can accurately report on inbox placement, since this data is not provided back from any recipient.

How to Test Email Deliverability Before Sending a Campaign

How do you test email deliverability? To start, you can use seed lists and inbox placement testing services.

Seed Lists: A Smart Way to Test Deliverability

Seed list testing involves sending your email to a predefined list of addresses (seed list) across various email providers. This method provides a real-world scenario and shows where your email lands across different platforms. It’s an effective way to test deliverability before launching a full campaign, as it offers a direct look at how different ISPs handle your emails. If your email consistently lands in Gmail’s spam but not Yahoo’s, you know where to focus your optimization efforts.

A/B Testing

It’s a great way to test changes in your email strategy, like different subject lines or sending times, and see their impact across various email services.

Inbox Placement Testing Services

Inbox placement testing services simulate email delivery to various ISPs. They:

Provide detailed reports on where your emails end up
Run a comprehensive analysis, including how different content or subject lines might perform
Can reveal whether your emails are landing in the inbox, in the spam folder, or not being delivered at all
Help identify different deliverability issues related to IP reputation, content, or other factors

This information helps tweak your approach to maximize inbox placement, especially when you’re trying new types of content or targeting different audiences.

Use Email Deliverability Tools

You don’t have to work with spam folders alone. Take advantage of available tools such as Bouncer. Mail Tester is a helpful tool for identifying issues that could be causing your emails to land in spam folders. It also helps you improve your email deliverability. To use it, send your email to a provided unique email address. Then, visit their website to get a report. This report includes a score and information on various aspects of your message.

Check Email Blacklists Regularly

Blacklists, maintained by email service providers, are list domains and IP addresses flagged for sending spam. Email clients will consider your business emails as spammy if you’re on these lists. If you’re on a blacklist, your emails are more likely to fail. This is not the best situation, as it damages your deliverability and reputation and won’t look great with your email marketing service. Bet on proactive blacklist monitoring, which allows for timely issue resolution and ensures the integrity of your email campaigns.

Email Hygiene

This practice also helps:

Understand your mass email performance
Guide email strategy improvements
Safeguard your brand’s credibility

Regularly checking your email address against email blacklists is a key part of:

Maintaining a healthy email marketing ecosystem
Avoiding disruptions in your communication with customers

Monitor Your Email Engagement Metrics

Going deeper into email engagement metrics opens up a wealth of insights. Monitoring metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates can show what is wrong and point out where your mass emails end up. Consistently low engagement metrics, especially open rates, might indicate that your emails are being filtered into spam folders. Or a sudden drop in open rates might indicate a change in how an ISP categorizes your emails. This method allows for ongoing monitoring, can highlight trends over time, and offers insights into the health of your email marketing efforts.It also aids in A/B testing different email elements to see what resonates best with your audience. You don’t need email deliverability tools to see if your emails are dangerous—just looking at your email marketing app will be enough to prevent deliverability issues with your future emails.

Set Up Feedback Loops with ISPs

Feedback loop information from this source is a goldmine for improving your email content and delivery strategy. It’s invaluable for understanding how recipients perceive your emails. It helps:

Identify problematic practices that might trigger spam filters with every incoming email
Pinpoint specific campaigns or content that may be causing issues
Better segment my audience
Tailor more engaging content and less likely to be marked as spam.
It also allows for targeted improvements

What to Do if Emails Go to Spam

Mark Messages as ‘Not Spam’ to Fix the Issue at the Receiver's End

When your emails end up in the spam folder, it can hurt your:

Sender reputation
Email deliverability

A quick way to fix the issue is to ask your recipients to mark your messages as Not spam. This solution solves the problem at the receiver's end. Once they do that, emails from you won’t end up in their spam inbox.

Add DNS Verification to Improve Email Authentication

When your emails are marked as spam, it’s often due to poor sender reputation or email authentication issues. You can verify your email with the help of DNS records. Two specific DNS records are used to verify email:

1. SPF (stands for Sender Policy Framework) record: Allows domain owners to specify which email servers are authorized to send emails on their behalf.

2. DKIM (stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail) record: Used for signing and verifying the authenticity of emails. It involves adding a digital signature to outgoing emails so that the recipient's email server can verify it.

These records are of TXT type and should be added to your domain's DNS zone.

Don't Forget IP Warming When Changing ISPs

ISPs and Email Service Providers (ESPs) closely monitor the behavior of senders to prevent spam and ensure the deliverability of legitimate emails to users' inboxes. And when you switch ISPs or send emails from a new IP address, you start with a clean slate regarding your sending reputation. A poor sender reputation can lead to your emails being filtered into spam folders or blocked altogether, derailing your email marketing efforts. That's where IP warming steps in.

IP Warming

IP warming helps you build and maintain a good sender reputation for email communications when switching ISPs. It can take several weeks to complete the warming process and gradually increase your email volume to normal levels. You must follow best practices during this period and avoid sudden spikes in email activity, as this can (and most likely will) raise red flags with ISPs. Stay away from cold email blasting because some online guru told you so.

Why IP Warming Is a Must When Changing ISPs

Establishing Trust

ISPs are wary of new IP addresses because they’re often associated with spammers who create new accounts to avoid detection. IP warming allows you to gradually build trust with the (new) ISP by demonstrating responsible and legitimate email-sending practices.

Gradual Ramp-Up

IP warming involves gradually increasing the volume of your email sending over time. By starting with a small volume of emails and then slowly increasing it, you show ISPs that you’re a legitimate sender with actual recipients.

Monitoring And Adaptation

During the IP warming process, you closely monitor your email performance and adjust your sending practices accordingly. If issues pop up — such as high bounce rates or spam complaints — you can identify and address them before your email sending volume hits full capacity.

Avoiding Blacklisting

Sending a large volume of emails from a new IP address without warming it up can trigger spam filters and lead to your IP being blacklisted. Once your IP is blacklisted, it becomes challenging to get emails delivered to users of that ISP, and it can take a considerable amount of time and effort to restore your sender reputation.

Maintaining Deliverability

You need a good sender reputation to maintain high deliverability rates and ensure that your emails reach your recipients' inboxes.

How To Do IP Warming Right

Assess your sending history: Before switching ISPs, review your email sending history with the previous ISP. Identify your average email volume and engagement metrics like:

Open rates
Click-through rates
Bounce rates
Spam complaints

This information will serve as a baseline for your IP warming plan.

Avoid Purchased Lists

Never use purchased or rented email lists, as they often contain stale or low-quality addresses that can harm your IP reputation.

Clean Your Email List

Before starting the warming process, ensure your email list is up-to-date and cleaned of invalid or inactive email addresses to avoid high bounce rates.

Create A Warming Plan

Develop a comprehensive warming plan that outlines the schedule for gradually increasing your email sending volume over time. This will be subject to changes in real-time as you start sending emails. The duration and specific volume increments will depend on your sending history and email list size.

Authenticate Your Emails

Implement authentication mechanisms like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to improve deliverability and show ISPs that you are a legitimate sender.

Start With Low Volume

Begin by sending emails to a small portion of your list, like 5%-10%. Choose your most engaged subscribers for the initial sends. This might include those who have recently interacted with your emails or have a history of opening and clicking on your messages.

Monitor Performance

During the warming process, monitor your email performance metrics closely. Pay special attention to bounce rates and spam complaints. This data will help you assess the health of your sender reputation.

Gradually Increase Volume

As your performance metrics remain stable and positive, gradually increase the volume of emails you send. This increase should follow the warming plan you created earlier. You increase the volume by 10% - 20 % every few days, but the exact increments will depend on your circumstances. The warming process usually takes 4-6 weeks to complete.

Segment Your Email List

As you increase sending volume, segment your email list based on engagement levels. Send to the most active and responsive segments before moving on to less engaged list members.

Watch Out For Red Flags

Be alert for any signs of deliverability issues during the warming process. If you notice a sudden drop in engagement or a spike in spam complaints or bounces, it may indicate a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

Warm Up Each Campaign Type

If you have different types of email campaigns, warm up each type individually. These include:

Newsletters
Promotional offers
Transactional emails

Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

Inframail revolutionizes cold email infrastructure with unlimited inboxes at a single flat rate. With our Microsoft-backed deliverability and dedicated IP addresses, we help agencies, recruiters, and SDRs scale their outreach efforts efficiently. Unlike traditional providers that charge per inbox, Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects. Whether you're an agency looking to scale outreach, a recruiter connecting with candidates, or an SDR driving sales, Inframail provides a robust email infrastructure without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs.

Say Goodbye to Cold Email Deliverability Headaches

With Inframail, you can stop worrying about deliverability issues and cold email performance. Our service comes with automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setups to ensure your emails arrive safely inside inboxes. Inframail also provides dedicated email servers for each user to boost deliverability rates further. 16-hour daily priority support guarantees help whenever you need it.

Buy Domains and Start Email Setup Today

Cold email success begins with a healthy email infrastructure. Inframail helps you build yours today. With our email infrastructure tool, you can start buying domains and setting up your email infrastructure immediately. Forget waiting for traditional providers to provision additional inboxes. With Inframail, you’ll have unlimited inboxes to scale your cold email efforts without delays.

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam & What To Do Next

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam & What To Do Next

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam & What To Do Next

Table of Contents

Why Should You Care about Not Going to the Spam Folder?

Spam Filters

Protect Your Sender Reputation to Improve Email Deliverability

Sender Reputation

Stay Out of Spam to Improve Your Email Marketing ROI

Technical Know-How

Improve Communication by Staying Out of the Spam Folder

Audience Engagement

Related Reading

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

Connection Cut

Inbox Placement

How to Test Email Deliverability Before Sending a Campaign

Seed Lists: A Smart Way to Test Deliverability

A/B Testing

Inbox Placement Testing Services

Use Email Deliverability Tools

Check Email Blacklists Regularly

Email Hygiene

Monitor Your Email Engagement Metrics

Set Up Feedback Loops with ISPs

Related Reading

What to Do if Emails Go to Spam

Mark Messages as ‘Not Spam’ to Fix the Issue at the Receiver's End

Add DNS Verification to Improve Email Authentication

Don't Forget IP Warming When Changing ISPs

IP Warming

Why IP Warming Is a Must When Changing ISPs

Establishing Trust

Gradual Ramp-Up

Monitoring And Adaptation

Avoiding Blacklisting

Maintaining Deliverability

How To Do IP Warming Right

Avoid Purchased Lists

Clean Your Email List

Create A Warming Plan

Authenticate Your Emails

Start With Low Volume

Monitor Performance

Gradually Increase Volume

Segment Your Email List

Watch Out For Red Flags

Warm Up Each Campaign Type

Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

Say Goodbye to Cold Email Deliverability Headaches

Buy Domains and Start Email Setup Today

Related Reading

Table of Contents

Why Should You Care about Not Going to the Spam Folder?

Spam Filters

Protect Your Sender Reputation to Improve Email Deliverability

Sender Reputation

Stay Out of Spam to Improve Your Email Marketing ROI

Technical Know-How

Improve Communication by Staying Out of the Spam Folder

Audience Engagement

Related Reading

How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

Connection Cut

Inbox Placement

How to Test Email Deliverability Before Sending a Campaign

Seed Lists: A Smart Way to Test Deliverability

A/B Testing

Inbox Placement Testing Services

Use Email Deliverability Tools

Check Email Blacklists Regularly

Email Hygiene

Monitor Your Email Engagement Metrics

Set Up Feedback Loops with ISPs

Related Reading

What to Do if Emails Go to Spam

Mark Messages as ‘Not Spam’ to Fix the Issue at the Receiver's End

Add DNS Verification to Improve Email Authentication

Don't Forget IP Warming When Changing ISPs

IP Warming