E-mail health & spam filters

This article will handle all sorts of issues regarding sending emails.

This article will help you trouble shoot all kind of e-mail issues.

It's important to keep in mind that e-mail issues could be on either side. The sending party, or the receiving party, or both.....

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting often starts with a couple of basic tests:

  • Try sending the e-mail to another e-mail. Preferably another domain.
    • Does it arrive there? - Then the issue is probably on the receiving party
    • It's not arriving there either? - Then the issue is probably on the sending party

check the e-mail & domain health on https://mxtoolbox.com/emailhealth

Not just your own e-mail, but also the recipient e-mail since the issue can be on either side!

  • in case of errors, involve your IT administrator and make sure that things such as:
    • DMARC policy is enabled
    • SMTP (no open relay)
    • DNS records are in order
    • SPF record

Useful links on this topic:


Subject line and e-mail body remarks


If the e-mail is "Healthy", we need to look at the subject and the body of the e-mail templates.

In both the subject line and body of an email, there are certain words, phrases, and characters that can cause it to be sent to the spam folder. One instance may not be enough to cause the email to be filtered, but the more you have throughout your campaign, the greater the chances:

  • Words - "free," "guarantee," "opportunity," "earn," "million," "Viagra,","miracle," "click," "winner," etc.
  • Phrases -  "be amazed," "your income," "subject to credit approval," "earn xxxx per week," "check or money order," "print out and fax," "call now," "act now," "free trial," "meet singles," etc.
  • Uppercase - Writing in ALL CAPS
  • Punctuation - Excessive use of ...,  !!!, and ???
  • Links - Excessive use of "click here," very long URLs, or links that direct to problematic websites
  • Symbols - Excessive use of $$, %, and other symbols