Anchor Computer

In 2011, more than 70% of worldwide email traffic was spam. As spam filters become more efficient at keeping our inboxes clean, an alarming 20% of legitimate email marketing messages are being blocked in error.

Are your email marketing messages making the cut?

Incorporating the best practices below can help improve your inbox deliverability and reduce the number of emails being blocked from ever reaching your contacts.  Simply put, better inbox deliverability means improved email marketing performance.  Reach more contacts and increase your email opens, clicks and overall response.

Here are 6 best practices you can use today to prevent spam filter blocking:

1. Short, relevant and enticing perform best for subject lines.

The goal of your subject line is to entice recipients to open.   Including a specific offer in your subject line works well, however, most email programs will only display 5-8 words or 60 characters (including spaces).  Anything longer will be cut off and not viewable.   Also, it is very important to avoid spammy words or symbols. For example:  multiple exclamation marks, multiple dollar signs, Affordable, Apply Now, Dear Friend, Free, Save $ and many others.

2. Keep email creatives at a maximum of 600-650 pixels wide.

Designing emails with a width of 650 pixels or under is best practice.  Anything over 650-700 may have your recipients scrolling around to read your message. This is especially true as 52% email recipients reportedly view emails from their email program’s preview pane (ClickZ). It is recommended that you keep key content towards the top of your message, logos left aligned, and calls to action above the fold (or within the top 300 pixels).

3. Avoid using “spammy” words in body content. 

In addition to your subject lines, spam filters are also screening the content of your email.  Try to avoid using common spam triggers, like ALL CAPS, multiple exclamation points!!!, and the words “Save,” “Free,” and “$,”.  Some additional words you may not want to include are “Dear,” “Click here,” “ Affordable,” “Dear Friend,” and many others.  Avoid taking a chance and run your email through a spam-testing tool before you send it out.  You may be surprised at what may seem to be a commonly used word, is actually getting your emails marked as spam.

4. Use images in moderation.

Using one large image, in place of text, is an old trick spammers use to get spam words passed the filters. It is best to use a majority of text in your email messages and keep text/image ratios high to avoid getting your emails blocked.

5. Ask to be added to your contacts “safe-senders” list.

To ensure your email subscribers receive your email, ask them to add your email address to their safe-sender list or  “whitelist” you. There is a good chance that email subscribers never receive your emails because their spam filters blocked your message.  Asking them to add you to their “safe-senders” list may help stay you connected.

6.  Your images will most likely be blocked.

ALWAYS use alt image tags to avoid sending blank emails.  If your email subscribers receive a blank message from you or tiny red x’s, they may be alarmed and hit the spam button.  It is best to never include important information or calls to actions in images, in case they are blocked.

Email Marketing "Open Rates"

The average email campaign “open rate”  declined by 9% in 2010,  while click rates have increased or remained the same. 

Did you know that “open rates” are not a perfect measure, and some opens may not even be recorded?  If you are using “open rates” to measure the success of your email campaigns, it is important you have a good understanding on how “open rates” are determined and may be affecting your campaign reporting.

Many marketers believe that “open rates” are simply based on the number of emails opened.  This is not the case.  In fact, the definition of email “opens” is the number-one misunderstood and misused metric in the email marketing industry.

What do images have to do with opens?  Image blocking is one of the main factors that affects the accuracy of your “open rate” reporting.  Most email marketing software tracks open rates by adding a tiny gif (image) to every HTML message sent.  When the email is opened, this image is downloaded from the web server and reports back that an open has occurred for that reader.  However, recording an “open” can only happen if the reader’s email software can display/download images.

In order to cut back on spam, email mailbox programs and free web mail providers such as AOL and Gmail, block images by default and prompt readers to choose whether or not they want to download the images for each email they receive.  This means readers can still read your email messages without viewing images and therefore, opens are not accurately reported.  Image blocking has had a major effect on how legitimate marketers measure campaign open rates.

Email preview panes, another factor to consider that is affecting your open rate accuracy.

Many of your readers may use an email client that has a preview pane, such as Outlook and Gmail.  A preview pane allows your emails to be displayed and will download images automatically.  This will register as an opened email, without the reader to ever have to read or click on it.

What’s the bottom line? Although “open rates” are not 100% accurate, the metric can still be a good measurement for tracking campaign responsiveness when used in combination with other metrics – especially click-thrus.

Using the “open rate” as a general metric will help determine changes in regular campaign activity when a rise or fall occurs. For example, when AOL decided to disable images for all customers who receive emails on AOL.com,  marketers saw a significant drop in their open rates which alerted them a change had occurred and allowed them to differentiate a change in the campaigns render rates – not an overall drop in campaign success!

Be proactive in getting images viewed! Increase open rate accuracy and deliverability by asking your readers to add your from address to their address book.  If your from address is in the address book, your images will automatically display!  This may also help keep spam complaints low and increase your chances of being Whitelisted!