As the number and variety of tools we use in digital marketing increases, we have also realized the importance of a tool we have traditionally used for a long time; e-mail marketing.

The most important issue we had to deal with in the past regarding e-mail marketing, which has now taken a fundamental place among modern digital marketing tools, was SPAM. In other words, the e-mails we sent were somehow perceived as unwanted and ultimately prevented from reaching the end consumer.

In e-mail marketing, along with the change in the way the relationship between consumers and brands is established, our traditional bulk e-mail protocols and the methods of delivering this content to the end user have also changed.

What is spam and does it have a negative impact on email marketing?

When you think about it in terms of e-mail marketing, SPAM usually defines e-mails that are not personalized, are intended to reach a very large audience at the same time, and are generally not requested by the user.

It would not be wrong to say that, the most important thing that defines an e-mail as SPAM is the e-mails that are not requested by the recipient.

Although today’s email service providers (ESPs) have put a lot of thought into filtering and blocking these, spamming has not completely disappeared and has adapted to today by changing and transforming like many other things.

How do service providers try to combat spam? 

Almost all of us have ESPs such as Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo, which are often free or have a subscription fee, they have strict policies to protect those who use their systems from SPAM.

The first method ESPs use to detect spam is content analysis. This involves scanning the content of e-mails for certain keywords, suspicious looking links and other risky content.

Another thing ESPs monitor is the reputation of the IP address and domain from which the email is sent. An e-mail from an IP address or domain extension with a bad reputation is more likely to be marked as SPAM. 

Although you don’t see this side of the system today, ESPs do a lot of analytics tracking underneath the systems we use to send and read e-mails. These metrics include email opening rates, time spent in the e-mail, and the rate of clicking on a link in the e-mail, and the evaluation of these rates themselves are important criteria that affect the sender's reputation.

Some of the authentication protocols of ESPs

Despite these measures developed by ESPs, spammers are constantly looking for the necessary methods to bypass these filters and reach end user accounts, and they are trying to keep this war alive by developing new strategies.

The ESP you use have associated your email addresses with you more than you think today. It is inevitable for ESPs to take some precautions in risky situations by verifying identities with authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

  • SPF is a protocol that prevents servers from perceiving an e-mail you send as SPAM, an SPF TXT is added to the DNS record.
  • DKIM is a protocol developed to prevent email forgery. It helps to prevent e-mails from reaching the inbox of the recipient and to inform the e-mail server that the emails received are legitimate.
  • DMARC is a protocol that allows you to inform what to do when you receive an e-mail whose identity cannot be verified when scanned by SPF or DKIM.

What is the inbox rate and why does an e-mail end up in the spam folder?

It would not be wrong to say that, the most critical metric in e-mail marketing is the inbox rate.

This is the percentage of an e-mail sent by someone that successfully reaches the inbox, not the spam folder, which we can also define as a gray area in the email box. Inbox rate is defined as the percentage of e-mails that successfully reach the recipient's inbox, not the spam folder.

Inbox rate is a critical metric in email marketing and shows the percentage of emails that successfully reach the recipient's inbox, not the spam folder.
Why does an email you send end up in the spam folder?

  • Permission to send an e-mail may not have been obtained.
  • Overly promotional language may have been used.
  • Too many external links in the e-mail.
  • The e-mail was sent from a blacklisted IP address / domain.
  • Due to low interaction with the sender and the high number of unsubscribe requests, the ESP may detect that you do not want to receive the email.
  • The sender's identity may not have been verified.

These factors are important keys for digital communicators doing e-mail marketing to improve the strategies they follow to avoid spam filters.

How does spam affect email marketing?

SPAM activities have been around for a long time in e-mail marketing and despite the high potential for return, it is a method that carries its own risks.

E-mail campaigns are a great way to reduce costs and expand reach in marketing activities, but only if you can avoid SPAM filters. For this reason people-who-are-spammers are constantly developing better targeting tactics and trying to send more personalized e-mails.

Spamming seems a profitable method in digital marketing; but only in short term. In addition to damaging brand reputation, it carries risks such as blacklisting of the domain by ESPs with penalties foreseen under regulations such as CAN-SPAM and GDPR. 

This should provide us with the necessary motivation to focus on more specific audiences and quality content instead of fast and widespread ones when doing email marketing.

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E-mail marketing is a dynamic and, frankly, niche area within today’s digital marketing activities. Spamming is still a controversial topic in many circles, but it is still a method included in marketing strategies.

We all want to achieve long-term success in what we do and to have balanced communication between our solution partners. Therefore, correctly understanding the current status of spam policies, the mechanism by which the sent e-mail lands in the inbox, and what defines an e-mail as SPAM are among the things we need to learn in order to both increase our performance in e-mail marketing and reduce the complexity of the job.

Although spam has a negative connotation primarily due to its literal meaning and perception, the existence of the mechanism and its adaptability are also a factor that triggers the evolution of digital marketing tactics. What is important here seems to be the behaviors of businesses in their e-mail marketing approaches and their ability to stay within ethical boundaries while creating their campaigns…