Avoid Email Spam Filters

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Most internet service providers use tools to distinguish legitimate emails from spam. No spam filter is perfect, so legitimate emails are occasionally delayed or even prevented from reaching their destination. This document provides guidelines to help you create emails that are more likely to reach your prospects and applicants.

Suggestions for successful email delivery

Spam filters are designed to block unwanted, unsolicited email messages from a recipient’s inbox. The following table provides six tips to ensure your emails are not delayed or blocked by a spam filter.

Number	Suggestion
1	Send timely, relevant emails to interested prospects and applicants. Email providers, including Gmail and Yahoo, rate their senders on the percentage of recipients who open emails versus deleting them unread or marking them as spam. Positive ratings increase the likelihood that future messages are delivered to your intended recipients’ inboxes. Consider asking prospects if they wish to continue receiving emails from your school. If too many recipients with the same email provider mark your email messages as spam, then your school’s emails to other recipients who use this provider may be delayed or even blocked from reaching their destination.
2	Enable the unsubscribe option for your marketing emails. Per the CAN-SPAM Act, all marketing emails are required to include an unsubscribe option. The act also requires that marketers include a physical mailing address. You can access the CAN-SPAM Act at https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business. By using the unsubscribe option in Unite, you can avoid sending marketing emails to people who are likely to delete your messages or mark them as spam. For information about how to use the unsubscribe option, refer to Job Aid 5466 About Unite Emails. We recommend always enabling the unsubscribe option for marketing emails, but not for transactional emails. It is up to the you to determine whether an email is marketing or transactional.
3	Use consistent “From” and “Reply to” addresses. Google’s Gmail system filters out messages with different “From” and “Reply to” addresses. Other providers may have a similar policy.
4	Ask recipients to add you to their address book or safe senders list. This helps ensure that interested applicants and prospects receive your emails and enhance your school’s reputation with the email provider. More recipient actions that can help—or hurt—your school’s reputation with email providers and affect delivery include: Positive Opening your email Adding your school to their address book or safe senders list Filing your email (i.e., moving it to another folder) Replying to your email Moving your email from the Junk or Trash box to the Inbox Negative Deleting your email without opening it Moving your email to the Junk or Trash box without opening it Clicking the Spam button
5	Balance images, text, hyperlinks, and line breaks. Emails that contain multiple images, or very large images without much text, can get caught in a spam filter. Numerous line breaks can also trigger a spam alert.
6	Identify images with a description. When you add an image to a Unite email template, remember to enter the image description (also known as alternate or “alt” text). If you link to an image from an external site, the alt text should be included with the source site. Some reasons for this are: Many email browsers and smartphones block images, so the description gives the recipient an idea of what the image contains. Alt text supports accessibility for recipients who use screen readers.

Email characteristics that can resemble spam

The following table provides a list of attributes to limit or avoid so that your email messages do not resemble spam.

Number	Spam Characteristic
1	Limit use of exclamation marks, dollar signs, or other excessive punctuation, especially in the subject line.
2	Avoid using all capital letters.
3	Avoid using non-standard font sizes.
4	Limit use of red text, excessive use of underlining, and bold face.
5	Limit use of words that trigger spam filters. These words vary among email providers and are frequently updated. Examples include acceptance, apply now, click here, deposit, free, opportunity, password, win, congratulations.
6	Avoid lengthy messages with a lot of text and few or no paragraph breaks.
7	Avoid using a large or disproportionate number of images compared to the amount of text in your email. For example, if your message has one large image with graphic text embedded in the image and only one line of text, the email is more likely to be delayed or identified as spam. According to Pardot, a company that works with Salesforce.com, the recommended maximum text-to-image ratio is 60/40.
8	Avoid a large number of hyperlinks compared to the amount of text in your email. We recommend that you limit the number of different hyperlinked domains in a single email message.
9	When including hyperlinks, avoid using URL shorteners, such as Bit.ly or Tiny URL. Spammers often use URL shortening tools to hide their identities. Therefore, it is best to use the full link.
10	Avoid using excessive blank lines, words with gaps, or repeated words.
11	Limit use of email attachments.
12	Avoid messy HTML code. When copying and pasting text, remember to use the Clean formatting icon. Microsoft Word and other word processers often add extra HTML code. Although this code does not appear in the email body, it is visible in the HTML view and can cause an email to be flagged as spam.

Job Aid 5465