How to Avoid Spam Filters: Best Practices for Cold Emailing

Sending cold emails is a crucial part of lead generation, but nothing is more frustrating than your emails landing in spam folders. Email deliverability is a constant challenge, and spam filters are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Understanding how to avoid these filters is key to ensuring your messages reach your target audience.

In this post, we’ll walk through the best practices to help your cold emails avoid spam filters and land in the inbox.

1. Avoid Spam Trigger Words

Using certain words in your email's subject line or body can trigger spam filters, reducing your email’s chances of reaching the inbox. These "spammy" words often make your email look overly promotional or suspicious.

• Common Spam Trigger Words: "Free," "Act Now," "Risk-Free," "Cash Bonus," "Limited Time Offer," and "Buy Now."

• Better Alternatives: Keep your language natural and focus on value and relevancy. Tools like Twain.ai can help improve the tone, language, and structure of your emails to avoid triggering spam filters. Similarly, Mailmeteor can help you remove spammy words from your content.

Also, avoid using all caps, excessive punctuation (!!!), and phrases that sound too good to be true.

2. Build and Maintain a Good Sender Reputation

Your domain’s reputation plays a huge role in whether your cold emails reach the inbox. A bad sender reputation can lead to your emails being flagged as spam, even if the content is clean.

• Volume Limits: Limit sending to a maximum of 50 emails per day per domain, with 25 of those being cold emails. Keeping your email volume low helps prevent domain reputation issues.

• Warm Up New Domains: Warm up your domains gradually using tools like Instantly, which helps you build a positive sender reputation by gradually increasing your sending volume.

• Use Verified Email Addresses: Always send emails from verified addresses. Tools like Findymail are excellent for finding and verifying email addresses to keep your list clean.

3. Segment Your Audience and Personalize Your Emails

One of the biggest red flags for spam filters is mass emailing irrelevant content. Segmenting your audience and tailoring emails to each segment not only helps avoid spam filters but also improves engagement.

• Use Clay for Segmentation: Platforms like Clay allow you to deeply segment your cold email lists by factors like industry, job role, or company size, ensuring that each email is relevant to the recipient.

• Personalize with Spintax: Use spintax (rotating variations of words or phrases) in your emails to make them more personalized and less predictable for spam filters. This can be as simple as using multiple variations of a greeting or introduction.

4. Avoid Links and Remove All HTML, Including Signatures

Including links or HTML in cold emails, especially in the first touchpoint, can increase the chances of your email being marked as spam. Spam filters often flag emails with hyperlinks or complex formatting as potentially dangerous or promotional.

• Avoid Links in Initial Cold Emails: For cold outreach, especially in the first email, refrain from including links to external websites or resources. Instead, focus on introducing yourself and providing value.

• Remove All HTML: To maximize deliverability, strip out all HTML from your emails, including from your signature. Using plain text emails not only makes your email look more natural but also reduces the risk of being flagged by spam filters.

5. Keep Your Email List Clean and Verified

Sending emails to invalid or unverified addresses can lead to a high bounce rate, which negatively impacts your sender reputation. Always keep your email list clean by verifying addresses and regularly removing inactive or invalid contacts.

• Use Email Verification Tools: Before starting any campaign, use tools like Findymail to verify that your email addresses are accurate and active.

• Monitor Bounce Rates: Aim for a maximum bounce rate of 2% per campaign. If your bounce rate exceeds this, pause the campaign and reverify your list before resuming.

6. Monitor Your Email Deliverability Metrics

Staying on top of your email deliverability metrics is crucial. Monitor your open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints to identify any deliverability issues early on.

• Use Instantly to Track Deliverability: Platforms like Instantly provide real-time analytics, helping you track open rates, bounces, and spam complaints.

• Adapt Based on Performance: If you notice a drop in open rates or a rise in bounces, revisit your email strategy and adjust accordingly to avoid future deliverability issues.

Conclusion

Ensuring your cold emails don’t end up in the spam folder requires a combination of thoughtful content, technical practices, and careful audience targeting. By avoiding spammy words, maintaining a good sender reputation, and keeping your emails relevant, you can significantly improve your chances of reaching the inbox.

Take these steps today to boost your cold email deliverability and drive better engagement. At Advanced Client, we specialize in helping businesses craft email campaigns that avoid spam filters and achieve high response rates. Reach out to us to learn more about our fully managed Done-For-You cold email services.