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After spending hours creating an email marketing campaign, the last thing you want to do is get blocked by your recipients’ spam filters. Luckily, by avoiding common email spam trigger words, you can successfully prevent your emails from getting routed to spam folders.
Not only does spam email marketing betray the trust of customers, but it can also contain malware and viruses. Ultimately, you’ll want to avoid sending spam emails because your customers won’t read them.
Let’s look at what spam trigger words are, what gets emails sent to spam, and which spam words you should avoid when creating your email campaigns.
Spam Trigger Words
Spam trigger words are phrases that email providers flag as fraudulent and malicious. When they identify these emails, they then route them away from recipients’ inboxes. These words and phrases typically overpromise a positive outcome with the goal of getting sensitive information from the recipient.
Spam filters can be triggered for a variety of reasons, causing your email to skip recipients’ inboxes and land straight in their spam inbox. One of the easiest ways to avoid spam filters is by carefully choosing the words you use in your email’s subject line.
Trigger words are known to cause problems and increase the chances of your email getting caught in a spam trap. By avoiding these words in your email subject lines, you can dramatically increase your chances of getting beyond the filters.
Spam trigger words alone aren’t enough to send your email to spam. For instance, if you are offering a 3-for-1 discount sale, you can still advertise that in your emails and not get sent to spam. It’s important to understand all the factors that come into play when emails get identified as spam.
What causes emails to go to spam?
Email providers look for a number of factors when deciding whether to automatically send your emails to spam. If you’ve made it on an email blacklist, that means you’ve repeatedly sent emails to recipients who haven’t signed up for your email list.
Your emails can get sent to spam if you:
- Don’t include an unsubscribe button in your email: It’s best to give recipients the option to opt-out of emails. Provide an unsubscribe link.
- Send poorly-designed emails with broken or glitchy code: Poorly-designed emails create an unpleasant reading experience. Readers will regret opening your note in the first place if the format is hard to read and the design doesn’t render properly.
- Address your recipient by “my friend” or “dear” (or not by their name): To get the best results, add a personal touch in the subject line or message to increase your open rate and provide a better customer experience.
- Buy email lists online and mass-send messages to email addresses that don’t exist (resulting in a high bounce rate): Not only do the recipients not know you, you could quickly ruin your IP reputation and put your email deliverability at risk. If you do business in Europe, buying email lists could also be a violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which requires explicit permission from your contacts to send them emails.
- Use all-caps text and extreme punctuation (!!!!! or ?????): Many spam detecting software will automatically register emails formatted in all-caps as spam. It also doesn’t help to look like you’re shouting at the reader.
- Include strangely formatted fonts (𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘): Similar to using all-caps, weird fonts are more difficult to read and are likely to trigger spam detecting software.
- Provide links to fraudulent websites: This should be obvious, but never link to fraudulent websites in your emails. It’s harmful to your contacts and undermines your credibility.
Now that you know what not to do, let’s go over some best practices to ensure your emails steer clear of spam folders.
How to Become a High-Reputation Email Sender
Email providers only want to deliver emails from high-reputation senders. To be a high-reputation sender, do the following:
- Include an unsubscribe button: Communication is a two-way street. Ensure your contacts can opt-out if they choose by placing an unsubscribe link in your email.
- Design your emails with clean code using a tool such as Marketing Hub: Take the guesswork out of designing emails. With these tools, your emails will open glitch-free every time.
- Personalize your emails with the recipient’s first name: 71% of consumers expect email personalization. Address them by name and watch as your open rates improve.
- Only email those who’ve subscribed to your email list: If you don’t have any, you should learn to naturally increase your email list subscribers.
- Keep your email deliverability high: Doing the tasks above will improve deliverability but you should also make sure you are compliant with the legal guidelines in your region. Most marketing software is compliant with web laws but if you’re handling email in-house, you’ll want to double check your emails are compliant.
- Keep the text free of odd formatting and extraneous punctuation: Clean and clear copy ensures your note is easy to read and dodges spam detectors.
- Only link out to reputable websites: Only link to reputable sites you trust. After all, your reputation is on the line. Don’t lose credibility by sending your contacts to shady websites.
If you meet these criteria, you can get away with using “classic” email spam words in your subject line and your email. The text surrounding the spam phrase also matters, as does your history as an email sender. If email providers don’t have a reason to mistrust you, they simply won’t.
Email Spam Words to Avoid
When writing your email subject lines, you want to avoid:
- Over-sensationalizing
- Over-promising
- Using strange formatting to “stand out” in the recipient’s inbox
Next time you sit down to write an email subject line, consult the exhaustive list below. In fact, you might want to bookmark this list so you can refer back to it every time you craft an email subject line.
Commerce
- As seen on
- Buy
- Buy direct
- Buying judgments
- Clearance
- Order
- Order status
- Orders shipped by shopper
Personal
- Dig up dirt on friends
- Meet singles
- Score with babes
- XXX
- Near you
Employment
- Additional income
- Be your own boss
- Compete for your business
- Double your
- Earn $
- Earn extra cash
- Earn per week
- Expect to earn
- Extra income
- Home based
- Home employment
- Homebased business
- Income from home
- Make $
- Make money
- Money making
- Online biz opportunity
- Online degree
- Opportunity
- Potential earnings
- University diplomas
- While you sleep
- Work at home
- Work from home
Financial – General
- $$$
- Affordable
- Bargain
- Beneficiary
- Best price
- Big bucks
- Cash
- Cash bonus
- Cashcashcash
- Cents on the dollar
- Cheap
- Check
- Claims
- Collect
- Compare rates
- Cost
- Credit
- Credit bureaus
- Discount
- Earn
- Easy terms
- F r e e
- Fast cash
- For just $XXX
- Hidden assets
- hidden charges
- Income
- Incredible deal
- Insurance
- Investment
- Loans
- Lowest price
- Million dollars
- Money
- Money back
- Mortgage
- Mortgage rates
- No cost
- No fees
- One hundred percent free
- Only $
- Pennies a day
- Price
- Profits
- Pure profit
- Quote
- Refinance
- Save $
- Save big money
- Save up to
- Serious cash
- Subject to credit
- They keep your money — no refund!
- Unsecured credit
- Unsecured debt
- US dollars
- Why pay more?
Financial – Business
- Accept credit cards
- Cards accepted
- Check or money order
- Credit card offers
- Explode your business
- Full refund
- Investment decision
- No credit check
- No hidden Costs
- No investment
- Requires initial investment
- Sent in compliance
- Stock alert
- Stock disclaimer statement
- Stock pick
Financial – Personal
- Avoice bankruptcy
- Calling creditors
- Collect child support
- Consolidate debt and credit
- Consolidate your debt
- Eliminate bad credit
- Eliminate debt
- Financially independent
- Get out of debt
- Get paid
- Lower interest rate
- Lower monthly payment
- Lower your mortgage rate
- Lowest insurance rates
- Pre-approved
- Refinance home
- Social security number
- Your income
General
- Acceptance
- Accordingly
- Avoid
- Chance
- Dormant
- Freedom
- Here
- Hidden
- Home
- Leave
- Lifetime
- Lose
- Maintained
- Medium
- Miracle
- Never
- Passwords
- Problem
- Remove
- Reverses
- Sample
- Satisfaction
- Solution
- Stop
- Success
- Teen
- Wife
Greetings
- Dear [email/friend/somebody]
- Friend
- Hello
Marketing
- Ad
- Auto email removal
- Bulk email
- Click
- Click below
- Click here
- Click to remove
- Direct email
- Direct marketing
- Email harvest
- Email marketing
- Form
- Increase sales
- Increase traffic
- Increase your sales
- Internet market
- Internet marketing
- Marketing
- Marketing solutions
- Mass email
- Member
- Month trial offer
- More Internet Traffic
- Multi level marketing
- Notspam
- One time mailing
- Online marketing
- Open
- Opt in
- Performance
- Removal instructions
- Sale
- Sales
- Search engine listings
- Search engines
- Subscribe
- The following form
- This isn’t junk
- This isn’t spam
- Undisclosed recipient
- Unsubscribe
- Visit our website
- We hate spam
- Web traffic
- Will not believe your eyes
Medical
- Cures baldness
- Diagnostic
- Fast Viagra delivery
- Human growth hormone
- Life insurance
- Lose weight
- Lose weight spam
- Medicine
- No medical exams
- Online pharmacy
- Removes wrinkles
- Reverses aging
- Stop snoring
- Valium
- Viagra
- Vicodin
- Weight loss
- Xanax
Numbers
- #1
- 100% free
- 100% satisfied
- 4U
- 50% off
- Billion
- Billion dollars
- Join millions
- Join millions of Americans
- Million
- One hundred percent guaranteed
- Thousands
Offers
- Being a member
- Billing address
- Call
- Cannot be combined with any other offer
- Confidentially on all orders
- Deal
- Financial freedom
- Gift certificate
- Giving away
- Guarantee
- Have you been turned down?
- If only it were that easy
- Important information regarding
- In accordance with laws
- Long distance phone offer
- Mail in order form
- Message contains
- Name brand
- Nigerian
- No age restrictions
- No catch
- No claim forms
- No disappointment
- No experience
- No gimmick
- No inventory
- No middleman
- No obligation
- No purchase necessary
- No questions asked
- No selling
- No strings attached
- No-obligation
- Not intended
- Obligation
- Off shore
- Offer
- Per day
- Per week
- Priority mail
- Prize
- Prizes
- Produced and sent out
- Reserves the right
- Shopping spree
- Stuff on sale
- Terms and conditions
- The best rates
- They’re just giving it away
- Trial
- Unlimited
- Unsolicited
- Vacation
- Vacation offers
- Warranty
- We honor all
- Weekend getaway
- What are you waiting for?
- Who really wins?
- Win
- Winner
- Winning
- Won
- You are a winner!
- You have been selected
- You’re a Winner!
Calls-to-Action
- Cancel at any time
- Compare
- Copy accurately
- Get
- Give it away
- Print form signature
- Print out and fax
- See for yourself
- Sign up free today
Free
- Free
- Free access
- Free cell phone
- Free consultation
- Free DVD
- Free gift
- Free grant money
- Free hosting
- Free installation
- Free Instant
- Free investment
- Free leads
- Free membership
- Free money
- Free offer
- Free preview
- Free priority mail
- Free quote
- Free sample
- Free trial
- Free website
Descriptions/Adjectives
- All natural
- All new
- Amazing
- Certified
- Congratulations
- Drastically reduced
- Fantastic deal
- For free
- Guaranteed
- It’s effective
- Outstanding values
- Promise you
- Real thing
- Risk free
- Satisfaction guaranteed
Sense of Urgency
- Access
- Act now!
- Apply now
- Apply online
- Call free
- Call now
- Can’t live without
- Do it today
- Don’t delete
- Don’t hesitate
- For instant access
- For Only
- For you
- Get it now
- Get started now
- Great offer
- Info you requested
- Information you requested
- Instant
- Limited time
- New customers only
- Now
- Now only
- Offer expires
- Once in lifetime
- One time
- Only
- Order now
- Order today
- Please read
- Special promotion
- Supplies are limited
- Take action now
- Time limited
- Urgent
- While supplies last
Nouns
- Addresses on CD
- Beverage
- Bonus
- Brand new pager
- Cable converter
- Casino
- Celebrity
- Copy DVDs
- Laser printer
- Legal
- Luxury car
- New domain extensions
- Phone
- Rolex
- Stainless steel
Use Spam Trigger Words Sparingly and Within Context
So long as you use email marketing best practices and use spam trigger words within context, you can bypass spam filters. Spam filters have become much more sophisticated in recent years. Using one or two phrases won’t hurt you, but make sure to only email customers who want to hear from you and to always personalize your emails. Doing so will optimize the results of your campaign and keep you out of spam folders.
Thank you for reading this post from HubSpot.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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