Email marketing, spam: best practice

Gestan can send emails to groups of your contacts. Once you’ve sent more than 100 identical emails to different recipients, this is referred to as a ‘mass mailing’.

To send an email, you need to use an email sending service, which is usually provided either by your internet service provider or by your domain name provider: this is known as the SMTP service, or SMTP server.

It is important to follow a number of rules when sending emails to prevent your recipients from complaining. If you receive too many complaints from your recipients, your SMTP provider may cut off your access to the service.

We therefore strongly recommend that you follow these best practices:

1. “Confirmed Opt-In” : you may only send a message to a private recipient if they have given their prior consent (at least in France and in many other countries). You therefore need a sign-up process that ensures this explicit consent is obtained (usually a sign-up form followed by explicit confirmation from the recipient).
2. Maintaining your mailing list : remove any incorrect addresses from your lists. The higher your error rate, the more your reputation will suffer.
3. “One-Click-Unsubscribe” : Include a link in every message that allows the recipient to unsubscribe, if possible with a single click.
4. Format : If you send HTML emails, include a plain-text section to ensure your messages are readable by all recipients (Gestan does this automatically if your HTML is correctly formatted).
5. Message origin : Specify the location where the recipient subscribed. Example: ‘You are receiving this message because you subscribed to www.votredomaine.fr <http://www.votredomaine.fr>. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, please click here (link).'
6. Message size : ensure you do not send messages that are too large. For a mass mailing, a message of 300 KB is the maximum limit. 100 KB is a reasonable size. If your message contains images, it is best to include them in your messages as links. The same applies to attachments.
7. CNIL registration and collection of personal data : in France, the holding of any personal data file is subject to declaration to the CNIL. It is prohibited to collect personal data without the consent of the person concerned: as such, email tracking is, in theory, not permitted (Gestan does not do this).

Source: codeur.com

1. You’re using a free domain for your email campaigns

Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook and others such as Hotmail are not recommended for your email campaigns. This is because Internet Service Providers (ISPs) reject bulk emails sent from these free domains.

They prefer domain names registered by an individual sender, whom they can trace and whose reputation they can assess.

What can you do? Use your own domain name to create a dedicated email address for your email campaigns. This should look something like: serviceclient@monentreprise.com.

This way, you can build your own sender reputation with ISPs. Not to mention that this practice gives your newsletters a more professional image.

2. You haven’t authenticated your emails

One of the main reasons for spam is the lack of proper authentication. It’s like when you reject a call because you don’t recognise the caller’s number.

There are technologies available to authenticate your emails and improve your deliverability rate. This practice makes your domain appear trustworthy to anti-spam filters. The main email authentication technologies are:

• DKIM (Domain Key Identified Mail): provides an encryption key and a digital signature to verify your emails.
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): checks whether the sender’s IP address is authorised.
• DMARC: you must already be using DKIM and SPF.

If you’re using a custom domain name, you can set up these authentication methods by adding TXT records in your domain’s DNS management panel.

3. You are using words commonly associated with spam

To protect their users from scams, ISPs maintain a list of spam trigger words. Here are a few:

• Cheque
• Free or no charge
• Exceptional offer
• Guarantee
• Increase sales
• Order now
• Risk-free
• Special promotion
• Winner
• Money

Text written entirely in capital letters, exclamation marks and excessive use of emojis, as well as grammatical errors, are also reasons for ending up in the spam folder.

Contact your service provider to find out which words trigger warning flags and make a list of terms to avoid in the subject line.

As a general rule, avoid subject lines that make far-fetched promises or offer exceptional deals. Keep your language measured and factual.

4. Your emails are not HTML-compatible

When you send emails to friends or family, the content is mainly text-based.

As a business, you need to include visuals, animations, one or more call-to-action buttons and other graphic elements to encourage engagement. To do this, you need to write your emails in HTML.

However, you must follow best practice to ensure the design does not become a reason for your emails to end up in the spam folder:

• Use a maximum width of 600 to 800 pixels for your emails.
• Ensure the HTML code is as clear and simple as possible. Avoid JavaScript and Flash, as these are no longer supported by many ISPs.
• Keep the image-to-text ratio low.
• Optimise and reduce the file size of your images.
• Optimise your email for mobile devices using small images and easily readable fonts.

5. Your emails contain too many attachments

Attachments are often used to spread viruses. As such, they trigger alerts in anti-spam filters, particularly ‘.exe’ files.

Your email campaigns must not contain any attachments. If you need to include one, make the document available on your website or via a cloud storage service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

6. Your emails do not include contact details or an unsubscribe link

Physical addresses and unsubscribe buttons help improve the deliverability of your emails. Furthermore, they are essential for managing your brand image.

At the bottom of the page, make sure to clearly state your head office contact details. The same applies to the unsubscribe link. This must be visible at the top or bottom of your message. If you make it difficult to unsubscribe, subscribers will mark you as spam to stop receiving your messages.

7. You’re sending too many emails at once

If you usually send emails to 10,000 subscribers and suddenly increase this to 200,000, you risk triggering ISPs’ anti-spam filters. This sudden spike is seen as unexpected behaviour, or even as a malicious attack.

So, if you’re planning to increase your sending rate, do so gradually to ‘warm up’ your IP address.

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