Tips and Best Practices for Email Marketing: How to keep your emails out of Spam and Promotional Folders

Quick Note: This serves to confirm that all of ShinePages' system-generated transactional emails have SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) configured and enabled.

The location or folder where your email will be received by the end user is determined at the end-user's email client level, meaning the particular email system and settings of each of your respective subscribers.

Before getting to the heart of tips on how to improve deliverability, make sure you have verified your business email's domain on Shine pages and set up your CNAME and TXT DNS records with your email domain host/registrar correctly.  Click here for instructions on verifying your domain for email sending.

Tips and best practices for email marketing deliverability:

If you have clicked "Connect to Email Marketing" and selected an Email List within the "Settings" of any FORM, QUIZ, BOOKING, MEMBERSHIP or CHECKOUT widget on your pages, please know that any visitor filling out this form will not only become a "Contact" within your system but now also a "Subscriber" and thus eligible to receive emails.  In essence you are "opting them in" when you click "connect to email marketing" and select a List.  

To ensure that people KNOW that they are being subscribed to an email list when they fill out a form, complete a booking, make a purchase, etc. we recommend adding verbiage to the page (near the form itself) that lets them know this in advance.  SUBSCRIBERS NEED TO GIVE YOU THEIR CONSENT AND AGREE TO RECEIVE EMAILS FROM YOU.  

You can create your own verbiage for this "notification".  Here are a few examples: 

-"By entering your info, you’ll not only get your quiz results sent directly to your email, you'll also get exclusive access to FREE tips, trainings and information that I send with 💗 periodically to my email community. Unsubscribe anytime in a click. You also agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy."  

-"Yes! I want to receive this Free Download and I understand I may also receive periodic emails as a consenting subscriber of this email list. I may unsubscribe at any time using the link in the bottom of any emails."

-"By providing this contact information you give YOURBUSINESS express written authorization to contact you via email, text or other messaging technology to discuss new updates and share additional services or products provided."

2) Use Your Thank-You Pages to Boost Deliverability

Add a note on all of your "Thank you" pages that asks your subscribers to check ALL folders ie. Spam, Junk & Promotional folders in their email and ADD LANGUAGE to the page that asks them to "white-list" your emails/your email address by dragging and moving your email into their "Primary Inbox Tab" and/or adding your email address as a "Contact" or "safe sender" in their system. 

See below screenshot as an example:

3) Encourage Early Engagement to Train Inbox Algorithms

Incentivize the subscribers on your website to actually open the email being sent and move it to their primary in-box folder by offering something of value that your ideal client actually wants - ie: some valuable, jaw-dropping offer or free resource. 

Get them to interact with the email by clicking on a Call To Action button or link ("free download") included within the 1st email sent.  This should help with any future emails landing in their Inbox 

Include in this 1st email a request for them to add you as a contact AND a quick note to ask them to "drag and move this email into your primary inbox tab!" (see video below)

Another tip is asking them to reply to your email by asking them a specific question or saying something like “Did you find your free download helpful? Reply to let me know!"

See below examples:

4) Avoid Spam-Triggering Words in Your Subject Lines

5) Keep Your Email Lists Clean, Verified, and Ethical

It should go without saying that you should not purchase email lists, or use "old" or outdated email lists without cleaning them and verifying the addresses. The likelihood of getting bounces and being marked as Spam with these type of email lists is extremely high and will get your account flagged and/or shut off completely.  You may want to use an email verification service regularly to keep your lists clean and updated, especially since it's estimated that mailing lists degrade at a rate of 22.5% per year. We suggest using email verification tools like: https://www.usebouncer.com/email-verification/

6.) Use Double Opt-In For A More Engaged, Higher-Quality List

Finally - we always recommend turning ON the "Double Opt-In" option when you "Connect to Email Marketing" within any marketing-focused opt-in forms on your site. This will require your contacts to click a confirmation button within a system-generated email they'll receive (after filling out your form) before they will be considered "Subscribers" on your email list.

While yes, this does require an extra step on the part of your Contact - the payoff could be considered worth it when you have a list full of engaged Subscribers that TRULY want to be a part of your email lists. 

Your open rates will be higher, your bounce rates lower and the chance of someone marking your emails as spam will be much lower as well. :)  

A NOTE ABOUT THE GMAIL "PROMOTIONS" TAB: *

Gmail sorts incoming messages to the Primary Inbox, Promotions tab, Social tab, and any other folders subscribers have set up. Google has a very advanced algorithm that manages this sorting, and it's impossible to trick it. If you are sending bulk emails, Gmail will almost certainly put your messages in the Promotions tab.

Only 1 in 5 Gmail users use the Promotions tab, and of those, about 60% check it daily. Most studies show that the Promotions tab has almost no impact on lowering open rates overall. For some industries, it can actually boost those rates.

However, if you want to try to influence the algorithm so that Gmail places your campaigns in a subscriber’s primary inbox, there are a few things you can try. However, note that the following tips are not a guarantee that your email will be sorted to the Primary Inbox.

• Remove all images from your emails
• Personalize your campaigns as much as possible. This can be done by inserting personalization tags into your email copy. To learn more, visit the “Personalization tags” help article
• Remove promotional language
• Make sure the “Reply to” and “From” email addresses are the same
• Ask your subscribers to move your email from the Promotions tab to their Primary Inbox. Gmail is more likely to place your campaigns in the Primary Inbox moving forward. This is because Gmail pays attention to how each subscriber interacts with your emails

*Source: ActiveCampaign Help Center  

Note that ALL major email marketing platforms (Kit, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc.) provide the same advice and there is unfortunately no one "magic bullet" to avoid the Promotions tab.