Email Question

[Mark A]

Hi chaps,

Is there any way I can prevent emails I send from going into the recipient's Spam folder? I spent an hour creating various email accounts (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) to test and the results are hit-and-miss... Gmail and Yahoo worked fine. Hotmail decided the emails were junk.

The email in question is simple text and a Hyperlink to a website. Basic editing of the text has been applied (colour, bold/italics, text size etc).

Any advice would be very much appreciated! :-D

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Mark A]

I forgot to mention I found the website below earlier, but it's all gobbledygook to me...

http://serverfault.com/questions/48428/ ... ed-as-spam

 

[Chrispy]

Are you using the subject box, quite often it gets rejected if there's no subject.

 

[Mark A]

Are you using the subject box, quite often it gets rejected if there's no subject.

Yep.

 

[Woodchips2]

Hi Mark
It could be down to the default setting for the e-mail account. It may be set up to put any e-mails that are not from the contacts folder direct to junk so you have to mark them as 'safe'. I usually check the junk folder to make sure everything is junk before I clear the folder.
Regards Keith

 

[CHJ]

Are you sending 'bulk' mail, is it being seen as spam because of multiple copies to multiple recipients?

For bulk mail shots it's normally best sent from a dedicated domain name with proper SPF certificates in place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework

That at least will prove it's a genuine source, although content may still trigger spam filters somewhere down the line.

 

[Myfordman]

Mark
From the way you describe the email it sounds just like a spam mail.
Study the typical mail structure that does get through ISP spam filters and emulate those.
Eg lots of plain text with no emotive words and a single web link.

 

[mseries]

it might be more successful if it's not html/enriched text. You have no idea what the intended recipients are doing regarding email filtering so you need to make your message as simple as possible.

 

[Mark A]

Hi chaps,

Thanks for the replies so far. I'll try what's been suggested and report back.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[CHJ]

...... I spent an hour creating various email accounts (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) to test and the results are hit-and-miss... Gmail and Yahoo worked fine. Hotmail decided the emails were junk......

I suspect the three mail systems you quote are considered as 'throw away accounts' (anybody can sign up to them) by many systems and will be prone to get a higher spam score for starters.

As I understand it mail coming from a registered domain name, (owner traceable) with correct SPF records is considered safer until reported and proved guilty by actions and gets put on a blacklist.

Have you put YOUR e-mail account names that you are using into Google to see if they come up on a spam listing.
If you continue to use a mail address that keeps getting rejected then sooner or later I suspect it will appear on a spam listing.

See this for instance. https://www.google.co.uk/#q=lisaklopfen ... 0yahoo.com

 

[whiskywill]

I don't get any problems with outgoing mail but if a friend, who works for Western Power Distribution, a well known and respectable company , sends me anything it always ends up in my junk e-mail folder no matter how many times I mark it as "safe".

I assume it must be something to do with the sender's settings because most other genuine messages get through to me with just very few getting junked.

 

[Mark A]

Hi chaps,

Apologies for the late reply.

The purpose for the emails is canvassing, so they really must be filtered into the recipient's inbox if the emails are to have any effect.

I've been trying again this evening with some brand new email accounts (Hotmail, Google, Yahoo) and still emails are being sorted into junk folders, even if they are the sole recipient. Ideally I would use BCC and message multiple companies and organisations at once.

The email address in question I'm using was recently set up exclusively for canvassing, so no results come back when the it's typed into Google.

The mail client (or is it email host?) I use is 1&1 Webmail if that has any significance.


Thanks Chas - I'll check out the SPF thing in the morning.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[RogerP]

The purpose for the emails is canvassing,

With respect that would appear to be just the sort of thing that's normally considered junk!

I'd expect it to be consigned to the junk folder on my machines and if it somehow got through I'd be a bit miffed.
So even if it could be configured to bypass my filters I'd not look on it or its originators kindly and that wouldn't help sales.

However, in the spirit of experimentation and testing, if you'd like a guinea pig PM me and I'll let you have my email address

 

[CHJ]

+1 To Rogers Reply.

I would fully expect that sort of mail to be blocked on route or at the very worst redirected to a junk email folder or flagged as spam if it got through.

That's exactly the way I expect my mail to be filtered and set up by default.

It sounds like mail that has not been asked for, it's tantamount to cold calling on the 'phone.

I currently get mail from a couple of sources that I do subscribe to that don't get the message when told, the clever individual sending certain 'clever' mailshots from them gets dumped every time. Presume somebody thinks that the individual is great because they have several dozen web links and sent out by a fancy proxy server system.

 

[Robbo3]

Mark, you may also be sued by the recipient(s).
Scroll down to Court Cases/United Kingdom
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamming

 

[Mark A]

Mark, you may also be sued by the recipient(s).
Scroll down to Court Cases/United Kingdom
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamming

I won't be bombarding people with 7,258 messages per week!

It's very targeted canvassing I have in mind, which I'm pretty sure will be of interest to the recipients.

Don't worry, I'm not flogging penis enhancement drugs!

 

[Mark A]

Roger and Chas:

I'll expand on what I mentioned above.

Currently our main form of advertising is through our website, and although that's going well we would like to expand more into the corporate sector.

I intend to target a very specific market, which I'm certain will appreciate the effort. That's the whole point of it after all!

Roger - I'd like to take you up on that offer. I'll PM you tomorrow :mrgreen:

Cheers,
Mark