How do I prevent my newsletter from being considered spam?

With Laposta, you have an excellent shipping medium. On the legal and technical front, we do our utmost to deliver your newsletter neatly into the inbox of your contacts.
Unfortunately, you have no guarantee that this will actually happen. The quality of your contact list(s), your subject line, and the content and layout of your newsletter are also important. You are responsible for these components yourself.

Based on a long list of criteria, spam filters determine whether your newsletter is classified as spam. Your newsletter scores points on each criterion; if you have too many points, your newsletter receives the qualification spam.

Each provider and each spam filter uses a different algorithm. This can lead to a newsletter being blocked by one provider but not by another. Tightly calibrated spam filters often mistakenly block newsletters ('false positives').

In addition to spam filters, your contacts can also mark your newsletter as spam. This deteriorates your sending reputation and can cause spam filters to be set even tighter. For your contacts, relevant content and the right frequency are especially important.

24 Tips to Help Prevent Your Newsletter from Being Considered Spam

First and foremost: to give the recipient extra assurance about the sender and the content of your newsletter, and thus an extra reason to trust the email, it is important to authenticate your domain. This is good for the deliverability of your newsletters.

In the tips below, we show you what else you can do besides that authentication. The principle at the center of all these tips is: be honest, transparent, and careful. 'Don't act like a spammer, otherwise you'll be treated like a spammer.'

This is what you should definitely do

1. Only send newsletters to 'good contacts'

Legally, you may only send newsletters to existing customers and/or contacts who have explicitly given permission in advance.

2. Ensure a good subject line

Do not unnecessarily use capital letters, spaces, or strange characters. Avoid excessive punctuation. Avoid spam-triggering words such as free, discount, test, or benefit. Preferably do not start your subject with the word 'newsletter'; if you want to include this word, it is better to start with other words. Also, read our tips on writing a good subject line.

3. Use an organizational email address as the sender

Make it clear at once who the newsletter is from. Therefore, send your newsletters from your own domain name and not from a private or webmail address.

4. Ensure good content

Make your newsletter interesting and varied. Avoid flat sales pitches. Also, read these tips: What are good topics for my newsletter.

5. Specify your message; consider using segments

Customize the content of your newsletter for your different target groups. You can place these different target groups in segments and approach them specifically. You can also use conditional content to provide your contacts only the content that aligns with their wishes or interests.

6. Avoid spam-sensitive topics

Do not pay attention or very little attention to typical spam topics such as porn, viagra, drugs, casino, debts, medicines, and medical treatments.

7. Include sufficient text in your newsletter

A low text/image ratio scores negatively with spam filters. The guideline is one paragraph of text per image. Never send only
images. Or proportionally much too large images. This also applies to images where you have placed text because you liked the formatting of a paragraph; spam filters think differently about that.

8. Use 'normal' punctuation in your texts

Do not unnecessarily use capital letters, spaces, punctuation, or strange characters in your newsletter either.
Do not write: Come to the OPENING OF OUR NEW OFFICE!! Just like with the subject of a newsletter, you do not want a newsletter full of unnecessary capital letters. That's exactly what spammers do.

9. Write correct Dutch

Do not make unnecessary spelling errors. Otherwise, it looks just like an automatically and poorly translated text from a spammer. 

10. Personalize your newsletter

Put a personalized salutation (Dear Jan, Dear Mr. Van Klink) at the top of your newsletter. This way, your contact immediately sees that this newsletter is truly meant only for them, and you also vary in your subject in a mass mail. You can easily personalize your newsletter in Laposta by adding contact variables; here you can read how to personalize the content of your newsletter.

11. Reference your own website

Always link to your own website in your newsletter. This way, your contact gets confirmation that this newsletter is from you or your organization. Do not use literal links, you can read more about this here.

12. Include your contact details

Mention your business details in your newsletter. Organizations usually do this at the bottom of the newsletter, in the so-called footer. Below this, you can place your text that clearly indicates how your contacts can unsubscribe from your newsletter.

13. Ask contacts to add your sender address to their address book

If your contacts add your sender address to their address book, your newsletter will not end up in a spam folder for those contacts. It contributes to the recognition of your newsletter. Add this line above or below your newsletter by default: 'Add info@mijnbedrijf.nl to your list of safe senders.'

14. Test your newsletter

See if and how your newsletter arrives in various email programs, particularly in Outlook, Hotmail, and Gmail. Note: if you test a newsletter with a sender address that is the same as the address (or the domain name in the address) that the test receives, your newsletter is more likely to be considered spam. You may contact your own IT department to make an adjustment in your spam filter.

Don't do (10)

Now that you know what you should do, we also address what you really shouldn't do. These may seem like open doors based on the above list, but we can emphasize this enough. 

15. Never send newsletters to 'bad contacts'

Comply with the law. Do not send newsletters to purchased or borrowed email addresses. Also, do not collect email addresses via the internet ('scraping'). You simply may not send newsletters to these contacts with our program. 

16. Do not import significantly outdated contact lists

The vast majority of your contacts will have a new or different email address. Or may not be a real contact of yours at all. Therefore, do not use significantly outdated contact lists. Using these leads to a low acceptance and high unsubscribe rate. This will deteriorate your sending reputation.

17. Do not create new lists for every new newsletter

Avoid accidentally sending newsletters to unsubscribed contacts and contacts that have led to a hard bounce. Therefore, do not constantly create new lists to resend to those unsubscribes. If you want to update your contact list because you want to automatically remove old customers from your list, then empty your list and import your current contact file; the contacts that unsubscribed or led to a hard bounce will remain preserved and excluded from sending. You can read more about this here.

18. Do not send newsletters to dozens of email addresses from the same company

Want to send an internal newsletter? Then contact your IT department so that the spam filter can be adjusted accordingly. If you send a newsletter to many contacts from the same company, with the same kind of email address (containing the same domain name), spam filters may consider this an 'attack'. Does this company also use general email addresses to reach multiple contacts?

19. Do not mention a direct URL

Write in your newsletter: 'Visit our website' and place your link behind it. Do not use literal links, as you also read here.

20. Do not place an extremely large image at the top of your newsletter

Keep in mind the amount of text in your newsletter. Ensure a good text/image ratio.

21. Never tamper with the unsubscribe link

Do not remove it. Do not shrink it. Do not make it invisible. And do not place a hundred blank lines between your last text line and the unsubscribe link. Did you know that this unsubscribe link is actually very useful?

22. Do not write a disclaimer at the bottom of your newsletter

Do not write that your newsletter complies with all spam requirements. This is something spam messages actually do.

23. Do not send too often and too much

Ensure the right frequency. Prevent your contacts from labeling your newsletter as junk mail. You probably also do not want to be inundated with newsletters.

24. Prevent sloppy use of HTML

Are you importing a newsletter or an HTML template yourself? Then really avoid sloppy use of HTML! Be careful with your HTML codes and definitely do not use unnecessary tags.