If you send email campaigns long enough, you will inevitably run into spam filter issues. You can expect 10-20% of your emails to just get lost in cyberspace, mostly due to overzealous spam filters. You don’t have to be a spammer to be spam-filtered. Innocent email marketers who send permission-based emails to people who requested them get spam-filtered all the time.

What can you do to improve your company’s e-mail marketing results? Here are some tips to boost e-mail deliverability.

1. Use professional email services

Always use a hosted e-mail service. Examples of these email services include Exact Target, Silverpop, Digital Street, Vertical Response and Mail Chimp.

These companies are recognized as CAN-SPAM compliant and work with the major ISPs like AOL, Yahoo, MSN, and HotMail to ensure emails sent do not get marked as Spam.

They automatically offer your recipients the chance to unsubscribe from your list, automate a variety of tasks related to e-mail marketing and even help to improve your e-mail marketing results by providing reports on the number of recipients who opened the e-mail and clicked on the links contained in it.

Never send out emails from your personal email program on your computer. There are legality rules and regulations that need to be adhered to when sending out an email and these professional companies stay on top of the legal so you don’t get in trouble.

2. Use a double opt-in approach

When setting up an opt-in mailing list and asking users to sign up to receive your e-mails chose a double opt-in approach. When a user signs up to receive email from you send them an email with a confirmation link on it they must click on to confirm their subscription prior to adding them to your list. This will help to weed out those who signed up impulsively and make it less probably they will mark you as Spam because they have forgotten they signed up.

Also at this time it is best to ask your recipient to add the email address you are sending from to there ‘whitelist’ to avoid getting caught in their Spam filter. Make sure you send your emails from this same address moving forward.

3. Use templates and be consistent

When creating email messaging, develop a series of templates to use for your emails. By keeping your templates simple and consistent and allowing for a combination of text and graphics within your email, Spam filters are less likely to pick you up.

4. Watch your subject lines and email copy

Frequently, more sophisticated anti-spam methods used by ISPs use a “point system” that identifies trigger phrases commonly used by Spam. If an email goes over the “points” it is filtered out, and is never delivered to a customer.

Some of the more commonly used phrases that ISPs and mail clients filter out include:

• Free!
• 50% off!
• Click Here
• Call now!
• Subscribe
• Earn $
• Discount!
• Eliminate Debt
• Double your income
• You’re a Winner!
• Reverses Aging
• “Hidden”
• Information you requested
• “Stop” or “Stops”
• Lose Weight
• Multi level Marketing
• Million Dollars
• Opportunity
• Compare
• Removes
• Collect
• Amazing
• Cash Bonus
• Promise You
• Credit
• Loans
• Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Serious Cash
• Search Engine Listings

There are other problematic phrases that can trigger some Spam filters, or start adding “Spam points” to emails sent out, and should be avoided. These include:

• Act Now!
• All New
• All Natural
• Avoid Bankruptcy
• As Seen On…
• Buy Direct
• Casino
• Cash
• Consolidate Your Debt
• Special Promotion
• Easy Terms
• Get Paid
• Guarantee, Guaranteed
• Great offer
• Give it away, Giving it away
• Join millions
• Meet Singles
• MLM
• No cost, No fees
• Offer
• One time
• Online pharmacy
• Online marketing
• Order Now
• Please Read
• Don’t Delete
• Save up to
• Time limited
• Unsecured debt or credit
• Vacation
• Viagra
• Visit our web site
• While Supplies last
• Why pay more?
• Winner
• Work at home
• You’ve been selected

5. More than just words

Using quotation marks, dollar signs and exclamation points in subject lines will frequently trigger mail filters, as well as using all capital letters (shouting). You should also never put a toll-free number in the subject line, since that will also cause your email to be filtered out by many Spam filters. And never use a font size larger than 2+, or you could trigger some Spam filters.

6. Run your email through the test

Most email services allow you to run your e-mail marketing messages through a Spam filter to determine whether ISP and user content filters will reject your message.

7. Make sure your email message is something the reader wants

Write your e-mail marketing messages as though they were being sent to a single person rather than a list. Make the information relevant to your audience and intimate in your conversation. Avoid general sales pitches when possible. Similarly, encourage the recipients to interact in some way – through surveys and forms – so that you can continue to send messages that appeal to your readers.

8. Segment and target your message

Sending your e-mails in smaller groups as opposed to large volumes helps to avoid Spam filters. It also goes inline with messaging appropriately to your audience. Begin by segmenting your lists into smaller lists based on the content that is important to your audience and then communicate to each list in their own element. You will find you send out more communication, but to a smaller group of people that are more interested in what you have to say.

9. Unsubscribe and Contact Information

Every email you send out should contain a way for the reader to unsubscribe. Not doing so is illegal in some countries and is an instant sign of spamming. You should also display your contact information (Phone, Fax and Address) clearly, as this greatly increases confidence in your email and your company, as well as conforms to spam laws in the United States. Contact information also allows a potential customer to contact you if need be.

10. Test,Test, Test

The key to avoiding spam filters is testing. The first method of testing is to send the email to multiple email accounts with existing spam filters such as gmail, yahoo and hotmail. If the newsletter ends up in the junk folder, then you have need to read through these tips again to see if there is anything you can improve on.

Spam is a never-ending battle for the ISPs and they will always have more filters and stronger walls that even permission-based email marketing will need to overcome. Keeping your emails as honest and upfront about your company or services to the reader is the best way to be accepted. By using these tips as a guide in your email communication you can increase the delivery rate of your emails, and also your open and click thru rates as well as your conversions.