Few things can be more infuriating for an email marketer than to find that their messages are ending up in SPAM folders rather than customer inboxes. As consumers have grown more aware of cyber security, SPAM filters have become more impenetrable and are causing headaches for email marketing campaigns everywhere. However, there are ways for marketers to improve their chances of reaching the coveted inbox without being tossed aside as SPAM, according to Business 2 Community.

Before the days of SPAM filtering, marketing campaigns functioned by blindly sending messages to any name on an email contact list in the hope that consumers will see them. These days, things are different, Business 2 Community explained. Marketers now need to constantly update their contact lists with new names in order to avoid sending message to inactive subscribers and developing a bad reputation with internet service providers (ISPs). It also is ineffective to send emails to accounts that are either rarely used or de-registered.

Testing message deliverability is essential
Once marketers have ensured they are sending to active accounts and are verified in the eyes of the ISP, Business 2 Community recommended that the next best option is to test whether an email will make it past SPAM filters. Before launching a major campaign, businesses should try a variety of platforms to ensure that their message gets through. Without adequate testing, countless resources could go to waste as thousands of emails never reach their destinations.

Business 2 Community suggested that avoiding major SPAM trigger words is another way for businesses to maximize the deliverability of their messages. Eye-catching words such as “billion” and “solution” were just some of the many triggers that sent otherwise innocuous messages into the SPAM bin. By making some minor adjustments to subject lines and email content, marketers could see a lot more of their emails reaching their desired destinations.

Tabbed inboxes create a new set of challenges for marketers
With the recent addition of Google’s tabbed inbox, promotional emails are instantly lumped together in a secondary folder, which gets read much less frequently than the main page. According to KissMetrics, gaining access to the primary inbox is one of the most sought-after privileges in today’s email marketing landscape. Most campaigns try to implement keywords such as “SMS” and “attachment” to reach the main box, while others try to get users to change their Gmail settings to circumvent the promotional tab.