Reach Customers Online

I host my own email newsletter. How do I avoid being labelled as spam?

Please note that I have written additional articles on the topic of email newsletters: How To Code HTML Newsletters, Do-It-Yourself Email Newsletters For Businesses, and Are Websites Over-rated? A $500 website and email strategy. Thanks for visiting!

Start first with your newsletter publication. Make sure that all of your email addresses have been acquired through double opt-in (your visitor signs up on your website, receives an email confirmation, then clicks on a link or visits your site to confirm their subscription). Make sure you include unsubscribe information prominently on your website and each newsletter. If someone requests to be removed, remove them and confirm that they have been removed.

Next, you should make sure the content of your newsletter is useful to your readers and that the title (the From address and the first part of the Subject line) are the same for every email. This will help your readers recognize your emails. You also should include at the top of each newsletter a message that reminds the reader how they subscribed and where your unsubscribe information is located (usually at the bottom of the email).

You also should create test accounts at any ISP used by your subscribers. For example, set up email accounts at Hotmail, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Earthlink, and elsewhere then add those email addresses to a test list. Before you send each newsletter, be sure to send it through your test list then check those email addresses to confirm receipt.

If you have subscribers from AOL, be sure you understand how these readers can whitelist your emails. AOL 8.0, for example, allows their users to designate email senders as trusted senders. It’s a small button on the interface, and not so obvious. However, if you have lots of AOL readers, and they’re important to you, then you might send them special instructions.

Finally, if your list grows large enough, and you think your risk has increased for being blacklisted as spam, then I suggest you migrate to an ASP (application service provider) solution. A good email ASP will actively work to ensure their clients are on whitelists and off blacklists maintained by key ISPs. They will also have a quarantine policy that prevents you and other customers from emailing their publications directly. While it is a hassle to wait a few hours to have your publication sent, it does insure that a neutral human being confirms that your publication and others are not spam.

Bottomline, you are the first line of defense against being labelled as spam. Make sure your publications are consistent and easy to unsubscribe from. If you host your own email newsletter on a shared webserver, and your messages are blocked, you might be affected by the activities of others who share your space. If that happens, or you just want to get the best attention, consider using a reputable email ASP.

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