Dear email enthusiasts, we salute the dedication you pour into crafting your email marketing masterpieces. From ideation to copywriting, design, coding, and the meticulous operational details—it’s a journey that demands substantial effort. However, despite your hard work, the sad reality is that nearly 70% of emails exhibit at least one spam-related issue, jeopardizing their chances of gracing the coveted inbox. 😭
Email deliverability, a complex and technical terrain, poses challenges. While some best practices can enhance your deliverability (and please, let’s steer clear of purchasing email lists!), pinpointing the exact missteps can be elusive. Among the myriad factors influencing deliverability, spam traps emerge as one of the most significant and enigmatic hurdles.
Decoding Spam Traps
What exactly is a spam trap? These traps, strategically employed by inbox providers and blocklist providers, aim to ensnare malicious senders. However, the net often captures legitimate senders with subpar data hygiene or acquisition practices.
A spam trap adopts the appearance of a genuine email address but lacks a real person behind it and serves no communication purpose. Its sole function is to identify spammers and senders neglecting proper list hygiene.
Why Worry About Spam Traps?
If you assume, “I’m not a spammer, so this doesn’t concern me,” think again. 🖐️ You may already be sending emails to spam traps unknowingly. Depending on the trap type, even one on your mailing list can significantly impair your ability to land emails in your subscribers’ inboxes. More on the various trap types shortly.
The bottom line: Whether intentional or inadvertent, sending emails to spam traps brands you as a spammer in the eyes of anti-spam organizations and inbox providers. Your actual status as a spammer becomes irrelevant.
The 3 Culprits: Types of Spam Traps
Not all spam traps are equal offenders, but triggering any of them can harm your deliverability. Keep an eye out for:
Pristine Traps: Concealed email addresses published on public websites, detectable only by those using dubious collection methods like web scraping. If your list includes addresses from web scraping or purchased lists, pristine traps may lurk.
Recycled Traps: Addresses once used by real people, abandoned, and later repurposed as traps by inbox providers. Neglecting to remove bouncing addresses from your list may lead to recycled traps marking you as a misbehaving sender.
Invalid Email Address Traps: Leveraging typos in common domain names (e.g., “gnail” for Gmail) to catch senders. While some typos are unintentional, invalid email addresses should be purged from your list.
How to Evade Spam Traps: 5 Strategies
The key to steering clear of spam traps lies in meticulous email list hygiene. As these traps pinpoint senders with irresponsible list-building techniques, public trap lists aren’t available. To evade them, scrutinize your list quality:
Manage Inactive Subscribers: Spam traps lack typical engagement, like clicks or opens. Actively managing inactive subscribers helps eliminate potential spam traps, particularly those at risk of becoming dead address traps. Run campaigns urging inactive subscribers to reconfirm their interest to identify and filter out potential traps.
Pay Attention to Bounce Notifications: Categorize bounces into hard bounces (invalid addresses) and soft bounces (temporary issues). Remove hard bounces promptly, and monitor soft bounces for potential removal if issues persist.
Adopt Double Opt-In: Switch to a double opt-in list-building strategy to address the root cause of spam traps. This process involves subscribers confirming their subscription through an email verification step. Prioritize engaged subscribers over sheer numbers for enhanced deliverability.
Validate New Email Addresses: Employ an address validation tool to catch typos and nonexistent addresses during enrollment, preventing spam traps or invalid addresses from entering your list accidentally. Regularly assess your deliverability infrastructure, check for blocklists, and ensure domain authentication.
Regular Email List Cleaning: Schedule quarterly email list hygiene sessions to proactively identify and eliminate potential spam traps. Focus on both recent signups and the oldest inactive segments to maintain a fresh and clean email list.
Secure Your Inbox Presence with Litmus Spam Testing
Litmus Spam Testing offers a comprehensive solution to identify and address issues that could relegate your emails to the spam folder. Bid farewell to spam traps and fortify your position in the inbox!
