Common Spam Words
There are many common spam words and phrases that will increase the chances of being filtered as spam. This list grows, changes, and can vary from system to system. Email text should use clear, meaningful messages without a lot of buzzwords, as these are likely to be the same words used by spammers and can thus prevent successful delivery of emails. Here is a sample of some common buzzwords to avoid:
- Free
- $$$
- Cash
- Discount
- Price
- Winner
Images
Having a large number of images in the message will also increase its spam rating, especially if there is no textual content to the message. Most filters will assume this is an attempt to prevent the message from being filtered based on text and will therefore block the message.
Odd fonts, spacing, or characters
We advise not to use the following:
- Widely varying font sizes
- Multiple character sets (such as including both English and Chinese characters)
- Spaces between every letter of words
- Excessive punctuation
- Special characters
These are all methods that have been used to try to fool spam filters and thus have become triggers themselves.
Email Lists
We recommend using double opt-in lists if you can as those are typically higher quality and ensure respondents not only opted in to receive your emails, but they were sent an email to again confirm they want to receive emails.
Clean lists as often as you can. Every time you run a mailing with a list make sure you clean that list between email broadcasts to keep the list up to date.
Updated 3/7/2023
