Avoid SPAM Filters

Overview

Email service providers (ESPs) often have strict rules in place to protect their users from unwanted or undesirable email messages. These "SPAM Blockers" can result in your emails bouncing and never reaching your intended audience. The strategies below can help you improve the delivery rates for the emails you send through Apollo.

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Email Deliverability Best Practices

At a high level, there are 2 primary causes for email bounces and ESPs marking emails as SPAM:

1. Domain Reputation
2. Email Content and Formatting

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Domain Reputation

For a better chance of avoiding SPAM blocked emails, use the tips below to configure your Apollo settings.

Set Up the SPF, DMARC, and DKIM for Your Sending Domains

White labeling your domain improves your deliverability and ISP reputation. Follow the Google Developer guide below for additional information.

• Publish an SPF record
• Publish a DMARC policy
• Authenticate your email with DKIM

It's important to remember that SPAM blockers are common and it is normal and expected that your domain may be flagged for SPAM on occasion. If you have already configured SPF, DMARC and DKIM and your domains are flagged for SPAM, you can consider implementing the following options:

Set Up a New Domain

This domain should be different than the primary sending domain and you should only use it to send marketing emails. Additionally, this requires you to create new mailboxes from this domain and add and replace them in Apollo for each user profile. For more information about how to connect mailboxes to Apollo, see the "Link Your Mailbox to Apollo.io" article.

Set Up a New Tracking Domain

A tracking domain is a secondary (or sub) domain name related to your original domain that allows Apollo to redirect a tracking pixel added to emails to track opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.

Tracking pixels are normally flagged as SPAM. Tracking domains redirect the attention of the email from your main domain and will help with deliverability.

Connect Apollo to a SendGrid Account

SendGrid is a mass emailing service that uses its own email servers. It also replaces the tracking URLs and directs them to SendGrid servers to resolve deliverability issues. If you connect your Apollo account to SendGrid, you do not need to configure a Tracking Subdomain because SendGrid manages your tracking links on their end. For additional information, please see the "SendGrid Integration Overview" article.

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Email Content and Formatting

• Remove Links from the Body of Your Email: SPAM filters look for links, especially in first-contact emails. Your signature is scanned for links as well. Make sure you've removed links from your signature as well as in the body of your emails.
• Remove Images from the Body of Your Email: Images or attachments, especially in first-contact emails, can activate SPAM blockers and cause bounces. Remove these assets and stick to text. Save your images and attachments for Step 3 or later in sequences once you've sent a few other emails. As with links, even images in your signature can cause issues.
• Don't Apply Special Formatting to Your Text: Simply put, SPAM blockers scan for formatted text. Avoid using different colors, fonts, bolding, italicization, and underlining.
• Keep Your Paragraphs Concise: Lengthy content can activate SPAM blockers or even cause bounces. Keep your wording simple and to the point.
• Avoid Words that Trigger SPAM Filters: SPAM filters have evolved considerably in the past few years, and as such, there isn't a shortlist of words to avoid. In general, try to communicate in a professional, personable way and avoid words and phrases that sound suspicious, urgent, or needy. This Hubspot article provides a comprehensive list of words or phrases that you should avoid. As a best practice, ask yourself if the email you intend to send is one you would want to receive yourself.
• A/B Test Your Messaging: Always test out your messaging to find what results in the highest engagement. You can A/B test in Apollo to try multiple versions of a similar message. If you find one version is blocked at a higher rate, you can look at the differences in your messaging to try to understand the cause.

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Additional Considerations

While the measures listed below are not required, following their guidance may help to limit bounces and SPAM blocking for the emails you send through Apollo.

• Include an Unsubscribe Link in Your Email Signature: Apollo allows you to use whatever text/phrase you'd prefer in an opt-out link and automatically adds the link with your signature on all of the emails you send through the platform. Research shows that recipients are far more likely to use an unsubscribe link instead of marking your emails as SPAM. Marking your emails as SPAM can affect your overall sending reputation and is, therefore, a much worse outcome.

• Deactivate Click Tracking: Click tracking manipulates links in emails, which SPAM filters can sometimes detect. Disable this feature if you're having issues by deactivating it in each user's profile. For additional information, please see the "Click Tracking in Apollo" article.

  

• Update Apollo Send Limits in the app. Head to Settings, click You, and then click the Mailboxes tab. Click the appropriate mailbox and amend the sending limits in the daily/hourly fields.

  

• Deactivate Open Tracking: The same technology for open and click tracking is usually very sensitive to filters in email servers. This makes them more susceptible to SPAM blockers. If this is something you've struggled with and you have followed the instructions provided above as best practice, you may want to consider disabling open tracking. For additional information, please see the "Open Tracking Overview" article.

  

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