This article explains what spam is, the types of spam, how spam filters work, and how spam thresholds impact email sending.
Definition of Spam
Spam is any email sent to a recipient who hasn't given you direct and explicit permission to contact them on the topic of the email you are sending.
Spam can occur when recipients report emails as spam or when spam filters automatically flag messages, both of which can impact your account.
If you haven't read the CAN-SPAM Act, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with its rules and regulations before starting your next email campaign.
Types of Spam
There are two kinds of spam that you need to know the difference between:
- Marked spam: When a recipient marks an email as spam and asks for it to be removed from their inbox
- Automatic spam: When an email is identified as spam by an email server spam filter and is moved directly to the junk or spam folder
How spam filters affect email delivery
Depending on the email server and its spam filters, legitimate emails can be delivered to a junk/spam box by accident. Accidental deliveries like this happen because an email trips a spam filter, other recipients have marked similar emails as spam, or because your message is often deleted without reading.
The difficulty is that how different spam filters work is kept hidden. This is beneficial because it keeps problematic spammers at bay. The challenge is that it makes it difficult to tell when your emails could automatically be flagged as spam.
To prevent automatic spam, a good place to start is to follow best practices for sending emails and tips for content to avoid spam.
A note on spam and opens
A tiny image is included in every email to help track when an email is opened. An email is counted as "opened" when the recipient chooses to view images.
Recipients who believe an email is spam often do not view images. As a result, a recipient may report an email as spam without it being recorded as opened.
How spam thresholds impact email sending
A threshold is a percentage based on the number of spam complaints against your account compared to the total number of emails sent.
The industry standard across many email marketing platforms is 1 out of 1,000 emails, or 0.1%.
- If one out of every 1,000 recipients marks an email as spam, your ability to send email from your AMS+ account may be impacted
- If you send fewer than 1,000 emails, only one spam complaint may reach the threshold
For more information, see the article on Email thresholds and disabled sending in AMS+.