Can't Figure Out Why Our Emails Goes to Spam

[Anonymous]

We found out that over the last few months, majority of our emails are going into spam. We are trying to figure out the core issue(s) of why emails are not making it to Inbox.Is there any way for us to figure out what the CORE issue(s) are when it comes to email deliverability?

We have tried many different solutions and no matter what we do, it keeps going into spam. We’ve edit our email copy to sending just a few sentences, no matter what, it goes into spam. We checked by creating new accounts on Outlook, AOL, Yahoo, and Gmail, and all of them either makes it into spam or gets blocked by the email provider.

We are trying to find the CORE reason why this is happening and what we can do to remedy this. Any suggestions, tools, and tips would be helpful. Thanks!

[Dan_Stevens_]

This is a loaded question - one that presents a challenge for many of us trying to ensure our emails are making it into the user's inbox.  We're pretty much in the same boat as you (we're a technology company that markets to B2B companies around the world).  Unfortunately, it's more difficult than ever.  Sometimes, regardless of what best practices you employ, a company with very strict spam/phishing filters can (and do) block ALL emails when it sees that it's being sent from an email service provider/marketing automation platform.  Aside from asking the company to whitelist your sender domain, there's not much you can do.  Here are some existing threads that you might find useful:

• How do you make your email deliverability unstoppable?
• Monitoring Email Deliverability: Bounces - Part I
• Monitoring Email Deliverability: Unengaged Users – Part II
• Monitoring Email Deliverability: Troubleshooting High Bounce Rates – Part III
• Monitoring Email Deliverability: Troubleshooting Spam Blocks – Part IV
• Email Deliverablity, Spam, Blacklisting, etc.
• Now that ABM is such a large focus for many marketers, how are you operationally emailing everyone e...
• Why You Should Never Send Sales Emails With Marketo - Salesfolk (some valid info here - including the comments, but also some scare tactics since they offer a service that somewhat competes with other MA platforms).
• http://blog.teknkl.com/more-nonsense-about-spf-from-people-who-should-know-better/ http://blog.teknkl.com/a-dkim-brain-teaser-with-a-meatworld-prize-2/
• http://blog.teknkl.com/your-marketo-spf-entry-doesnt-matter-unless-youre-paying-extra/
• http://blog.teknkl.com/big-companies-still-dont-know-how-to-use-spf-2/
• http://blog.teknkl.com/a-shared-dkim-key-sounds-legit/

It's also worth mentioning that Marketo has its own deliverability team.  If something doesn't seem right, open up a ticket with Support and ask to connect with that team.

[Anonymous]

Hi Amy,

Yeah, we have the same issue.  Especially frustrating if your target base is B2C, but we find some in our B2B list as well.  Spam blocks on these ISP's check ip addresses as one of their filters.  If you're on a shared Marketo server, there's a chance that someone may have gotten the IP address you're sharing blacklisted.  I believe Marketo does rotate through IPs but still get blacklisted.  I'm still trying to find ways around it so hopefully someone has a solution.

-Jeffrey

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. So here's what I'm seeing:

1. Within Postmaster Tool, it shows we have had bad reputation for the last 30 days. There wasn't any spike in spam rate, and we verified our SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are implemented correctly.

2. Ran a report on GlockApp and a lot of it shows either as most went to spam or they got marked as undelivered.

However, when I research site such as barracuda central, sender score, sender base, etc. There's no mention of our IP or domain being bad or blacklist. Yet when we conducted actual test to Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, and AOL, we found out they all go into spam.

Is there any way we can figure out if our IP Address or Domain is the issue?