Why Are my Emails Going to Junk Mail in Outlook?

If you’re running your very own email marketing campaign, then likely you won’t find many things that can frustrate you more than your campaign providing bad results. All that effort and time might seem like a waste at first. This can be due to different reasons but the one we will be addressing here is junk mail. More specifically your emails, or that of your campaign, are going to junk mail, and for this instance we’ll address the Outlook platform.

As you might be aware your open rate is one of the key metrics that you need to follow. However, if your campaign s having a dry streak, so to speak, this means a very low open rate. It might be because most of your emails are being classified as junk mail. Without more information you can safely say that a low open rate just means your subscribers are not opening your emails.

However, for the sake of our argument let’s take into account the first case mentioned. Now this leads to the question, why are my emails going to junk mail in Outlook?

This can be caused by several issues.

Why are my emails going to junk mail in Outlook?

Your subject line is preventing engagement.

Remember that your subject line is the first impression your subscribers get from your emails. Paying the right amount of attention to how your craft your subject line can make a huge difference in your open rate alone.

Now days, your subject line is no longer determinant when it comes to spam filters. It is, however, very determinant for your readers and subscribers. For instance, if your subscribers just aren’t engaged with your emails, they won’t open them. If this situation continues, some email platforms might take the initiative and just move your emails to the junk mail or the spam folder. Having a good and enticing subject line can make a great difference in your open rate and the performance of your campaign.

As a way to solve this you might want to start personalizing your emails to be more attentive to your recipients. This not only drastically lessens the risk of ending up in the spam folder due to lack of engagement, but it’s beneficial to your campaign as well. Did you know that personalized emails are 26% more likely to be opened?

If you’re still not sure how to resolve this issue in particular we can recommend a great article devoted to guide you in creating the perfect email.

Your emails are being reported as spam.

Almost everybody goes through this at some point and to be honest it is quite awful. Every now and then some subscriber might decide to mark your emails as spam. This just happens, and it is why you should always keep an eye on your subscribers and their behavior.

Your ISP is tracking any spam complains as well, this is something to keep present at all times. And as you know and fear, this is very likely to affect the deliverability of future email marketing campaigns. Luckily for you there are a few ways to avoid being labeled as spam.

• Only send emails to those addresses who have provided consent. Spam complaints and email deletions are much more likely to happen when people don’t want to receive your emails. Avoid this by asking permission to send emails to an address. This not only means more safety but that the actual person is expecting your emails and is more engaged than otherwise.
• Make sure that your content is relevant. If a person receives your emails and decides that the content of it is plain and simple irrelevant, that person is likely to simply delete your email. If this keep on happening that person will be keeping your emails with the other junk mail almost indefinitely. This is why segmenting your email list is very important for the success of your campaign. For more information on this last bit we can recommend you our article, you can read about segmenting your email list.
• Let your recipients know who you are. This can be a reason why people just delete an email. People often mistake actual valid email for spam, when they don’t know who sent the email. By using your brand logo and actually putting your name and position in the company, you can protect yourself from this. Not only that, this also generates more confidence in your brand and more engagement in your subscribers.

Your emails might be breaking a rule.

After the evolution of the emailing system and the awareness generated in recent years. There are rules placed for the protection of every person and the proper use of the internet. More particularly these rules relate to spam email and your emails. Every country has them and while they can vary from place to place there is a common ground to them all.

For instance, in the U.S these regulations are known as the CAN-SPAM act. These rules apply for every business that wants to contact customers, or potential ones, over email.

One of such rules is that you have to provide your actual physical address, or that of your business, in every email. Your customers and subscribers need to know who you are and where your business is. There are also penalties for providing false information.

By not following these rules your emails might simply be deleted automatically and end up with the junk mail. This does happen more than you might think and right now people running email marketing campaigns should be aware of this.

Your emails aren’t being opened.

Remember that your ISP keeps track of the engagement of your recipients and the opening of your emails. Your ISP also keeps an eye for every email that is deleted or archived. This in time leads them to do these things automatically.

For instance, if a person deletes every email that comes from a particular address. The email system might actually start deleting emails from that address as soon as they arrive to the person’s mailbox.

This only adds more importance to keeping your subscribers as engaged as possible. A good idea, as mentioned, would be to segment your email list. Avoid low open rates that not only affect your campaign’s performance but that actually waste your effort and time by sending emails only to have them be placed with the junk mail.

Your email list is out dated.

This can sometimes be the case with companies that run email marketing campaigns every few years. Having a list full of deleted or inactive addresses can be very damaging to your campaign. Not only is the effort, time and money of the campaign being wasted, but it can actually lead to hard bounces. As you know hard bounces can kill your reputation and drastically damage the performance of your email marketing campaign.

Keep a clean list at all times, this is done by using a good service to help you verify every address in the list as quick as possible. It goes without saying that one such services can be found right here.

VerifyBee can help you remove every bad address in your mailing list quickly and efficiently. VerifyBeechecks for typos, defunct addresses and much more. Make sure to always keep a clean and up to date mailing list to stay out of the junk folder.

Conclusion.

Junk mail is everywhere in the internet now days, your job now is to make sure that your emails are not considered as such. Above you’ll find the majority of reasons why emails keep being deleted in the outlook platform. Remember that this issue can range from over active spam filters to, more likely, human error.

By following the tips provided above, you can identify and solve any problem you have with this. And so know you know the more likely reasons your emails keep being delivered as junk mail in outlook.