Email Content Best Practices - How to Prevent Spam

There are 3 aspects of email sending which can contribute to email messages getting logged as SPAM. A description of each aspect and guidance is provided below.

1. Mail Service Provider (MSP) Settings
2. Sender Details
3. Message Details and Content

Mail Service Provider (MSP) Settings

Your integrated MSP with Gnosis is SendGrid; we also refer to SendGrid as your First-Class Email service. At a minimum, one staff person will have been set up with access to your organization's SendGrid account. Other staff may be granted access if requested.

When we initially set up your system with email, we coordinated with you to update your internet domain settings (DNS) to give SendGrid permission to send "from" your domain. Unless changes have been made to the domain settings of your organization's website, there should be no interrupts in the settings for your email service. If desired, you may contact [e-mail] to confirm that your DNS settings remain as verified within SendGrid.

For more information on using SendGrid generally, see SendGrid Email Guide.

Sender Details

To prevent triggering a SPAM filter (the filter process that runs of everyone's mailbox to stop SPAM from entering the inbox), the email domain of the Sender's Email Address must always match the domain assigned to your organization's website.

Message Details and Content

The text included in your messages can also trigger SPAM filters. The best practices below will help your messages reach their recipients.

Subject Line Don'ts

• Don't use Long text (try to keep less than 50 characters)
• Don't use all capitals
• Don't use exclamation marks
• Don't use dollar signs
• Don't use trigger words (Find an extensive example listing here.)
• Don't forget to proofread!

Email Body Best Practices

• Proofread! Too many errors will trigger SPAM
• Ensure the message content lines up with the subject and not a different topic
• Use button links in preference to text links when possible
• Resize large images to an email appropriate size (ex. height/width no larger than 300px)
• The area used for text should be at least as large as the area used for images.
• Place text in the email as text, not as an image depicting text.

Find more details on email best practices provided by Gravitec.net.