Spam Testing

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What is spam testing?

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Team Storyly
May 22, 2023
0 min read

What is spam testing?

Spam testing is the process of testing emails to ensure they are delivered to recipients' inboxes instead of being marked as spam or junk mail.

How does spam testing work?

Spam testing works by analyzing various elements of the email, such as the subject line, sender information, and content. Testing process typically involves using spam filters or software programs that simulate the behavior of email providers' spam filters.

Spam testing tools can assess the email's likelihood of being flagged as spam based on specific criteria, such as the use of certain words or phrases, excessive use of capital letters, or a high ratio of images to text.

By performing spam testing, email marketers can identify potential issues with their emails and make necessary adjustments to improve their chances of reaching their intended recipients' inboxes. This can include making changes to the email content, subject line, or sender information to avoid triggering spam filters.

Benefits of spam testing

Spam testing offers numerous benefits that make this process crucial for any email campaign. The following are some of the specific advantages you'll see with a comprehensive spam test:

Increase your deliverability

The most obvious advantage of spam testing is the ability to maximize the deliverability of emails. If inbox providers see that your emails are valid and aren't attempting to spam recipients, your emails will have a better chance of landing in people's inboxes. In the meantime, you'll minimize instances when your emails wind up in spam folders or are blocked altogether.

Minimal complaints of spam

If you neglect to test your emails before sending them, there's a chance that people will mark them as spam, even if it isn't and passes through the spam filter. Spam testing will help make sure your emails only go to those who've subscribed to your emails. It will also make sure you're compliant with all relevant laws and regulations, including the CAN-SPAM Act and many others.

Improved reputation

Through spam testing, you can optimize the quality of your emails, driving more opens, clicks, and general engagement. If inbox providers see that people value your email content, they'll be more likely to enable your emails to reach the intended audience. As such, you'll see an improved reputation among both email providers and recipients.

Together, these benefits make spam testing one of the most important processes for all emails to undergo before sending them out. With the help of spam testing, you'll be able to avoid wasting time on email campaigns that fail to appeal to or even reach recipients.

How to perform a spam test?

Here are the steps to perform a spam test:

  1. Use a spam testing tool: You can use a spam testing tool to check how your emails will perform in different email clients and spam filters. These tools analyze your email content and give you a spam score.
  2. Check your subject line: Your subject line should be clear and relevant to your email content. Avoid using words that are commonly associated with spam, such as "free," "earn money fast," and "act now."
  3. Avoid using all caps or excessive punctuation: Using all caps or excessive punctuation can make your email look like spam. Use proper capitalization and punctuation.
  4. Avoid using too many images: Emails with too many images can trigger spam filters. Use images sparingly and make sure they are relevant to your content.
  5. Provide an easy opt-out option: Make it easy for your subscribers to opt-out of receiving your emails. This will reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.

What to do with the spam test results?

Once you've conducted a spam test using your checker, you can measure the results. The test will clearly indicate areas of improvement to help you determine which steps to take next. You'll see which elements of your emails are flagging spam filters and keeping them from reaching recipients. 

Keep in mind that all filters are different and give emails varying scores to indicate the level of spamminess your emails exhibit. If your emails don't hold up to scrutiny during these initial tests, this indicates your emails are likely to count toward spam. 

Your spam test should give you results according to different spam filters on some of the biggest platforms. For example, you may want to test your emails across platforms such as Yahoo, Gmail, Spam Assassin, Symantec Cloud, and Outlook 2013. If your emails pass all spam tests on each relevant platform, you can then proceed to send your emails to legitimate recipients with confidence.

If your emails appear to be spam to filters, you can optimize your campaigns to perform better. The right tool will help by making recommendations based on the data it collects. You can then build a checklist and go down each item until your emails perform optimally.

Over time, as you build more email campaigns and conduct repeated tests, you'll better determine how to bypass spam filters and streamline your emails' performance. Eventually, you won't need to worry about winding up in spam folders at all if you take the right approach to each email and campaign.

Some specific steps you can take to improve your emails and minimize spamminess include:

  • Balancing images and text content
  • Personalizing emails when possible
  • Avoiding long content
  • Keeping language from coming across as spammy
  • Using a DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signature, which adds a digital signature to all of your emails and enables verification
  • Minimizing bounce rates
  • Shortening URLs in emails
  • Including all necessary information in subject lines, email bodies, and sender names
  • Providing an unsubscribe link for people to opt-out if they want to
  • Eliminating inactive addresses from email lists

The more experience you have optimizing your email campaigns, the easier it will be to do so and keep your emails in the inbox folder.

Use spam tests to get the best results from your emails

Spam tests are invaluable for your campaigns if you want to ensure that your emails reach the right people at the right time. Using the right solutions, you can properly run spam tests and take the right actions to optimize your campaigns.

To find out how Storyly can supplement your email campaigns with engaging web and app Stories, check out our innovative tool today and see what it can do for your marketing efforts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Team Storyly

Group of experts from Storyly's team who writes about their proficiency.