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Spam Complaints: What They Are And How They Affect You

Robb_P
Employee

In my previous post, I discussed List Reviews and Account Reviews.  As a quick refresher, List Reviews come about only due to list size, whereas Account Review are due to a specific issue that Compliance would like to discuss with a customer.  One of those issue are elevated spam complaints.

 

What are spam complaints?

 

Most major email providers (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) provide a button that allows a user to report an email as spam to that provider.  This is usually at the top of the page and says something to the effect of “Mark as Spam”.

 

If an email sent through Constant Contact is marked as spam, it is reported back to us and is accounted for in the reporting for the campaign.

 

Why are spam complaints problematic?

 

Put simply:  The more spam reports that we receive, the harder it is for us to deliver our mail.  If mail providers see that Constant Contact mail generates high complaints, then they may decide to do any number of things.  This can range from limiting the amount of mail we can deliver to them at any one time or even outright blocking Constant Contact mail altogether.  As you can imagine, this has a major impact on everyone who uses our service.

 

There is a threshold we follow that dictates an “acceptable” amount of spam complaints, and that is just 0.10%.  That’s just one complaint per one thousand emails sent!

 

What can I do to avoid spam complaints?

 

It all begins with permission.  If the contacts on your list take an action to give you explicit permission (such as on a sign up sheet or an online opt in form), then you’ve already taken a big step in avoiding complaints.  Other factors such as sending frequency (don’t send too little, but not too much either), proper branding (make sure they know who sent them the email), and sending relevant information also play a part.

 

Still Have Questions?

 

We have resources in our Knowledge base to help you understand and reduce spam reports.  We also have an Account Review team who can answer any additional questions.

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