In the wild world of emailing, it’s easy to feel like you're herding digital cats. Between trying to avoid the dreaded spam folder and keeping your audience from hitting “unsubscribe” faster than they can read “Dear [First Name],” it’s a balancing act that even the best jugglers would admire. But fear not! With the right set up, you can keep your emails relevant, engaging and, most importantly, delivered.

Whether you're sending out a few emails or launching a new Outreach Campaign, following these simple (but crucial) tips can make the difference between inbox hero and email zero.

Watch our popular Email Deliverability for Recruiters webinar here, and then continue reading below for a deep dive!

If you fire off emails to random people without a plan, don’t be surprised when your messages get labeled as spam. For recipients on Gmail, one of the most common email providers, the spam threshold is so low that quality is more important than ever. Let's use an example sending 100 emails to recipients with Gmail addresses.

A thoughtful approach to your email list can be the difference between building authentic relationships and getting banished to the Junk folder. The below proven practices are our best recommendations, based on current market norms, to support you in avoiding the spam filter.

Several key factors can lead to emails being marked as spam:

Spam filters also evaluate email security features and authorization to send from specified domains. By being mindful of these factors, you can ensure your emails are better received.

Want to hear how one Loxo customer turned around terrible deliverability? Watch the video below—he even gives a shoutout to this very article!
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One of the most recent, consequential factors that has emails ending up in spam or email accounts/domains being blacklisted are spikes in the number of outgoing emails. It is recommended to make any changes in your outgoing volume gradually. Conservative approaches suggest no more than 1% daily increases to protect domain health, though up to 10% can be acceptable depending on your current sending reputation.

While the process can be more time consuming, current proven practice is to send bulk emails in smaller batches. If you are working with a brand new domain, the conservative recommendation would be to start with as few as 3 emails per day. You can certainly slowly increase this amount, but ensure that you are not increasing by more than 10% based on the previous day and try to spend 2-3 days sending the same number of emails.

Doing this allows you to establish a consistent sending pattern and gain the trust of your recipients' domain hosts (i.e. Gmail, Outlook, etc.), especially if you are sending from a new domain or an email account with little to no known reputation.

Loxo allows you to personalize your email messaging in a number of ways. The most efficient route is to utilize Person and Job Tags when crafting your emails. These tags will pull personal information for each person based on the information within their profile or from the information you have added to the Job your email is connected to.

You are able to use these tags anywhere within the body of the email to truly personalize and connect with your candidates or potential clients, without spending the time crafting a unique email for each person.

Additionally, proven practice - not only for deliverability, but to also increase the likelihood of people opening your emails - is to personalize the subject line using these tags as well. In order to do this, you will need to copy and paste the tag you would like to use from the body of the email into the subject line:

Check out our podcast below for other tips on subject lines!
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Loxo gives you the ability to add an unsubscribe link, by default, to any Outreach Campaign email that you send, as well as any bulk emails sent to 10 or more people. Spam filters are less likely to mark you as spam if you include an option to opt-out of emails moving forward. An admin can enable these for the account by following the steps below:

Users can then navigate to Settings > My Email > Preferences to customize their unsubscribe message. Just be sure to include the ##{{unsubscribe_link:here}} tag within the message, as this will generate the link that recipients can click.* This merge tag can be seamlessly incorporated into the body of the email or subject line, providing both functionality and user customization to enhance deliverability.

Example:

Once you are satisfied with the unsubscribe link, be sure to select "Save Template."

If needed, admins can also disable the unsubscribe link by toggling the respective setting in Settings > Compliance > Outreach.
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It is, however, recommended to keep this feature enabled to respect recipients' preferences and ensure adherence to compliance standards. By default, Loxo includes unsubscribe links in both Outreach Campaigns and bulk emails sent to more than 10 recipients. However, unsubscribe links are not included in one-to-one individual emails unless manually added. This ensures compliance with proven practices while also providing users with flexibility based on the type of email being sent.

Incorporating A/B testing into your Outreach Campaigns not only allows you to vary your messaging so that your emails will look different to recipient domains, helping to increase overall deliverability, but it also enables you to test which messaging is leading to better engagement with your prospects.

Whether you are creating a Campaign from scratch or through our GPT 3.0 within a Job, you have the option to build as many variants as you would like for this purpose.

When building from scratch:

When using GPT 3.0 within a Job:

Once each variant is complete, you will be able to track the opens, clicks, downloads, and replies for each variant independent of the others. Again, this feature not only helps with deliverability since they will look like different emails due to the differing subject lines and messaging, enhancing the likelihood of these emails landing in prospects' inboxes, but it is also an opportunity to see which versions are more successful and can provide guidance for crafting future emails.

While we all want to come off as enthusiastic and world-changing when trying to connect with people, it is important to be careful with our word choices. Most email hosts utilize algorithms and bots to skim emails, specifically looking for keywords that are commonly linked to spam.

There are numerous sites which outline common "spammy" words, but here a few examples that might be more relevant in this context:

It is best to ensure you have an even ratio of images to text. If you want to include an image, be certain to include corresponding text before and after, and keep the total number of images and links low, roughly 3 in total in the body of the message.

You have a great learning tool right at your fingertips! Your own spam filter is catching emails for you on a daily basis. Look them over to find commonalities and avoid incorporating similar language or structure in your own emails.

There are many free spam checking tools available online which will read your email draft for you and give a score or recommendation on the "spammy-ness" of your messaging. It is best to use at least two sites for this, as each will read your messaging slightly different, which you can use to gauge an average.

If you need to include an attachment, proven practice is to save this for your 2nd or 3rd email in a Campaign, as you should have a smaller pool of recipients by that stage.

Tracking how people interact with your emails is essential. Email hosts take into account how their users are interacting with your emails and use this as a factor to determine where they should place your emails. If you receive multiple "mark as spam" complaints, it is difficult to regain the reputation you are losing. The same goes for unread messages. If people are not opening your emails or deleting them before reading, their email host is making note of this.

If your email messages are flagged for spam, taking the following steps can help:

Additionally, consider using separate domains for bulk email campaigns versus your primary business emails. This can shield your main domain from deliverability issues and protect its reputation. Also, avoid the use of mass mailers/email relays which can trigger flags from email recipient's domains.