Sending bulk email is an extremely powerful way to improve your reach and lead generation. Despite this, many marketers are wary of sending bulk email – you don’t want to send bulk email the wrong way and get flagged as a spammer.

With that in mind, we’ve put together a guide to help you succeed with your bulk email campaigns.

It breaks down like this:

• Technical factors such as IP and domain reputation, SPF and DKIM records (we’ll explain).
• Email content and design factors such as wording, links, attachments and images.
• Recipient engagement factors such as open rate, clicks, and spam reports.

Let’s dive into how to manage these factors, as well as what to watch out for and how to make sure your emails hit the inbox – not spam folders.

Technical Factors

IP and domain reputation are crucial to successfully sending bulk email. This is a metric that your provider assigns to each IP and domain you use to send email. It’s based on many factors, such as the number of emails you send, your emails’ bounce and unsubscribe rates, and more.

For example, if you send to a large list of contacts and most of the emails hard bounce, and many of those that get through result in unsubscribes or spam complaints, your IP and domain reputation scores will plummet, and your future emails are much more likely to land in the spam folder (or get blocked entirely).

The quality of your list is critical to successful bulk emailing. Make sure you get your lists from reputable data providers, and have it verified before sending to those contacts.

Another important factor is Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records. These are part of a domain’s DNS (Domain Name Server) zone file. It’s a list of authorized hostnames or IP addresses that an email can originate from for that domain name.

When a mail server receives an email, it checks for many different sender signals. Two key signals are the sending address and the reply-to address.

If the sending address and the reply-to address don’t match up, this will cause many spam filters and mail security programs to trigger.

If you’re sending bulk email using a specialized email software, the reply-to address you’ve configured may not match the sending address the software uses.

A properly-configured SPF record tells the receiving mail server that the sender is allowed to send email on behalf of your address. This way the spam filters ignore the discrepancy between the sender and reply-to addresses.

For more detailed information, see How to Set Up SPF Records Using Clickback.

DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is a bit more complicated. In a nutshell, it’s a protocol designed to detect forged sender addresses (email spoofing). It attaches a digital signature (which is linked to the domain name) to the outgoing email message.

A valid signature also guarantees that some parts of the email have not been modified since the signature was affixed.

The recipient system can verify the DKIM signature against the existing email content, and if the content is different from what was included in the signature, the DKIM check fails.

A failed DKIM check is a major red flag for spam filters.

You also need a functioning unsubscribe option in the email. It needs to be accessible to the recipient. Not only is it a requirement, but if your unsubscribe link is not easily visible, people are likely to report your email as spam anyway.

Email Content and Design

The actual content and design of your email plays a large role in determining whether it passes spam checks. There are certain trigger words that increase the chances that your email will end up in the spam folder, particularly when used in the subject line.

For a handy guide on which words and phrases to avoid, check out HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Email Spam Trigger Words.

Text in all caps is also a trigger for spam filters, as is overly large or small font size. Another potential trigger is a low text-to-image ratio. Spammers sometimes use images to communicate their message, because email clients can’t read text in an image. This means spam filters are suspicious of emails with a large image and very little text.

The same applies to links. A common spam tactic is to include a lot of links and little text. Make sure you have a good ratio of links to text.

Ensure your anchor text matches your link URL. A common phishing technique is hiding an unsafe URL behind a legitimate-looking link. For example, a malicious email might have a link with anchor text that reads “yourbank.com/verify_your_account” but the linked page downloads malware onto your system.

To combat this, email clients will look through your email content for anchor text matching your links. If this is missing, you’re less likely to reach the inbox.

Email software often replaces your URLs with tracking redirect URLs when you send the email. This enables the software to track clicks and is harmless, but it also means the URL no longer matches the anchor text, which triggers red flags.

The solution to this is simple. Don’t use URLs as anchor text. Use “visit my website” instead of “mywebsite.com”, for example. You’ll bypass this problem entirely.

Recipient Engagement

The third major factor that impacts your deliverability is how your recipients engage with your email.

In short, if more people engage positively with your emails by opening, reading and clicking them, your deliverability will improve. If people don’t open your emails, unsubscribe or – worst of all – report it as spam, your deliverability will drop.

The most impactful way to control this is to write fantastic, engaging content. You need a compelling subject line and excellent body copy (and a punchy landing page, if you want those clicks to become conversions).

Want help crafting awesome cold emails that convert? Read our cold email copywriting guide.

Summary: Use the Best Tool for the Job

That’s a lot to keep in mind, isn’t it? Luckily, it can be a lot more manageable by using email lead generation software. Here’s a quick list of some time-saving features we offer at Clickback that’ll keep you out of spam folders:

• Sender Score Safeguards: When you send a bulk email campaign from Clickback, the software uses its own IPs and domains. This means that your sender reputation remains untouched.
• Contact List Verification: When you upload a list of contacts to Clickback, it runs each address through a number of rigorous filters and hygiene checks to filter out bad data and spam traps. This feature is built into the software – no need to pay for a third-party cleaning service.
• Powerful Design Tools: The email editor offers a drag-and-drop option to make it easy to make professional designs, as well as an HTML mode if you want to design your emails directly in the source code.
• Real-Time Content and Design Check: The editor also checks your content and design in real-time, looking for any words, phrases, design elements or links that could negatively impact your deliverability.
• Expert Assistance: Our email experts are here to review campaigns and offer support any time you need it.

See it in action with a live 1-on-1 demo. Sign up here for a personalized walkthrough of the software and how it lets you send bulk email without spamming.