Spam Complaints

Spam is essentially unsolicited email. However, when it comes to the business of email marketing, spam is whatever an email recipient marks as abusive or spam. Every person you email is empowered to report any email to their Internet Service Providers (ISP). The ISP then informs Keap through a Feedback Loop where the spam complaint came from and who sent it. They can also do this by using the unsubscribe link the Keap includes in the Can Spam block at the bottom of all email sent from the Keap network.

There are two sources that count towards the count of spam complaints/abuse reports.

Provider Feedback Loop:

• When a contact marks your email as spam or junk within their email provider's inbox, we receive this feedback through a subscribed feedback loop. It's important to note that not all providers offer this service or send these notifications to us. Example is Google, they send little to no abuse reports back to us via their feedback loop.

Internal Abuse Reports:

• These come from the unsubscribe link that Keap includes with the Can-Spam block at the bottom of every email sent from the Keap network. There are several options on the opt-out form that are indicators that the mail was considered spam or abusive. These options are:
  • I did not request email from this sender.
  • This is not the content I expected
  • I received emails more often than I expected
  • This email is spam and should be reported
  • I've previously unsubscribed
• This screenshot shows the Opt-out screen. In red is what you will see under the Complaint type row in the Recent complaints report. The report is in the Complaints section of the Email Health (Last 30 days) widget.
  We do not count it against any user when a recipient does not choose a reason why they opted-out or if they choose the top option: I no longer want to receive these emails. These are not considered as abuse. This is what we want to see when an opt-out occurs. 

It is generally accepted in the email marketing industry that spam rates over 0.1% (1 complaint per 1000 unique email addresses sent to per provider) are excessive. This metric is tracked per email provider and not as global rate.  The Math used to determine this rate is as follow:

Total number of abuse reports divided by the total number of unique counts of email addresses sent to multiplied by 100. The goal is to be at or below a rate of .100 per provider. In the app, on the email health widget, the spam rate is a global number and not per provider. When looking at the email data dashboard the complaint rate is split up by provider. If a user's global rate is above .100 there are issues to deal with and you can help the users by looking at the email data dash to see the per provider breakdown.

To get an idea of your spam percentage you can look at the Email Health (Last 30 days) widget under the Complaints section. There you can find the Recent complaints report. You can also look at each email broadcast report and manually tally your rates.

How to Fix Spam Related Issues

If you have received an email from Keap's Compliance Team please review this steps below and complete these important measures to reduce your spam footprint.

• Perform List Hygiene
• Audit your email marketing list and ensure that you have Explicit Permission to send email marketing to everyone on the list.  If you have permission questions then reach out to support or re-read the Best Practices Handbook
• Audit your webforms and landing pages to make sure that permission is voluntary, the expectations are clear and the branding is consistent.
• Audit your email sending practices to verify that your sending schedule adheres to the expectation set on the landing pages.
• Verify that subject lines  are not spammy
• Double check your from address and ensure that it is consistent and recognizable
• Turn on the Automated List Management tool

Common Causes of Spam Complaints

Lack of Permission

When a contact shares their information with you, it should clearly state that they are signing up for email marketing from your company. We recommend using a checkbox and a double opt-in sequence to ensure that permission has been granted.

Specific Examples:

• A list of email addresses was purchased from a third party.
• The list of email addresses was borrowed from another user/business.
• The list of contacts was obtained from a trade-show or event
• Someone gave you their business card
• A customer purchased a product from your company and they are automatically signed up for a weekly newsletter
• A customer requests a free e-book and they are automatically signed up for the weekly newsletter as well

For more details on email marketing expectations grab a copy of our Best Practices PDF

Poor Expectations

Contacts will often mark unexpected emails as spam. Set expectations for the recipient about your emails in regards to what, when, how often, and from whom.

Examples of poor expectations:

• The contact opts-in for ONLY the monthly newsletter, but they unexpectedly receive weekly or daily promos/offers
• You inform your recipient that they will be receiving monthly newsletters, but you don't get around to it for a few months, then suddenly start to 'blast' emails to make up for lost time.
• You keep a very consistent pattern of a weekly newsletter then decided to send daily with no warning or consent from your customers
• Customers sign up for what appears to be an informative newsletter, but the emails only consists of ads or promotional material
• The content of the email does not relate to the content of the landing page
• The customer receives great email marketing for a time, but on occasion they get emails not relating to what they signed up for
• From address changes or is different from the landing page or business name

Remember, Keap products have great tools to help keep your email frequency consistent and within the expectations you set. For more details on email marketing expectations grab a copy of our Best Practices PDF

Inconsistent Branding

Branding needs to be consistent from the signup page to the email.  If the email recipient doesn’t recognize who sent the email there is a good chance it will be reported as spam.

Hiding the Unsubscribe Link

On occasion we’ve seen our customers hide the unsubscribe link so that an email recipient can’t remove themselves from the email marketing list.  Not only is this illegal and a violation of the Keap's Acceptable Use Policy, but it causes more spam complaints because it leaves the recipient no other options to opt out.  Doing this puts you at risk for having your email functionality suspended.

Spammy Subject Lines

Describe clearly and directly what you are sending. People have developed an amazing ability to spot spam based on the subject line alone and will flag an email as spam without even opening it.  Only use subject lines that are specific and relevant to your content.

Avoid anything that is deceiving or misleading, such as “RE:” or “FW:”  Avoid vague phrases like “What’s up?” or “A quick reminder”.  Avoid spam related words like “FREE” or including monetary amounts like “Earn $500 Today”.

Why Spam Complaints Matter

Keap wants to deliver your emails to your Client's inbox.  All of Keap's customers share in our email network and if our network is identified as sending too much spam, it reduces our ability to deliver.

Keeping our spam rates low is a great way to show the ISPs that we are a responsible email sender and that our emails are wanted and expected by the recipient. If the ISP believes that emails from Keap and its customers is wanted then all of our customers have a much better chance of being successful email marketers.