Both email users and marketers don’t appreciate the flood of spam. For email users, junk emails can choke their inboxes if not regularly deleted and adequately filtered. For email marketers, it prevents them from reaching their audience.
If you’re using the G Suite platform to send your marketing emails, you know that every email that lands in spam is a waste of money.
Fortunately, there are ways to keep your emails out of the spam folder. And the first step is to understand why it happened. Once you know why your G Suite emails are going to spam, everything will be much more precise.
This guide will help you fix your email deliverability problem and make a more substantial impact every time you land in the inbox. So, let’s dive in!
What is G Suite?
G Suite – rebranded as Google Workspace – is a collection of productivity tools, services, and apps designed for organizational use. Several service packages are available through this platform, such as low-cost, Basic edition, and Enterprise editions.
Unique G Suite products are available for different sectors, including education, government, and nonprofit.
Merely having a Google or Gmail account won’t grant you access to G Suite. And one of the differences between the two is that with G Suite, you can create customizable domain names and use that for your Gmail addresses.
G Suite is specifically designed for businesses.
Emails from this platform are often delivered reliably and get good spam protection, like in Gmail. So, you might be wondering, “Why are some of my G Suite emails going to spam?” Below, we’ll detail nine reasons and tips on how to stop emails from going to spam.
9 Reasons Your G Suite Emails Are Going to the Spam Folder and How to Fix It
1. You Ignored Email Authentication
Email authentication gives mailbox providers the confidence that your messages are authentic or that you, as a sender, are the real deal. This means that your marketing emails belong to the inboxes.
When you ignore this step, your G Suite emails may land in the spam folder.
How to Fix It
Don’t worry, as fixing it is easy. You just have to add particular records into your DNS zone. After that, Email Service Providers (ESPs), like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail, can verify that you’re who you claim you are.
There are three critical components in email authentication that you can set up so ESPs can verify your legitimacy and identity. These are the SPF, DMARC, and DKIM (DNS records).
Adding an SPF record (Sender Policy Framework) on your DNS (Domain Name System) or domain will help lessen the risk of your email messages landing in a spam box. Meanwhile, setting up DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) lets you fight business email compromise, spoofing, and phishing.
Aside from cutting down on spam, the other benefits you’ll enjoy when you authenticate your email are it improves your domain reputation, maintains your brand authenticity, and improves your email deliverability.
You may ask your Google Workspace admins to learn more about configuring SPF records for your Google Apps domain.
2. You Have a Poor Domain Reputation
As an email marketer, you’re in charge of building and maintaining your domain reputation. Maintaining a high domain reputation ensures that mailbox providers, like Outlook and Gmail, won’t mark your emails as spam.
Many factors affect your domain reputation. These include the number of people clicking and opening your emails, the spam complaint rates, and bounce rates.
How to Fix It
The first step to improving your domain reputation is to analyze the data and find out what went wrong.
Did you have a lot of unsubscribers? Are you sending too many emails without setting up DKIM and SPF records? Did your newsletters get marked as spam? Have you kept your list dormant for a long time?
Once you figure out what went wrong, you take the proper steps to improve your domain reputation with your future campaign. These solutions include decreasing your email sending frequency, cleaning up your list, or sending relevant content.
3. Your Email Triggers Spam Filters
The third underlying reason your G Suite emails go to the recipient’s spam folder is that your content triggers the spam filters. These are programs designed to detect unwanted, virus-infected, and unsolicited emails and prevent them from landing in a user’s inbox.
While G Suite is one of the most trusted email clients, your emails from this platform can still go sideways. It can happen because you used certain spam words, characters, or phrases in both the subject line and content of your email, which causes the spam filters to send your email to the junk folder.
Perhaps the link text in your content doesn’t match the URL behind it. Or that your emails have consistently low engagement, like high bounces and low opens. If these happen, filters adapt and deliver your email to the junk folder.
Additionally, using ALL CAPITALS, an onslaught of emojis, and plenty of exclamation marks are considered spammy tactics.
How to Fix It
All spam filters are different, but the solutions are pretty uniform. These include avoiding spam trigger keywords in the subject and body of your email. Avoid unsafe attachments, unsubscribe links, and comply with anti-SPAM laws.
4. You Have a Bad Email Design
Your G Suite emails may go to the junk folder because of improper email design. For instance, you have a missing plain text version of your HTML content. People who have difficulty reading your HTML content can use these accessibility features to read email.
Plain text visions in the content are essential to ensure mobile devices, smartwatches, and other gadgets correctly display your content in notifications and alerts.
Emails with many links and images (but little content) are red flags. Some Gmail users, for instance, don’t allow pictures to load in their emails.
Since spammers tend to send image-only emails, spam filters block their emails and send them to spam. So, even if your G Suite emails are legitimate, they may still appear as spam to mailbox providers if you have a bad email design.
How to Fix It
Embed links into images and text and avoid using redirects or link shorteners. Another tip is to maintain a balanced text-to-image ratio in email. The general rule is a 60/40 ratio, which means no more than 40% image coverage to avoid email deliverability issues.
It will also help you create a compelling email using white space liberally. That way, it’ll be easier for your readers to scan or read through your content. Use extra line breaks between text blocks, wide margins, headed or administrative footers, and calls to action (CTAs).
5. You’re Sending Emails Via a Shared IP Address
Your IP reputation is closely related to your email deliverability because each IP address has a history that mail service providers keep track of. A track record of low bounce and spam complaint rates makes your IP more trustworthy.
Meanwhile, high spam complaints will negatively affect your IP’s credibility. If you send emails via a shared IP with a bad reputation, your email deliverability will also suffer.
How to Fix It
You need to do a little investigating to solve this issue. First, you must determine whether you’re sending IPs excellent or bad.
Google Postmaster Tools allow you to see detailed information about the messages people receive from your domain. Postmaster Tools show your spam rates, domain reputation, email authentication success and failure rates, and encryption usage.
Second, check also if your IP address is on a block list. You can use third-party tools, like the MultiRBL. If you see IP reputation issues, reach out to your ESP and ask if they can provide more insights.
Looking for the ultimate email deliverability tool to help repair a damaged sender domain? We’ve got you covered. At InboxAlly, we take sending reputation seriously. Find out how by requesting a free demo.
6. You’re Using Misleading Links or Linking to Shady Websites
The wrong types of links in emails can get you in trouble. And two things can cause issues here.
The first is when your destination URL doesn’t match your display URL. For instance, the destination URL is anotherwebsite.com, but the display URL is google.com. This can get you in trouble because most spam emails aim to trick people into clicking a link.
The second thing is when you’re linking to a website that appears spammy. For example, the website has been infected with malware or is associated with copyright infringement. Or even if the website is legit, but it’s close to a spammy domain, your G Suite emails may still be marked as spam.
When you send a mail with a URL shortener, it can similarly cause issues.
How to Fix It
Make sure your links are clearly labeled and easy to identify. Another way to fix the issue is to use only links that the email copy describes.
Structuring your links properly in your email content likewise helps. You can do this by putting highly-relevant links at the top of the email and including bonus content links in a side navigation panel.
That way, when mail servers access links on emails and scan for potentially malicious behavior, they will notice that you’re observing the best practices for using links.
Want to boost your email campaign? Here are must-follow Email Marketing Best Practices that drive results.
7. You’re Sending Emails to People Without Their Permission
Sending emails to people without permission can be a hot mess, even if you have the best of intentions.
Three things can happen when business people or consumers receive commercial emails they’d sign up for. They either (a) delete or ignore it, (b) complain or (c) tolerate the messages for a while to see the value.
In most cases, though, recipients just do A and B, then C. When email address owners register that complaint by marking an email as “spam,” it’ll impact your future ability to email others because the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will block your sending address from their inboxes.
How to Fix It
Start with a double opt-in process to avoid your G Suite emails landing in spam folders. By doing this, subscribers will voluntarily join your list and receive a confirmation email.
The two steps are necessary because it eliminates the doubt of whether they genuinely want to receive your emails. This extra layer of consent is a wise move. You are 100% sure that your recipients are interested in your offer, and you can segment your contact to market them differently.
8. There’s No Unsubscribe Link
Your email should always have an unsubscribe link. If subscribers want to stop their email relationship with you, they can do so anytime. Almost every country requires emails to have an unsubscribe link, and the most popular digital law relating to this is the US CAN-SPAM Act.
Remember that not all those on your list will stay as your email fan forever. They want to keep their inbox clean when their requirement is changed or fulfilled. Their easiest solution is to hit the spam button without an unsubscribe button.
For sure, you don’t want this worst-case scenario.
How to Fix It
The answer is simple. Give subscribers the option to unsubscribe. But make sure the link is well-placed and clear. Showing that you’re confident in letting subscribers go should they wish to build trust in your brand.
9. Your “From” Information Is Missing or Inaccurate
Missing or inaccurate sender information can cause spam issues. False “From” addresses and no physical address are examples of these. You’ll typically notice an address at the bottom of marketing emails.
How to Fix It
The fix for this issue is usually simple. You just have to ensure that the “From” field in the contact setting has the admin address for your website. This will prevent valid messages from landing in spam. benefits of G suite email.
Wrap Up
Having your G Suite emails landing in spam folders is frustrating. With the methods we outlined above, you’ll be able to see improvements in your email deliverability soon.
Beyond that, you can also make the necessary adjustments in your campaign to send error-free emails every time. Lastly, we encourage you to test your email. Doing so helps you land in the primary folder and improve your deliverability further.
If you’re still struggling to solve email deliverability problems all by yourself, reach out to our team for help. InboxAlly is a tool that guarantees your emails make it to the inbox reliably and fast.