When sending emails to contacts, you may receive some spam complaints. These complaints can be harmful to your sending reputation, deliverability, and may even result in being blocked by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Parts of this article:
What is a spam complaint rate?
What is considered a high spam complaint rate?
How are spam complaints reported?
How does a high spam complaint rate affect my account?
What is a spam complaint rate?
A spam complaint rate is the number of people who have reported an email as spam, expressed as a percentage of the total number of messages sent. For example, if you send 5000 messages and 5 people mark it as spam, then your spam rate is 0.1%.
What is considered a high spam complaint rate?
The acceptable standard spam complaint rate in the industry is anything below 0.1%, which is 1 complaint per 1000 messages sent. Anything above this level is considered high. This is the industry norm established by major inbox providers such as Gmail.
How are spam complaints reported?
The two most common ways contacts can report email as spam are:
- They click on the "this is spam" or "report spam" link or button in their inbox. Once this button is clicked, it is reported directly to us through feedback loops we have set up with all major inbox providers. Generally, contacts who report spam this way are unsubscribed from your list. It is not possible to see which contacts have used this method.
- They click on the unsubscribe link and then select "Spam" as the reason for unsubscribing. You can view your unsubscribe report per campaign/automation email to see which contacts have reported your email as spam using this method.
Please note: emails mistakenly marked as spam count towards your spam complaint rate.
Also, keep in mind that not every email provider shares this type of information with the sender, which means your actual spam complaint rate may be higher than you think.
How does a high spam complaint rate affect my account?
A high spam complaint rate results in long-term delivery issues that can take months to recover from. Email providers like Gmail will closely monitor your spam complaint rate over the past 30-60 days. Once you have a high spam complaint rate, it can take at least 30-60 days to recover from this.
If your account has a high spam complaint rate, upon notification from our technical team, we will ask you a few questions about your account. This email will be sent to the email address listed in the "Notification email" field on the Account > My settings > Account information page. The notification will contain a series of questions for you to answer so that we can understand why the spam complaint rate is high. Additionally, we will provide actions for you to take to resolve the issue.
Having a high spam complaint rate puts your account at risk of being placed "on-hold" as our terms and conditions prohibit sending emails to recipients who have not requested them.
Interested in other ways to prevent spam complaints? Take a look at the following help articles:
Why are my emails ending up in the spam folder?
How can content affect email deliverability?