Design- and spam tests: Newsletter Client Testing

What is spam?

Spam emails are sent without the recipient’s consent. Most of the time, they contain ads, but sometimes also dubious content. Unlike fake emails containing viruses, they are not dangerous, but annoying because of their frequency. More than half of all sent emails (some estimates go up to 90 percent) are nowadays considered spam. To protect recipients, email clients block junk mails and don’t let them reach the recipients’ inboxes.

That’s where the challenge begins: How can unwanted spam mails be blocked, and reputable newsletters be delivered? This is a task for so-called spam filters. These programs scan incoming emails and reject the ones that meet spam criteria.

How can the successful delivery of your mailings be guaranteed?

• What CleverReach does for you: server reputation

You’ve already done the first step towards a secure delivery of your newsletters: You chose CleverReach! We make a positive server reputation and allowlisting of your mailings (high delivery rate!) possible through:

• CSA membership
• SPF
• DKIM

These factors ensure that your mailings are not blocked or deleted as spam.

• What you can do: Run newsletter spam tests before sending your mailing

Despite all these features, some mail clients could still see your newsletter as spam. To make sure they don’t, we recommend a design and spam test before you send your mailing. Run the test directly in your CleverReach account. This test checks your email for all common criteria for spam classification.

• Stick to our anti-spam regulations in your newsletters:To cause a positive test result, you should keep some guidelines in mind when creating your newsletter. Some elements, words and phrases are typical for spam emails, so make sure you avoid them. Potential spam indicators are:
  1. Tracking links that differ from the sender’s address
  2. Address that differs from the link description (might lead to phishing warnings)
  3. Use of certain words in the subject line (special offer, %, Viagra)
  4. Exclusive use of capitals or special characters in your subject line
  5. Image descriptions that are empty or susceptible to spam
  6. Don’t use too many images
  7. Irregular email delivery
  8. Attachments (that’s why you can’t send attachments with CleverReach)

• The CleverReach design and spam test shows how your newsletter is displayed in various email clients on various devices. This gives you the opportunity to find programming errors and correct them. Still, every email client influences the display of your mailing. Small discrepancies are uncritical, as long as your newsletter is easy to read and displayed correctly.
• There are more than 1,000 criteria to check – that’s why it takes some time to run the test.

Please note: The CleverReach design and spam test is a paid additional feature, separate of your price plan.