There isn’t a more frustrating feeling for an email marketer than to have messages that are incorrectly blocked or filtered as spam. Use these five tips before you send your next campaign to ensure greater deliverability.

1.    Check your spam score
KM’s Enterprise Communications Network can measure your spam score before you send your blast. When in the Setup Blast screen, you’ll see an accurate measurement of your spam score using tools from Spam Assassin. Spam Assassin measures how likely your message will be perceived as spam by an incoming mail server based on content, subject line, headers, and other factors. The lower the score based on a scale of one to five, the less likely a message will be filtered as spam.

2.    Text/Image Ratio
Images are ok to use, but make sure that they aren’t more than 25% of your total message. Large images supported with little text are prime candidates to go into the spam filter. Also be sure to keep key text information out of the image and in the body of the email. We can help create a reusable email template that will keep your text/image ratio at the desired level.

3.    Avoid common spam words in your subject line
Words like “free” and “offer” as well as numbers in your subject line can trigger spam filters. Stay away from using punctuation in your subject line as well and only capitalize the first word.

4.    Secure the IP address of your mail server.
Make sure it is configured for reverse DNS lookup. This may involve your email service provider if you use an ASP service. Contact us for more information related to this topic.

5.    Monitor your mailing results
If you notice a drop in response rates from a specific geography, ISP, or a specific domain name, then you are likely blacklisted. KM works closely with the major ISPs like MSN/Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AIM Mail and Gmail to ensure proper delivery on behalf of our subscribers. However, if you notice the response rate drops from a particular ISP, contact us and we will work with you to find a solution.