{"id":1573,"date":"2025-08-18T18:02:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T18:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/18\/heres-why-your-next-newsletter-isnt-going-to-spam\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T18:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T18:02:16","slug":"heres-why-your-next-newsletter-isnt-going-to-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/18\/heres-why-your-next-newsletter-isnt-going-to-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s why your next newsletter isn\u2019t going to spam"},"content":{"rendered":"

At my last job I was tasked with launching a newsletter, and was suddenly faced with a bunch of unfamiliar acronyms: DKIM, DMARC, SPF. (Apparently that last one is not<\/em> related to sun protection?)<\/p>\n

So I texted Al Iverson (not the basketball player), who\u2019s been working in email deliverability since the dawn of mainstream internet, and asked if he could help me figure out what I really<\/em> needed to know.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Since you (probably) don\u2019t have Al Iverson\u2019s phone number, I chatted with him last week about email deliverability, owned audience, and windmills.<\/p>\n

Meet the Master<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Al Iverson<\/h2>\n

\nIndustry research and community engagement lead, <\/em>Valimail<\/em><\/a>, and Deliverability consultant and publisher, <\/em>Spam Resource<\/em><\/a>
\n<\/h3>\n

Claim to fame:<\/strong> Al\u2019s been working in email deliverability since before the term even existed, including a 15-year stint at Salesforce as its director of deliverability. <\/p>\n

Fun fact:<\/strong> He programmed all the computers in his high school\u2019s Mac lab to play \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive\u201d for alerts instead of beeping. Old-school Macs couldn\u2019t multitask while beeping; you had to listen to the entire 4-minute song. <\/p>\n

Lesson 1: Audience engagement has a technical component.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cEvery once in a while, you run into something really strange, like Microsoft blocking emails that have the word \u2018windmill\u2019 in the subject line,\u201d Iverson says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you say windmill<\/em>? Like \u2026 Dutch windmills?\u201d I ask, making sure I\u2019ve heard him correctly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no idea why,\u201d he says, and I certainly can\u2019t begin to guess. [Iverson clarified for me later that this is a fictional example, meant to represent how odd spam-filtering can be, and why you shouldn’t get too hung up on specific words. You’re safe, windmill fans!\u2014ed.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

But \u201cFree!\u201d and \u201cBuy now!\u201d are probably okay, he tells me, further scrambling my brain..<\/p>\n

Even more counterintuitively, Iverson says that using a swear word in a subject line isn\u2019t necessarily a guaranteed trip to the spam filter anymore.<\/p>\n

The real lesson here isn\u2019t about some quixotic pursuit of The Ideal Email, it\u2019s that there are persistent myths in email deliverability<\/strong> \u2014 and it pays for you to get acquainted with them.<\/p>\n

For starters, Iverson suggests a healthy skepticism of any \u201ctop 200 words to avoid in your subject line\u201d lists. And Gmail \u201cwants to make sure that the subject line and sender information actually connect to what’s in the body of the email,\u201d so it\u2019s \u201cactually very sensitive\u201d to outdated ideas like starting a bulk email with \u201cRe:.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words: Pay as much attention to the technical side of audience engagement as you are to creating excellent content.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lesson 2: Own your identity.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cWhy do people love email so much?\u201d Iverson asks. \u201cBecause it is a platform that is open to all.\u201d Platforms like Instagram and TikTok \u2014 aside from needing some basic video editing and possibly dance skills \u2014 are owned by corporate entities out of your control. Although individual email platforms like Gmail have a lot of influence when it comes to deliverability, your email audience is your own.<\/p>\n

And, says Iverson, email \u201cgives us this channel to connect with people without being beholden to these specific platforms.\u201d The flip side of that is that \u201cif you don’t have the technical ability to take control of those levers that put it more into your control, you can still get similarly stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new to email newsletters, any one of the major platforms is a great place to start. But the more technical know-how you have (or can hire), the more you can do things like sending from your own domain, putting you just a little bit more \u201cin control of your own destiny, both from a deliverability perspective and from a long-term branding and marketing perspective.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Lesson 3: Stop chasing subscriber count.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cPeople live and die by their subscriber counts,\u201d Iverson says. But \u201cif you have 10 million subscribers, but a very low open rate, your emails are more likely to go to the spam folder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The primary reason that an otherwise good newsletter might land in the spam folder is lack of engagement. \u201cThe more you focus on people who are actually interested enough to interact with your mail, the better reputation you have with the mailbox providers, so you’re more likely to get to the inbox,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, long story short, what prevents spam folder placement isn\u2019t how many subscribers you have \u2014 it\u2019s high engagement.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maximize high engagement by \u201cimplementing a subscriber lifecycle management process,\u201d<\/strong> says Iverson. Suppressing inactive subscribers, segmenting your audience, and being transparent about your practices are all key to your newsletter\u2019s ultimate success.<\/p>\n\n

Lingering Questions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This Week\u2019s Question<\/h3>\n

If you could only invest in one tool to help your company grow for the next three years, what tool would it be? <\/strong>\u2014Ryan Atkinson, Founder and CEO of Spacebar Visuals<\/p>\n

This Week\u2019s Answer<\/h3>\n

Iverson: <\/strong>In the context of email marketing success, inbox placement, and deliverability, this means investing in a deliverability testing and monitoring platform (like Inbox Monster, for example). If your revenue depends on successful email marketing, you\u2019re running blind without something like this. Whether your email gets to the inbox isn\u2019t something you can easily track on an email marketing platform; there\u2019s no \u201cwhich folder\u201d disposition information sent back to the sender or send platform as part of the email delivery process. A tool like this, and the expertise that comes with it, guides you on how to interpret results and make strategic adjustments to remediate or prevent issues.<\/p>\n

Next Week\u2019s Lingering Question<\/h3>\n

Iverson asks: What’s one marketing habit or best practice you think we should collectively leave behind, and what would you replace it with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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