Most email problems don’t start with content; they start with trust. If email providers don’t trust your domain, your emails won’t reach the inbox, no matter how good they are. This trust is reflected in your email spam score.
Things like poor authentication, low engagement, or sending emails to the wrong people can slowly push your emails into spam. The tricky part is that you may not notice it at first, until your results start dropping.
In this guide, you’ll learn what increases your spam score, how to check it, and simple ways to reduce it so your emails reach the inbox more often.
What is Email Spam Score and How Does it Affect Email Deliverability
Your email spam score is basically a rating that tells you how likely your email is to land in the spam folder instead of the inbox. Think of it like a trust score for your emails. A higher email spam rating means your email looks suspicious to inbox providers. A lower score means your email is more likely to reach the inbox safely.
This score directly affects your email deliverability. If your email spam rating is high, your emails are more likely to get filtered, delayed, or completely blocked. On the other hand, a low spam score improves your chances of landing in the inbox, getting opened, and actually driving results.
In simple terms, the better your spam score, the better your deliverability, and that means more visibility, engagement, and conversions from your emails.
Common Factors Affecting Your Email Spam Score
If your emails keep landing in spam, there’s usually a clear reason behind it. Here are some of the most common factors that can increase your spam score:
Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
These are like identity proofs for your emails. Together, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC tell receiving servers that your email is actually coming from you and not a scammer. If these are missing or set up incorrectly, your emails instantly look risky. Even a small misconfiguration can hurt your deliverability more than you would expect.
Email Content
What you write in your email matters a lot. Too many spammy words, ALL CAPS, or excessive links can trigger spam filters. Even things like poor formatting or broken links can increase your spam score. Keeping your content clean, simple, and relevant goes a long way.
Sender Reputation
This is your domain’s overall “track record.” If people often ignore your emails, mark them as spam, or if you have high bounce rates, your reputation drops. Once that happens, even good emails can start landing in spam. Building a strong sender reputation takes time, but losing it is very easy.
Poor List Hygiene
Sending emails to outdated or invalid addresses increases bounce rates and signals poor list quality. If people on your list don’t engage or never signed up, it can lead to spam complaints. Over time, this damages your reputation and increases your chances of landing in spam folders.
High Complaint Rate
When recipients mark your emails as spam, it sends a strong negative signal to email providers. Even a small number of complaints can hurt your reputation. If this continues, your future emails are more likely to be filtered or blocked altogether.
Sending From New Domains
New domains don’t yet have an established reputation. Sending large volumes of emails too quickly can look suspicious. Without a proper warm-up process, mailbox providers may treat your emails as risky and push them into spam.
In short, your email spam rating depends on how trustworthy and well-managed your emails are. Fix these basics, and you’re already ahead of most senders.
How to Check Email for Spam Score
If your emails aren’t reaching the inbox, the first step is to check the email’s spam score. This helps you understand what’s going wrong before you start blindly fixing things. The good news is that you don’t have to guess. There are simple spam testing tools that can show you exactly why your emails might be flagged.
They look at things like subject lines, content, links, and formatting to see if anything might trigger spam filters. You’ll usually get a score along with suggestions on what to improve. This is super helpful when you’re running campaigns and want to avoid surprises.
Tips to Reduce Spam Score
Below are the ways to maintain a low spam score and enjoy the most out of your email campaigns:
Custom Domain Setup
Instead of using the default settings from your email service provider, it’s better to use your own domain for a few things. This helps build trust and improve your email reputation.
- Custom return path (MAIL FROM): Use a subdomain like bounces.companydomain.com for handling bounces. This way, any issues don’t affect your main domain’s reputation. It also makes it easier to track failed emails.
- Custom tracking URLs: If your emails track opens or clicks, make sure the links use your domain (like tracking.companydomain.com). This looks more trustworthy and avoids sharing reputation with your provider’s generic links.
Get the Right Permissions Before Sending Emails
Not every email needs permission; for example, order confirmations or password resets (transactional emails) are usually fine. But when it comes to marketing emails, you must have clear permission from the recipient.
This means people should actively sign up or agree to receive your emails (opt-in). Just because someone bought something from you once doesn’t mean they want promotional emails as well. Sending marketing emails without consent can increase your email spam rating, as people are more likely to mark your emails as spam.
To stay safe, always collect proper consent and give users an easy way to unsubscribe.
Maintain Your Domain Reputation
Your domain reputation plays a huge role in your email spam score. If your domain has a history of high bounce rates, spam complaints, or low engagement, your emails are more likely to land in spam. That’s why it’s important to monitor your reputation regularly and fix issues early.
You can use EasyDMARC’s IP & Domain Reputation Check tool to see how your domain is performing. It gives you a quick overview of your reputation and helps you spot problems before they affect your deliverability.
Choose the Right Sending Domain and Extension
This is something many people ignore, but your domain name itself can affect your spam score. Some domains and extensions (TLDs) are already seen as risky because spammers use them a lot. If you pick the wrong one, you start with a disadvantage.
Avoid using hyphens, numbers, or spammy words in your domain name. Also, stay away from less common extensions like .xyz or .biz. Instead, go for trusted options like .com or your country’s domain. A clean, professional domain helps build trust and keeps your spam score low from the start.
Secure Your Email Transmission
Securing your emails as they’re sent is important for both security and deliverability. Mailbox providers prefer emails sent over secure connections, which can directly help reduce your spam score.
Use TLS (Transport Layer Security) or STARTTLS to encrypt emails in transit. You should also enable MTA-STS, which ensures emails are always sent securely and not downgraded to unsafe connections. Additionally, TLS-RPT helps you monitor any delivery or security issues.
Properly Set Up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
One of the most important steps in reducing spam score is setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly. These email security protocols help prove that your emails are genuine and not sent by attackers.
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework) tells receiving servers which IP addresses are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. If an email comes from an unauthorized source, it can get flagged or rejected.
- DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to your emails. This helps verify that the message hasn’t been altered during transit and actually comes from your domain.
- DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) ties SPF and DKIM together. It tells receiving servers what to do if authentication fails and provides failure reports on email activity. These reports are in the difficult-to-understand XML format. So you can use the EasyDMARC XML Report Analyzer to comprehend the content of these reports in easy language.
The Way Forward
Improving your email deliverability is not about fixing just one thing. It’s about slowly building trust with email providers and your audience. The good part is that once you fix the basics, things start getting better on their own. Good authentication, a clean email list, and better engagement all help your emails avoid spam.
Start with small steps. Fix one issue at a time, maybe your authentication or your email list, and keep improving as you go. Over time, you will see more of your emails reach the inbox and perform better.
If you want to make this process easier and faster, EasyDMARC can help. We can help you deploy DMARC and reach full enforcement in just 2 to 3 weeks. Even if you have a complex setup, it can usually be done in 40 to 50 days.
Try EasyDMARC’s free 14-day trial and take control of your email deliverability.
Frequently Asked Questions
It doesn’t improve overnight. Usually, you can start seeing small improvements in a few days if you fix major issues. But building a strong sender reputation can take a few weeks of consistent sending and good practices.
Not always. Sending fewer emails can help if you were over-emailing before. But what matters more is sending it to the right people. Even a small number of emails can go to spam if your targeting is poor.
Yes, it’s a good idea. People who never open or click your emails can hurt your engagement rate. Over time, this tells email providers that your emails are not useful, which can increase your spam score.
Yes, it can. Very heavy designs, too many images, or broken formatting can look suspicious. It’s better to keep your emails simple, clean, and easy to read so they don’t trigger spam filters.
