To avoid common email marketing mistakes and format your message correctly, it's important to understand the basics of how spam filters work.

Avoid Spamming:
Three tips for creating messages that are not flagged by SPAM Filters:
Use a recognizable from address. Use a specific, non-spammy subject line - Describe the subject of your email. Please do not send a subject line IN ALL CAPITAL letters! Non-HTML text, plain text - This does not mean you can't use any HTML coding, but the code must be really good if you do use it.
Understanding How Spam Filters Work The first filter you need to think about is your recipient! The biggest and most troublesome issue is when someone clicks the spam button in his or her email client and marks your message as spam. Some really scary stuff happens behind the scenes whenever someone clicks that spam button.

First, a message is sent to their ISP (like AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Earthlink, Yahoo, Juno, NetZero, etc.). That message says "I think these guys are spamming me." Then their ISP starts watching you, because you've aroused their suspicions. If enough people on their network report your email as spam to them, they'll block all future emails from you. How many abuse reports are enough to get you "blacklisted"? ISPs all have different thresholds, but 0.01% is the number that's most often discussed by people in the email deliverability business.

The Spam Filter

Most spam filters work on a "point system" to determine the level of "spamminess" for a message. Points are added for things in the message that are consistent with spam and points are taken away for items that are associated with genuine messages. Each message is analyzed for "spam-like" characteristics based on common spam "catch phrases" and assigned points for trigger phrases, formatting, and characters. An email that exceeds the 'point' limit is filtered out and never delivered to your recipients.

First things first. The first thing the spam filters and you recipients see is the Subject of your message. The spam filter is looking for "spam catch phrases," formatting, and if the subject and your message are about the same thing. Your recipients are looking for the same characteristics. Who are you and why are you sending them this email? Why should they open your email or should they just mark it as spam and be done with it?

A good subject line encourages people to click the message and open the email, but please, exercise care when creating your subject line. Don't use any of the known "catch phrases" or formatting errors like all caps and exclamation points in your subject line. If it sounds like an ad or spam, most respondents will automatically delete the message or worse, mark it as spam. Take a moment to think about your in-box for a second. Would you open the message?

Definite Spam Points Your message most likely won't be tossed out as spam for one or two 'catch phrases', but we see many of these know "catch phrases" included in email invitations. If these phrases are in your message, spam filters will assign points. Here are a few of the common spam-like words and formatting to avoid when sending your Email Invitation. Commonly used phrases filtered by ISPs:   Win a Free ipod Satisfaction Guaranteed Serious Cash Free! 50% off! Click Here Call now! Subscribe Earn $ Discount! Eliminate Debt Double your income Credit You're a Winner! Reverses Aging Information you requested Lose Weight Multi level Marketing Million Dollars Opportunity Removes Collect Amazing Cash Bonus Promise You Credit Loans Search Engine Listings "Stop" or "Stops" "Hidden information"

Subject Line Tips

It is important to use straightforward subject lines and message bodies. Misleading subject lines are a highly reliable way to identify viruses and spam. Plus, it's against the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

	Tell respondents the subject of your email:   Your title should reflect your message content. If the subject line of your email is the same as the content of your email, it explains the subject of your message. Spam filters check to see if your subject link and message are about the same thing - match or agree. So do your respondents.
	You have a split second to convince recipients that your email is not spam or junk. If it reads like an ad, chances are they’ll think it is and that’s just plain spam to most of us. Do recipients instantly know why they should open your message?
	Be specific and honest in your email subject line.
	Use normal conversational language and do not use excessive spacing and or capitalization in your subject.
	Do not use spammy language, i.e., Win a Free ipod!!!!, or simply Take this survey. (Who is sending the survey? Why should I open the message?)
	DO NOT YELL in your subject line.

Design Tips for Your Email Message

Keep it simple. Do not use lots of images or sloppy HTML code. Spam filters check to see if your message and subject line are about the same thing. Therefore, if you mention "a quality survey" in both your subject line and the email message, the spam filter awards good points. They also look at the amount of actual text you have included in your message. For this, if you have more HTML code or images in your message than actual text, your message may not make it past major spam filters.

Your message should also explain to the readers why they are receiving your email, e.g., you recently purchased our product from mysite.com, or you are receiving this email because you opted in at our website, www.mysite.com.

Email Bonus Points

• Include your "offline" contact information, including your physical mailing address, phone number, etc. It will help people remember who you are (subscribers forget you in 6 months) and they might trust your unsubscribe link more, instead of reporting your email as spam. Also, include your website address if you have one and a contact email address.
• Include the recipient's full name. If you know the recipient's full name, the spam filter will think you must be a friend. Including the first and last name of your recipient gets you more bonus points when it comes to spam filters. We make this easy to add with the custom tags option provided with your email list. Be creative!
• Include the date in your message.

Please don't make these common mistakes:
	Don't write like a spammer.
	Don't yell in your message or use excessive exclamation points. Be careful when using exclamation points, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, DO NOT YELL in your email. Anything written in all capital letters is considered yelling. Spam filters do not like yelling.
	Don’t use bright red or other spammy looking colors and links like HUGE SALE!, CLICK NOW!, FREE….
	Don't use sloppy HTML code. Spam filters "look" for messy code. Technically correct emails tend not to alert spam filters. Sloppy code flags spam filters because spammers are sloppy with their code. Close table cells and font tags, and do not leave empty tags in your code or use invalid or unbalanced tags. Typically, programs that generate HTML code for you like MS Word of Front Page produce sloppy code with empty tags and unrelated headings.
	Don't include any hidden text in your email. Hidden text is placed in HTML code to provide markers or notes for the person writing the code or the program writing the code. It is also used by spammers to include information in the message. Please clean up any HTML code you use.
	Don't include important information in images. Spam filters can't "read" images; so, they do not like images. If your entire message is an image, it will usually be marked as Spam. Spammers use images to send people stuff they haven't requested. Plus, most people don't have images "on" by default anyway. Therefore, make sure your message makes sense even if the images are never selected to be shown in the message. Please present the important information in plain text.
Excellent  Example Message: Subject: [Company Name] Request for Customer Feedback   Body: [FirstName] [LastName] [Company Name] invites you to participate in a Customer Service Assessment survey designed to gauge your opinions on how to provide excellent customer service offerings. The survey will ask about your recent interactions with [Company Name] to determine what you value in a customer service experience. We are sending this survey because we would like to know how our customers feel about these topics and find out what is important to them in terms of customer service. By completing this survey you can help us shape our future service offerings and help us to understand how our customers define quality customer service. This survey will take approximately ten to fifteen minutes to complete. Please keep in mind that your responses will only be used to analyze your opinions about different customer service offerings, so please be as candid and direct as possible. This link is uniquely tied to this survey and your email address; please do not forward this message.To access the survey, click on the link below: [SurveyLink] Thank you in advance for your participation!  [Name and position in company]  [Physical address]  [Contact Email address]  ______________________________________________  If you have questions about this survey please contact, [provide a contact email address].   *Footer: If you would like more information on [Company Name] please feel free to visit our website at www.mysite.com.  Privacy Statement – [Your company name, etc.] is committed to protecting your privacy. [Additional privacy information or information about anonymity.]   [Explain what you will be doing with the data, etc. Please note: no results or analyses will identify you individually. . . ] Please note: If you do not wish to receive further emails from us, please click the link below, and you will be automatically removed from our mailing list. [RemoveLink]
Email Invitation Uses

The Email Invitation feature is available for you to do just that: invite respondents to take your survey.

Q: Can I embed the survey in my email message?

A: We do not offer a way for you to embed the survey within an email. 

Q: Is it recommend that I put in a privacy statement link and if so where would it connect to?

A:  We do not offer a privacy policy for your company to include in your emails, but it is easy to create a free privacy policy link for your company to include in your email. 

Sending to Large Email Lists 

Please allow extra time for message approval when sending to large email lists. These precautions both reduce unsolicited emails (spam!) and help boost your response rate! Before we'll send out a large list for the first time, we need the senders to let us know from where they obtained the email addresses and the age of the list. Yes, just because you bought a list doesn't mean it's a "good" list or that the respondents have explicitly agreed to take your surveys. If you bought a list from someone advertising travel adventure, etc., there's a good chance people on the list did not opt into taking your survey. See this help topic for information about formatting organizational spam filters to allow delivery of surveys from SurveyMonkey. 

Each account has a set maximum number of allowed message per day: 25k.