Once in the spam folder, an email is likely to never be seen by the eyes of its intended recipients unless they are rummaging through the folder in search of some lost password recovery email.

So, why are your emails going to spam, and what can you do to prevent that from happening? We tackle both of these topics here, so keep on reading!

You lack proper authentication 

Email authentication is what helps distinguish between emails that are legitimate and those that are spam. So, if said authentication is missing, you, as a sender, seem less trustworthy, and on top of that, your domain name is more prone to being used by spammers and scammers to send deceptive emails.

Solutions

• Set up Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication (DMARC) authentication methods.
• Monitor your authentication results and correct things if needed.
• Keep up with the latest updates and policies in email security.
• Comply with sender requirements from Google and Yahoo.

You use spammy words 

It’s no secret that each of your outgoing emails, be it a marketing email or a transactional email, is checked by spam filters set up by Internet service providers (ISPs) and email service providers (ESPs) such as Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft Outlook, etc. These filters are built to look for specific words and word combinations often used by spammers and flag emails containing them in their body or subject line. 

Solutions

• Avoid using all capital letters, excessive exclamation marks, emojis, and numbers/numeric characters, as well as unnecessary spaces and punctuation, and heavily sales-oriented language. 
• Avoid common spam trigger words such as free, lowest price, easy money, etc.
• Keep an eye on your grammar and spelling.
• Don’t exaggerate your claims and promises.
• Keep your language somewhat neutral.

You include suspicious attachments and links 

As email attachments are often the source of malware, spam filters take a close look at them, especially if they are executable files (.exe). Other file types, such as ZIP files, macro-enabled Office files, and even PDFs, can also contain malicious code or phishing links and are thus seen as red flags.

Solutions

• Run scans on attachments before uploading them to make sure they are free from malware.
• Consider using a secure file transfer service instead of adding your file as an attachment.
• Steer completely clear from using suspicious file types.

You have inaccurate “FROM” information 

The “FROM” line of an email should contain accurate information about who the email sender is. When it comes to spam emails, misleading information is often put in this field to trick the recipient. With that said, it’s clear why inaccurate “FROM” information could be the culprit for why your emails are being marked as spam.

Solutions

• Use a recognizable sender name and a valid email address associated with your domain.
• Maintain consistency of the “FROM” field across your email communications.
• Follow proper procedures for updating the “FROM” field information when necessary.
• Monitor your “FROM” filed information, especially if you use automated systems and third-party platforms.
• Ensure contact forms on your website use the admin address of your site in the “FROM” field instead of the addresses entered into them.

You lack permission to email people 

GDPR, the CAN-SPAM Act, and other rules and regulations strictly prohibit sending unsolicited emails. What’s more, unsolicited emails are more than likely to be reported by recipients as they are a form of unwanted communication. So if your email list partially or completely consists of email addresses you purchased or simply didn’t obtain organically, then the messages you send to those addresses will end up being flagged as spam, not by spam filters but by the recipients themselves.

Solutions

• Check if all the people on your email list have given you explicit consent to send them emails and remove those who have not.
• Use an opt-in form when collecting email addresses and include a disclaimer stating that you will be using this information and how.
• Take things a step further by using a double opt-in and asking for an email address confirmation upon sign-up.
• Keep your privacy policy updated, especially on the aspect of email address collection and storage.
• Make unsubscribing easy and effortless.
• Educate team members with access to your email list on laws and regulations related to email sending.
• Seek legal advice if you have trouble understanding and complying with laws and regulations related to email sending. 

You have a poor sender reputation 

Sender reputation is made up of domain and IP address reputation and plays a crucial role in email deliverability. So, if either of these metrics is not looking good in your case, then it will be unlikely that you’ll be seen as a reputable sender and that your emails will end up in recipients’ inboxes.

Solutions

• Authenticate your domain.
• Check your blacklist presence – via IP blocklist checker or domain blocklist checker tools – and request removal if necessary.
• Grow your email list organically.
• Clean your email list from inactive and unengaged email accounts/subscribers.
• Keep a close eye on bounce rates and remove bounced email addresses from your list.
• Work on improving engagement.
• Sign up for a feedback loop to receive notifications of spam complaints.

You can learn more about email sender reputation and how to complete an email sender reputation in this Mailtrap tutorial:

You are being marked as spam by recipients (maybe accidentally)

Besides spam filters, email recipients also have the ability to mark an email as spam. This could happen for a number of reasons and even in situations where you know your content is good and you have all the necessary permissions. If this becomes a common occurrence with your email subscribers, you might start being seen as a suspicious sender, thus preventing your emails from reaching the recipients who, in fact, want to be contacted by you.

Solutions

• Commit to always providing relevant, clear, and overall top-notch content in the email.
• Segment your email list and send targeted email campaigns to each segment.
• Ensure unsubscribing is easy and effortless.
• Use a double opt-in form for subscribing to your email list.
• Regularly clean your list from inactive and unengaged subscribers.

You mislead with your subject lines  

Grabbing attention is the number one task of email subject lines. Still, in order to adhere to laws and regulations such as CAN-SPAM, these subject lines need to be honest and not intentionally mislead a recipient into opening a message. Examples of intentional misleading include falsely using “RE” or “FW” in the subject line of an email that isn’t a reply or a forwarded message, being overly personal with your language, making overly sensational claims, etc.

Solutions

• Use language that’s clear and straightforward.
• Don’t misuse symbols such as “RE” and “FW”.
• Always maintain a level of professionalism and avoid being too informal and personal.
• Base your subject lines on facts and avoid sensational or clickbait language.

You have low engagement rates

Engagement, more specifically, open rate, click rate, replies, and so on, is one of the factors taken into account when deciding whether your email will be classified as spam or legitimate. So, if you see your engagement rates dropping, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if more and more of your emails end up in spam.

Solutions

• Segment your email list based on demographics, behavior, etc.
• Personalize emails and tailor content within them to recipient interests and preferences.
• Optimize subject lines to be compelling and concise.
• Work on improving your email content so it’s more relevant and valuable.
• Determine the best days and times to send your emails.
• Clean your list from inactive and unengaged subscribers.
• Conduct A/B testing for different email elements.
• Run engagement surveys to collect subscriber preferences.
• Run re-engagement campaigns.

You don’t follow HTML email best practices

To make your content more eye-catching and engaging, switching from plain-text to HTML emails is inevitable, as these types of emails enable you to include things such as branding elements, CTAs, visuals, etc. But, if the HTML code in the emails isn’t carefully put together, it could trigger spam filters.

Solutions

• Use a responsive design.
• Write/use clean HTML code without deprecated elements.
• Stay away from excessive styling using CSS and avoid JavaScript.
• Optimize images used within emails.
• Provide images with an alt text.
• Include a text-only version of your email.
• Maintain a low image-to-text ratio.

You have a bad email list 

A spammer’s email list is most certainly a collection of any and all email addresses they can find, including valid and invalid ones. However, the inevitable results of using such lists are a high bounce rate, low engagement, and frequent spam reports. Taking that into consideration, if your list is not a clean one, you might be seen as a spammer, as the negative effects are bound to start manifesting. To avoid this, consider using B2B sales intelligence tools to source verified, high-quality contacts and build lists based on accurate, up-to-date data.

Solutions

• Only add the email addresses of people who agreed to receive communication from you to your list.
• Never resort to buying or borrowing an email list.
• Clean the list of unsubscribed, inactive, and unengaged recipients.
• Use an email verification service or software to validate email addresses.

You aren’t allowing subscribers to opt-out easily 

If you’re an email marketer that follows outlined rules and regulations, then you should be aware of the requirement to include an unsubscribe option in each email you send. But along with doing that, you should also make sure said option is easy to spot within the email. If this is not the case, email recipients could be left frustrated and mark the email as spam.

Solutions

• Place a clear and visible unsubscribe link in a prominent spot within the header or footer.
• Make the unsubscribe a single-click action.
• Use a large and bold font as well as color and styling that stands out.
• Use simple phrases such as “Unsubscribe here” that aren’t in any way confusing.
• Implement a confirmation mechanism that notifies that the unsubscription was successful.
• Implement a preferences center allowing subscribers to manage their email preferences instead of unsubscribing.
• Process the unsubscription within the time period listed in the laws and regulations you adhere to. 

You haven’t included your physical address

Although surprising, the lack of a physical address in your email might be a red flag and have the email marked as spam. The purpose of this physical address is to add an element of traceability and make you seem like more of a legitimate business.

Solutions

• Decide what your physical address will be – you can go for your street address, a post box registered with the postal service, or a private mailbox registered with an agency for receiving mail, depending on your business setup.
• Format the address so it’s clear and legible following the example below:
  • Your Company Name
  • Street Address
  • City, State Zip Code
  • Country (if applicable)

• Update your email signature by placing the address there.
• Add contact information along with your physical address so recipients can reach you in multiple ways.

For more information on email deliverability, check out our dedicated video:

Avoid spam filters: Test your emails before sending

After reading this article, you should now be quite familiar with the ways you might trigger spam filters as well as why recipients might mark your emails as spam. You should also know all the actions you can take to fix the situation once you’ve realized that your emails aren’t hitting inboxes. 

But is there a preventive step you can take to increase your chance of favorable inbox placement? Yes, there is, and it’s called email testing.

You see, by running tests on your emails before they are sent to the addresses on your email list, you will be able to spot any errors present if you’re using the right testing tool.

And, after you’ve tested your emails, and you’re confident they won’t raise any red flags with spam filters? Then, you can freely proceed to send those emails using a solution like Mailtrap Email API/SMTP.

This solution is designed to provide an email infrastructure with high deliverability rates and unique monitoring capabilities to ensure effortless maintenance and troubleshooting of deliverability issues.

So, if you decide to go for Mailtrap Email API/SMTP, you can relax knowing that you’ll reach recipient inboxes just in time and have access to actionable, in-depth analytics and up to 60 days of email logs.

Mailtrap Email API/SMTP comes in the form of an SMTP service, which is great if you want quick and easy integration, as well as an email API providing even better flexibility.

Sign up for a free Mailtrap account today, and you’ll have access to both its testing and sending solution. And you don’t have to worry about the setup process, as this will be smooth and secure from start to finish!

We hope you enjoyed this article on the most common reasons why emails go to spam. For more related content, check out our other articles below:

• How to Avoid Emails Going to Spam: 3 Not-Easy Steps 
• What Is Email Domain Reputation?
• Email IP Reputation Explained
• Shared vs Dedicated IP in Email Sending 

And if you’re curious if AI could be the culprit behind getting the spam label, also make sure to give our video a watch:

What are spam traps?

Spam traps are email addresses designed to catch spammers and senders who don’t follow proper email collection practices. They are often placed by email providers and anti-spam organizations to detect senders that use outdated, scraped, or purchased lists. 

When a sender emails a spam trap, mailbox providers flag them as untrustworthy. This damages their sender reputation, causing more of their emails to land in recipients’ spam folders or even get blocked entirely.

Spam traps vs disposable mailboxes

Disposable mailboxes are temporary email addresses created by real users — often to sign up for services without sharing their regular email address. These addresses work like normal emails but are short-lived and eventually expire. 

Imagine you want to download a PDF guide but don’t want to receive marketing emails afterward. In this case, you might use a disposable mailbox to get the download link without sharing your real contact information.

Among the most famous email services that offer disposable emails are Temp Mail, Guerrilla Mail, 10 Minute Mail, and Mailinator. 

Spam traps, on the other hand, aren’t used by real people and exist solely to catch irresponsible senders that send spam emails. 

While emails sent to disposable mailboxes may go unread, hitting a spam trap has far worse consequences. It can damage your sender reputation, reduce email deliverability and inbox placement, and lead to blacklisting.

Types of spam traps with examples

There are three types of spam traps: purposefully created traps, reused old addresses, and unintentional traps caused by typos. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Spam traps created on purpose (pristine)

Pristine traps are email addresses specifically designed to detect and block spammers and unsolicited senders. They are set up by email providers, anti-spam organizations, and security firms and have never been used for personal or business communication.

Since real users didn’t create these addresses and they never opted into any mailing lists, any emails sent to them indicate poor list hygiene on the sender’s part.

It’s impossible to distinguish a pristine spam trap from a regular email address. It can look like any personal or business email, such as:

• martha.steward@gmail.com
• barbra.streisand@yahoo.com
• mahatma_gandhi@outlook.com 

Repurposed addresses

Repurposed or recycled spam traps are old email addresses that once belonged to real users but were later taken over by email providers or anti-spam organizations. These addresses remain inactive for a long time — typically 6 months to a few years — before being reactivated. However, they are not reactivated for personal use; instead, they are used to monitor senders who fail to clean their contact lists.

Since legitimate senders should regularly remove inactive contacts, emailing repurposed spam trap email addresses shows that a sender isn’t properly updating their email list.

A repurposed spam trap is also difficult to detect. It may include an old organization name or domain but this is not always the case:

• james.miller@hotmail.com
• susan.work@att.net
• andrea.smith@altavista.com 

Email with typos

People can unintentionally create spam traps by making typos in email addresses. The most common mistakes happen in the domain name — for example, instead of entering “harry.potter@gmail.com,” they type “harry.potter@gmial.com” or “harry.potter@gnail.com.”

Email providers and anti-spam organizations track messages sent to these misspelled addresses to identify senders who don’t validate contacts or keep incorrect emails on their lists for too long.

How to identify and remove spam traps

As I mentioned earlier, you cannot detect spam traps just by looking at one. But what about typo spam traps, you might ask? Well, yes, if you’re working with a small list of 50 contacts, you could manually catch obvious mistakes. However, for larger lists, that’s not practical.

Here are some more reliable and efficient methods to identify spam traps.

1. Run your list through email validation services like ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, or Validity (formerly BriteVerify) to detect inactive, invalid, or suspicious addresses.
2. Analyze engagement metrics after each campaign. Spam traps don’t open, click, or reply. If an address has zero engagement over 3 to 5 consecutive campaigns (typically within 30-90 days), it could be a trap.
3. Check for frequent hard bounces. If certain addresses consistently bounce, they are very likely to be repurposed spam traps.
4. Take a close look at role-based addresses. Emails like info@microsoft.com or support@amazon.com are often risky because multiple people share them and may not engage with emails. While not all role-based emails are spam traps, some can be converted into traps if abandoned. If you have role-based addresses on your list, check their engagement, and verify them with an email checker before sending marketing messages.
5. Know your list acquisition sources. If some emails came from purchased lists, outdated databases, or scraping, they are very likely to contain email spam traps. If you’ve acquired your list this way (which I highly recommend you don’t), go back to step 1 in this section.

Once you’ve identified spam traps, remove them from your list without hesitation. These emails will not bring you any value but will only have a negative impact on future email campaign performance, including reduced engagement, higher bounce rates, and potential blocks by email providers.

How do spam traps get on your email addresses list?

Since spam traps look like regular email addresses, you may not realize you’ve collected one until your delivery rates start to decline. Here are the most common ways spam traps can sneak into your list:

• Purchasing email lists. Bought contact lists often contain outdated or fabricated addresses, including spam traps placed by anti-spam organizations.
• Scraping emails from websites. Anti-spam organizations intentionally place spam traps on public websites, knowing that some senders will collect emails through scraping. If your list includes addresses gathered this way, there’s a high chance you’ve picked up a spam trap.
• Keeping old, inactive subscribers on your list. If you keep sending to long-abandoned email addresses, some may have been repurposed into spam traps over time. Since these addresses don’t bounce, they can stay on your list unnoticed.
• Not validating email addresses during sign-up. If you don’t validate user emails when people fill in signup forms, mistyped addresses can slip into your list. These typos are monitored and can be turned into spam traps.
• Adding role-based addresses to your list. Over time, abandoned role-based addresses can be repurposed as spam traps, so keep an eye on them.

Consequences of hitting spam traps

The impact of hitting a spam trap varies based on the type of trap you’ve triggered. Some traps result in minor issues, while others can lead to severe problems, potentially preventing you from sending emails altogether. Here’s what happens with each type:

• Pristine spam traps. These are the most critical spam traps. Since a real person never owned them, emailing them signals poor list acquisition practices. Hitting these fake email addresses can lead to immediate IP address blacklisting or domain blacklisting, severe email deliverability drop, and permanent damage to your sender reputation. If you want to know how to get your email out of a blocklist, read our dedicated guide. 
• Recycled traps. These traps are less severe but still harmful. They indicate poor list hygiene, as you’re emailing inactive contacts. Sending to repurposed traps repeatedly will harm your sender reputation, meaning that subscribers with legitimate emails who anticipate your messages may not get them or get them in the spam folder.
• Typo-based spam traps. While not as damaging, typo traps suggest you’re not validating emails properly. If you often send to common typos, email providers will start filtering your messages as spam. As a result, your future campaigns will have lower inbox placement and engagement rates.

Hitting spam traps will waste resources, damage your reputation, and hurt campaign results. It can even lead to legal consequences, like fines for non-compliance with email marketing regulations.

How to avoid spam traps

It’s always better to prevent an issue than to fix it later. Moreover, the practices I’m about to share are part of email best practices. By following them, you’ll not only avoid spam traps but also improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

• Build your contact list organically. Focus on organic list building through valuable content, engaging events, great deals, and lead magnets. You don’t need a large list to succeed—keeping it small but engaged is better. Subscribers who are genuinely interested in your messages are much more likely to convert.
• Validate emails at sign-up. Use a real-time email validation tool at the sign-up stage to catch typos and invalid addresses before they make it onto your list. These tools’ functionality ensures you collect only legitimate email addresses.
• Use double opt-in. Double opt-in helps you ensure that new subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails when they confirm their subscription via a follow-up email. This is the easiest email verification process to ensure email addresses you’re collecting are legitimate and not spam traps.
• Clean email lists often. Responsible list management includes removing inactive subscribers, bounced emails, invalid email addresses, and anyone who hasn’t engaged with your emails in the past 3-6 months (or after 3-5 email marketing campaigns). For inactive subscribers, you can run re-engagement campaigns before removing them. However, the longer you keep inactive outdated emails, the higher the chance they’ll turn into spam traps.
• Monitor your engagement metrics. Low open, click-through, and conversion rates signal that something is wrong. If certain email addresses consistently show no interaction, they could be spam traps. And even if they aren’t, these addresses waste your budget and negatively impact your campaign results. 
• Avoid role-based emails. Only keep them on your list if you’ve confirmed they are actively monitored.

Unfortunately, there are some other reasons why your emails can land in a junk folder. For example your email content, subject line, or its design can trigger a spam filter. You can use Mailtrap’s Spam Checker to quickly assess your emails before email sending and improve their chances of landing in the inbox.

Also, you can learn about Gmail’s spam filter and Outlook’s spam filter peculiarities to understand how your emails are handled on those platforms.

Wrapping up

By implementing the practices outlined above, you can effectively steer clear of spam traps and the negative consequences they bring. For additional tips on optimizing your email campaigns, don’t miss our next blog post:

• How to Avoid Emails Going to Spam? 
• SpamAssassin Score Explained
• How to Check and Improve Email Sender Reputation
• Email Domain Reputation: All You Need to Know
• Email Deliverability [Comprehensive Guide] 
• What Is Email Feedback Loop and Why Is It Important? 

In this guide, we’ll break down what spam email lists are, how to remove your email from these lists, and, most importantly, how to avoid ever ending up on one.

What is a spam email list?

A spam email list is a collection of email addresses, domains, or IPs that have been flagged for sending out unwanted emails, usually spam. Once an email is on such a list, it can’t be used to send legitimate emails anymore.

These lists are maintained by organizations, email service providers, and anti-spam groups whose job is to identify sources of spam and prevent those emails from reaching inboxes.

Is a spam list the same as a blacklist? 

A spam email list and a blacklist are similar but not the same.

Email providers and anti-spam groups use spam email lists to track sources of unwanted emails, identify, and filter them. It means that you would still be able to send emails, but they’re very likely to be marked as spam from the start.

While all spam lists are part of blacklists, blacklists are broader and cover more than just spam. They also target harmful entities, such as those involved in phishing. Blacklists are specifically designed to block emails from reaching inboxes, meaning your emails will likely be hard-bounced and never make it to the recipient’s inbox.

To learn more about how blacklists work and how to avoid them, check out our dedicated blog post on email blacklists.

How are spam email lists created?

Spam email lists are created through a combination of automated monitoring, spam filters, and user feedback.

Automated monitoring tracks behaviors that could signal spammy activity, like sudden sending spikes, using unauthorized sending methods, or sending emails to invalid or non-existent addresses. 

The monitoring is performed by email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook and anti-spam organizations like Spamhaus. 

If automated monitoring flags an email account, domain, or IP, it is very likely to be added to a spam email list or blacklist.

ESPs also rely on spam filters that check incoming emails for characteristics commonly associated with spam, like misleading subject lines, suspicious links, spammy words, and attachments.

If an email fails the check, spam filters send it to the junk email folder. Also, spam filters track recurring suspicious behavior from the same email sender and automatically treat future emails as spam. 

Finally, if a lot of recipients mark an email as spam, an ESP will take this feedback into account when evaluating future emails from you. In such cases, your emails may be flagged as spam, even without technical violations. 

Examples of spam email lists

There are several well-known spam email lists maintained by different organizations:

• Spamhaus is an international nonprofit organization that maintains spam email lists and provides threat intelligence services, such as data query, real-time threat monitoring, and BGP-based firewall solutions.
• Spamcop. An anti-spam service that collects spam complaints from users and analyzes email headers to track down the sources of spam.
• Lashback is a leading provider of compliance services, brand protection, and marketing intelligence for digital marketers. Lashback maintains a spam email list and offers services like ComplianceMonitor and ListMonitor to help businesses make sure they aren’t linked to spam or malicious email activity.

Here are some other spam email lists that focus on tracking and blocking IP addresses (and sometimes domains) used for sending spam or involved in spam-related activities:

• Passive Spam Block List (PSBL). Maintained by the Spamhaus Project, this list is primarily focused on IPs rather than email addresses or domains. When an IP address is identified as sending spam, it gets added to the PSBL.
• UCEPROTECT was created by a German internet security expert as a response to the increasing threat of spam and to help improve email security by providing a blocklist for email service providers and network administrators.
• Exploits Block List (XBL) is another list maintained by Spamhaus that specifically targets IP addresses used by compromised machines, botnets, and malware to send scam emails.

How to check if your email is in a spam email list?

If you suspect that your email, IP, or domain was flagged as spam—and that’s easy to suspect once your entire email campaign is bounced or sent to the spam folder—you need to check your assumption. Here is how to do that:

1. Check bounce-back messages. If many emails bounced back, start by checking the bounce-back emails or delivery failure notifications from your email delivery platform. These messages often include error codes and specific reasons for delivery failure (e.g., IP blocked, spam complaints, server issues). Look for sections in the message that mention why your email was rejected or why it was marked as spam.
2. Check your sender reputation. If you see (in an ESP dashboard) that many of your emails went to spam, check your sender reputation using tools like Sender Score, Google Postmaster Tools, or SenderBase. A low sender reputation can cause email providers to treat your emails as spam, even if you’re not on any blacklists.
3. Check if you’re listed on blacklists or spam lists. Use our Free IP Blocklist Checker and Free Domain Blocklist Checker, or tools like Spamcop Blocklist Lookup, Spamhaus Blocklist Lookup, or Lashback ListMonitor to check if your IP address or domain was added to any spam lists. 
4. Review user feedback. Start by checking your ESP’s reports for any spam complaints or issues. Some ESPs allow you to view feedback loops—make sure to check them. If your ESP doesn’t provide this feature, register with platforms like Gmail or Microsoft to access their feedback loops. With this data, you can see how many people have marked your emails as spam.
5. Check your email content. This step should go before the email dispatch, however, if you have forgotten to do that in advance and now the problem occurred, you might want to scan your email for potential spam triggers to make sure it was a one-time problem. In the last section, I’ll give you the best tool to do that.

Why may your email address end up in a spam list?

Here are the most common reasons why ESPs and anti-spam organizations may add your email to a spam list:

• Spam complaints. If many recipients mark your email as spam, it signals to ESPs that your emails are unwanted. Recipients may do that if your subject line is misleading, if your content seems too promotional or irrelevant, or if you’re sending emails too frequently. 
• Suspicious sending patterns. Sending too many emails in a short time, or not sending emails regularly enough can make email providers and anti-spam organizations think you’re spamming. Along with that, purchasing email lists and sending to invalid addresses, and spam traps (emails created by anti-spam organizations to catch spammers) can significantly harm your sender reputation and lead to blacklisting.
• Sending emails without permission. Sending unsolicited emails without permission can get you flagged by ESPs. Even if no one reports you, they’ll notice the pattern, and you could end up on a spam list, especially if your emails resemble those sent by scammers, who often use misleading tactics to deceive recipients.
• Spam complaints to regulatory authorities. Sending emails without explicit consent is illegal in many regions. Recipients may not only mark your emails as spam but also file complaints with regulatory authorities, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. or the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the UK, which could result in hefty fines.
• Sending from blacklisted IPs or domains. If you’re sending emails from a blacklisted or compromised IP address, even if users don’t flag you directly, your emails could still be added to a spam list because of the bad reputation of that IP or domain.

How to delete your email from a spam list?

So, you’ve found out you’re on a spam list. Here’s what to do to remove your email from it:

Find out which list you’re on

Each spam list has its own process for removal. Use tools like Spamhaus, Spamcop, and Lashback to check if your IP, domain, or email address is on any of them.

Request removal

Once you know where you’re listed, go to the spam list’s website and check the removal instructions. Most likely, you’ll need to explain why your email was flagged and show that you’ve taken steps to resolve the issue.

Fix the cause of an issue

Before requesting removal, you need to make sure everything’s fixed on your end. If your emails were flagged for things like sending too many at once, using bad sending practices, or having technical issues like incorrect SPF or DKIM records, you’ll need to address those first. You can simplify this step by using an online tool like an SPF generator to ensure your SPF record is correctly configured and aligned with your sending domain.

Wait for a result

Once you’ve submitted the removal request, it can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to get a response. During that time, your emails might still be flagged as spam.

Keep sending legitimate emails

Some spam lists don’t have a formal removal mechanism but instead will “whiten” your email over time automatically. All you need to do is continue sending good, engaging emails that your subscribers will open and interact with and that don’t resemble ‌spam messages.

Radical moves (if needed)

If things aren’t improving or your email has been stuck on the list for a while, you might need to take more decisive steps:

• Create a new email address. This can help you start fresh. However, make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes. You’ll also need to update your lists and inform your subscribers of the change.
• Migrate to new infrastructure. If the issue is tied to your domain or IP address, moving to a new infrastructure might be your best option. Is it resource-consuming? Yes, but it can be your only chance if your existing IP and domain have a damaged reputation, as this can make it extremely difficult to recover without a fresh start.

How to avoid your email getting on a spam list?

Not being able to send marketing emails can severely harm your business. What’s more, if your reputation is scrutinized, your subscribers will treat your emails accordingly. So, it’s better to build trust in the first place and prevent issues than fix them once they happen.

Here are the best practices to keep your emails off the spam list:

• Never buy an email list. Purchased lists often contain invalid, outdated emails, and even spam traps. They also include addresses of unengaged people who don’t expect emails from you and can easily mark them as spam. It’s far better to have 50 subscribers who genuinely want to hear from you than 10,000 email addresses that will only lead to irritation, unsubscribes, and potential legal trouble.
• Follow data privacy laws. Make sure you’re following all the relevant data privacy laws, like GDPR (EU), CAN-SPAM Act (USA), PIPEDA (Canada), LGPD (Brazil), and PDPA (Singapore, Asia). This means getting clear consent from your subscribers (think double opt-in), keeping their data safe, and always adding a visible unsubscribe link to every email. 
• Invest in your email list management. ESPs and anti-spam organizations won’t flag a sender whose emails are regularly opened and clicked. That means you should focus on keeping only engaged people on your list. To boost engagement, segment your list based on behavior, preferences, or demographics, and make sure to remove unsubscribed or unengaged users regularly. For more tips on managing your email list effectively, you can check out the full guide.
• Plan your emails and stick to a schedule. Sending irrelevant content here and there will only lead to poor results. Make sure the emails you send help your audience solve their problems or meet their needs. Plan your content ahead of time and stick to a regular schedule.
• Monitor your sender reputation. Regularly monitor your sender reputation using tools like Sender Score, Google Postmaster Tools, or your ESP’s built-in tools. If things go south, there are plenty of actions you can take to improve your reputation. We explain all of them in our dedicated guide. 
• Use the right email platform. Choose a reliable email infrastructure that provides secure servers and dedicated IP addresses, along with proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to verify that your emails are legitimate. The right platform will also help you stay compliant, stick to a plan, and automate many processes.
• Test before sending. One of the most important steps before you send email messages is testing them to make sure they won’t trigger spam email filters.

Wrapping up

You don’t have to worry about spam lists if you operate legally, send emails only to engaged subscribers, and follow best practices for email authentication and list management. By staying compliant with data privacy laws, crafting relevant content, and using the right tools to test and monitor your emails, you can be sure that your emails will reach their audience and won’t go unnoticed.

For more insights on improving your email deliverability and mastering email marketing, check out these helpful blog posts:

• SpamAssassin Score Explained
• Email Deliverability in 2025
• Best 6 Email Marketing Platforms Compared
• Email Deliverability Comparison

In this post, you’ll learn what email list management is, discover unexpected reasons why you should invest in email list management, and find common pitfalls you might face on the way.

Ready, steady, go!

What is email list management?

Email list management is a set of practices that aim to keep your email list relevant, engaged, accurate, and organized.

Email management is an ongoing process that typically includes ethical email collection, validation, segmentation, tagging, and removing invalid email addresses, duplicates, unsubscribes, bounced, and unengaged contacts from your list. For more on this, read here.

Why manage email lists?

Proper email list management leads to a better understanding of your audience, increased ROI, and lower operational costs. Furthermore, it helps you pass spam filters, improves inbox placement, and increases the chances of your email being seen and opened.

• Better understanding of your audience. When your email list consists of engaged and active contacts, you can focus on their needs and preferences while refining your products/services for the key segments that generate the most value for your business.
• Increased ROI. Highly engaged subscribers anticipate your emails and are much more likely to convert. 
• Improved deliverability and inbox placement. Engagement of your subscribers directly influences your sender’s reputation and, therefore, the deliverability of your emails. The more recipients interact with your messages, the more likely email providers are to place your emails in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
• Lowered operational costs. Sending emails to uninterested recipients wastes your time, effort, and budget. Instead, focus on active and engaged contacts and allocate your resources where they have the greatest impact.
• Enhanced compliance. Ethical email collection ensures that your contacts have voluntarily provided their email addresses and agreed to receive emails from you, which is required by email marketing regulations.

How to manage an email list

The process of email list management includes the following steps:

Ethical email collection

Ethical email collection involves an opt-in registration approach, where users check a box to agree to become subscribers, just like they would for a privacy policy agreement. Here’s the Spotify example.

If you don’t know how to nudge people to signup, here are some list-building ideas:

• Retail businesses often collect emails during the checkout process, through loyalty programs, or by offering discounts for signing up in popups.
• B2B companies frequently gather contacts through lead magnets like eBooks, whitepapers, or case studies. They may also use forms on their landing page or registration during webinars.
• Software companies typically collect emails through free trial signups, demo requests, or content downloads.

Make it easy to unsubscribe

Making it simple for subscribers to opt out of your emails is not just about creating a positive user experience—it’s a legal requirement. Make sure the unsubscribe button is visible and present in every email. 

When people opt out, remove them from your campaigns and marketing lists right away to stay compliant and avoid spam complaints.

As an option, you can direct subscribers to a separate page where they can adjust email frequency or content preferences before they opt out entirely. This gives them control over what they receive while helping you retain valuable contacts.

Validate email addresses to ensure they are active and legitimate

When subscribing to your emails, users might make a typo or deliberately give you the wrong address. Every email sent to such an email address wastes resources and damages your sender’s reputation.

To avoid this, use an email verification tool like ZeroBounce or NeverBounce to check for invalid or fake addresses. You can also automatically validate emails when you collect them by integrating email validation services into your sign-up forms.

Another option is a double opt-in method, which I explain in detail in the Best Practices section.

Store emails securely and in compliance with data privacy regulations

Every business that collects user data is obliged to store it securely and protect against unauthorized access or breaches. While most data privacy regulations, like GDPR, don’t provide strict guidelines for “secure storage,” they suggest measures such as encryption, restricted access, regular audits, etc.

You can choose between two approaches for storing user data:

• Store data yourself by encrypting email lists, using strong passwords, and restricting access to authorized personnel only.
• Use GDPR-compliant platforms (e.g., Mailtrap, Mailchimp, HubSpot) with built-in tools for secure data management and consent logging. More about tools is covered here.

Regardless of the approach you choose, it’s critical to create and stick to a clear privacy policy that regulates and explains how subscriber data is stored and used.

Monitor and analyze engagement metrics

To identify active subscribers and flag inactive ones, collect and monitor key engagement metrics like open, click-through rates, and bounces. 

Set a threshold for inactivity—such as no engagement in 90 days or a person hasn’t opened your last 10 emails. Many tools allow you to create dynamic segments for “Unengaged contacts” and filter such contacts automatically. 

Remove inactive, unsubscribed, or invalid contacts

After you’ve identified inactive subscribers, try re-engaging them by offering helpful materials, discounts, or special deals. 

If they don’t respond, remove them from your list, along with all hard bounces, invalid emails, and unsubscribed users. Don’t hesitate to do this, as it’s the only way to keep a healthy email list.

Conduct periodic email list audits 

Schedule audits every six months to review your email list segmentation, tagging, and data accuracy. 

During the audit, merge duplicate addresses, update users’ information (location, job title, etc.), and use a compliance checklist to ensure your list complies with data privacy laws.

Email list management common pitfalls

Even with the best intentions, there are numerous mistakes you can make when managing email lists. These pitfalls can harm your sender’s reputation, reduce engagement, and even lead to legal troubles. Watch this video to find out their consequences, or keep on reading.

• Purchasing an email list. Such databases often contain email addresses of unengaged people who didn’t consent to receive information from you and are likely to mark your emails as spam. Also, these lists often include spam traps (addresses created by spam filters to catch spammers), as well as outdated or invalid email addresses. Using purchased lists can severely damage your sender’s reputation, increase bounce rates, and reduce overall deliverability.
• Not removing inactive subscribers. Low engagement with your emails signals to email service providers (ESPs) that your content is not relevant or desired, which, over time, can lead to your emails being sorted into the promotions tab or even the spam folder.
• Sending generic emails to everyone. Without proper segmentation and tailored content, even your most loyal email subscribers will lose interest and eventually churn.
• Failing to update outdated subscriber information. People change email addresses, locations, jobs, and preferences over time. If you don’t update this information, you risk sending irrelevant emails that won’t resonate with your audience.
• Ignoring email deliverability issues. There can be many reasons for a drop in your email deliverability rate. By identifying the root cause, you may need to switch to a more reliable email delivery tool, authenticate your domain, review your email list hygiene strategy, check your email content for spam triggers, or work on audience segmentation.
• Neglecting data privacy regulations. If you send emails without clear permission, keep unsubscribed users in your active lists, make it difficult to unsubscribe, or ignore email marketing laws, you risk facing legal penalties, spam complaints, and losing the trust of your audience.
• Ignoring soft and hard bounces. Soft and hard bounces are undelivered emails. Hard bounces mean the email address is invalid or doesn’t exist, while soft bounces indicate temporary issues, such as a full inbox or a server problem. While soft bounces can be monitored and retried a few times, emails that experience hard bounces should be removed immediately.
• Letting duplicate entries remain in the list. Duplicate emails increase your contact list size, leading to higher software pricing and wasted resources. Another issue is frustrated subscribers who receive the same email multiple times.

Email list management best practices

In addition to the basic steps outlined in the how-to section, there are industry best practices that can help you manage your email list more effectively. These practices can also prevent legal issues, help you avoid common pitfalls, and enhance the impact of your email marketing campaigns. Let me guide you through these important strategies.

Use a double opt-in method

An opt-in registration method is often a legal requirement under regulations like GDPR (EU), CASL (Canada), DSL and PIPL(China), APPI (Japan) AN-SPAM, and others. A double opt-in process goes a step further and is an effective way to:

• Obtain clear, legal permission to send emails to a person.
• Verify the validity of the provided email address and ensure it’s active.
• Reduce fake or mistyped email signups that can harm your sender’s reputation.
• Ensure the subscriber is genuinely interested in receiving your content.

Here’s how it works: after filling out a sign-up form, users get a confirmation email with a link. Only those who click it are added to your email list.

Here’s an example: a confirmation email for a double opt-in registration used by Medium, an online publishing platform.

Ask subscribers about their preferences

Rather than relying solely on experiments (which are also helpful), you can simplify the process and ask your current or future subscribers to choose their preferred email topics, frequency, and timing. Here’s how you can implement this from a technical standpoint:

• Create an email preference center in a personal account. Allow subscribers to choose their interests and email frequency in a dedicated preference center they can access via their personal accounts.
• Collect preferences during signup. Extend your signup form by including fields like location, company, or interests. Keep it short and only ask for essential information to avoid overwhelming users.
• Send post-signup surveys. After signup or sometime later, send quick surveys to ask subscribers about their content preferences or needs. You can also ask general questions about your offers and services to gain more information about customer satisfaction.

Invest in your welcome email

A welcome email is a valuable opportunity to establish a positive relationship with a subscriber. A well-crafted welcome email can drive engagement, build trust, and encourage further interaction with your brand. Here’s how to make the most of it:

• Make it personal. Use the subscriber’s name and tailor content to their preferences if possible. 
• Introduce your brand. Share a quick overview of who you are, what you do, and why subscribers will benefit from engaging with your content. This helps new subscribers connect with your mission or product.
• Set clear expectations. Tell subscribers what they can expect from your emails, including the type of content, email frequency, and any benefits of staying on your list.
• Deliver promised value. If you offered something during signup—like a discount, free resource, or guide—make sure to include it in the welcome email. 
• Include a clear call to action (CTA) or additional materials. Guide subscribers toward the next step—whether it’s exploring your website, reading a popular blog post, checking out your product, or following you on social media. You can also provide links to useful resources, FAQs, or support channels to add more value right from the start.

Take a look at how Product Hunt, a platform for discovering and sharing new tech products, approaches its welcome emails.

The email begins with a personalized greeting and a brief introduction to the platform. 

It then highlights what users can do within the community and outlines the key rules. 

Lastly, the reader is presented with links to various ways they can engage with the platform.

Segment your audience

To deliver targeted and relevant email campaigns, you need to group your audience based on their demographics, interests, job titles, engagement levels, etc. Highly personalized emails with relevant content will resonate with your audience and meet their needs.

Here’s how segmentation helps manage your list effectively:

• Identifies key audience groups. By segmenting your list, you can focus on high-value subscribers, such as loyal customers, new leads, or inactive users who need re-engagement.
• Improves email relevance. Tailored messages resonate better with specific segments, increasing open rates, click-throughs, and conversions.
• Streamlines list maintenance. Regularly segmenting your audience makes it easier to spot inactive subscribers, hard bounces, or outdated contacts and remove them as needed.

Learn how to segment your email list according to your business needs and discover the tools you can use in our dedicated guide.

Re-engage inactive subscribers

Inactive subscribers can harm your email deliverability and sender’s reputation, as ISPs closely monitor user engagement and penalize senders whose emails are frequently ignored. If a significant portion of your audience remains unresponsive, your future emails are more likely to land in the junk folder or not be delivered at all.

Inactive subscribers also increase your operational costs by bloating your email list and inflating sending volumes.

However, you can try to re-engage this group of people. Here’s what to do:

• Identify subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails over a set period (e.g., 3 to 5 campaigns).
• Move them to a separate list and run a targeted re-engagement campaign offering special incentives, helpful resources, or asking to update preferences.
• Identify subscribers whose emails consistently bounce, wait a month, and send a final re-engagement email before removing them from your list.

There’s a chance some of your subscribers simply forgot about your company. A well-crafted, personalized email with a tempting offer or a genuine message can remind them of your brand and encourage them to take the next step. Even if they don’t re-engage, you’ll have made one final effort to connect before cleaning your list.

Score your leads (for certain businesses)

Lead scoring is a method commonly used by businesses with longer sales cycles, like B2B or SaaS. Companies assign points to subscribers based on specific actions, behaviors, or attributes to determine their likelihood of converting.

You can use these scores to create segments, send personalized offers, targeted follow-ups, and move leads deeper into the marketing funnel.

For instance, a lead that subscribes gets 5 points. When they visit your website for the second time, they get 2 more points (now it’s 7). If they open your promotional email and click on the CTA, they earn another 5 points, bringing their total to 12. Once a subscriber reaches 12 points, they receive a personalized 15% off deal for the monthly subscription.

This process can be complex and involves creating multiple scenarios and email templates that are automatically sent when a lead reaches a certain score. It requires specialized tools like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, or Marketo to track user behavior, assign scores, and trigger actions at specific thresholds.

Obviously, the approach demands additional resources; however, if you already use or plan to implement lead scoring for sales, you can easily adjust it for your email marketing efforts as well. However, if you’re a small business with a short sales cycle, such investments are most likely overly complex and unnecessary.

Conduct surveys and feedback requests

Surveys and feedback requests are great for understanding your audience’s needs, preferences, and satisfaction levels. By asking subscribers for input, you can gather valuable insights to improve your email campaigns and content.

Keep your surveys short, clear, and easy to complete. Tools like Google Forms, Typeform, or SurveyMonkey make collecting responses simple. To encourage participation, consider offering small incentives, like a discount or free resource, and always thank them for their time and effort.

Acting on feedback not only improves your strategy but also shows subscribers you value their opinions, helping you build stronger, more meaningful connections.

Keep on experimenting

A/B testing is one of the most effective ways to determine what resonates best with your target audience. By testing different subject lines, email designs, or personalized offers across segments, you can uncover insights into what drives engagement, clicks, and conversions.

Start small—try testing two variations of an email with a specific audience segment. Measure the results and use the data to refine your campaigns. Over time, A/B testing helps you tailor your content to meet the unique preferences of each segment.

Automate contact management 

Keeping your email list clean and organized becomes far easier with automation tools that streamline contact management processes. By using an email marketing software, you can:

• Automatically segment new subscribers based on their interests, topics, or products selected during signup.
• Update contact lists when users unsubscribe so that they no longer receive marketing emails but still get essential transactional messages.
• Identify and tag highly engaged subscribers to target them with exclusive content or offers.
• Trigger re-engaging campaigns for inactive users to reawaken their interest with tailored content.
• Send automated email series based on user actions—like completing a profile—or browsing certain products.

Email list management software

When selecting the email marketing tools for your team, consider features like advanced segmentation capabilities, contact tags, email marketing automation scenarios, analytics, ease of use, compatibility with other systems, a free plan, or a free trial period to test the product. 

Now, let’s look at the types of email list segmentation software you can choose from:

Email marketing platforms

Email marketing platforms are designed to create, send, and manage email campaigns of any scale. They offer tools for campaign creation, scheduling, email sequence automation, and bulk email sending. Key features also include real-time performance analytics, integrations with other marketing or CRM systems, and support for transactional and promotional emails.

For subscriber list management, these platforms typically allow you to segment contacts, automatically tag and organize them, remove unsubscribed users, track bounced emails, and clean lists by identifying and removing invalid email addresses.

Examples: Mailtrap, Mailchimp, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), Campaign Monitor.

Customer relationship management (CRM) tools

These are systems that centralize customer information and interactions across various channels.

For email list management, CRMs help you organize contacts, create dynamic segments, and sync subscriber data with email marketing platforms to ensure consistency. For example, they can segment contacts based on purchase history, track email interactions to update profiles, or tag leads according to their sales funnel stage.

Examples: HubSpot, Salesforce.

Marketing automation software

These tools enable advanced workflows that integrate email, social media, and other channels to nurture leads.

Marketing automation software aids in email list management by tracking customer behavior, automating segmentation based on interactions, and removing inactive subscribers. Additionally, these tools can send triggered emails based on website activity and implement a lead-scoring system.

Examples: Marketo, ActiveCampaign.

E-commerce platforms with email management capabilities

Traditionally, e-commerce platforms are designed to manage online stores. Nowadays, some of them also include functionality for email marketing, such as collecting customer data, segmenting email lists based on purchase behavior, and automating campaigns like abandoned cart reminders or product recommendations.

Examples: Shopify, WooCommerce.

Data management platforms (DMPs)

DMPs aggregate and analyze customer data from multiple sources to create enriched audience profiles. 

For email list management, they enable advanced segmentation and targeting based on behavioral and demographic data. For example, they can combine offline and online data for unified audience grouping.

Examples: Lotame, Oracle BlueKai.

Newsletter platforms

Newsletter platforms specialize in managing and delivering email newsletters. These tools typically let you organize subscribers, customize content, track engagement, analyze performance, and remove inactive subscribers.

Examples: Substack, ConvertKit Curated, Flodesk. 

All-in-one business tools

These comprehensive systems are designed to centralize and streamline various business operations, such as customer relationship management, project management, marketing automation, and data analytics.

For email list management, these tools offer features like contact segmentation, tagging, syncing subscriber data across platforms, and integrating email campaigns with other workflows. 

Examples: Zoho One, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Bitrix24, Odoo.

Dedicated email list management tools

Such tools focus solely on managing and maintaining email lists. They offer features like list cleaning, segmentation, and bounce tracking. They can also automatically detect duplicates, remove invalid addresses, identify unengaged subscribers, validate email addresses for compliance, and organize contacts into effective segments.

Examples: Mailman HQ, MailerLight.

Apart from the listed software, you might also want to know about instruments that can help you with specific email tasks. Here are some of the most common ones:

• Email verification tools: ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, BriteVerify, DataValidation.
• Online form builders (for collecting emails): Paperform, Typeform, JotForm.
• Email design tools: BeePro, Stripo, Postcards.
• Email testing tools: Litmus, Email on Acid.

Wrapping up

Effective email list management is a must for maintaining a clean, organized, engaged subscriber base and helping you comply with data privacy regulations. It’s also a must-have practice to protect your sender’s reputation, improve deliverability, and maximize the impact of your email campaigns.

If you’re interested in enhancing your email marketing strategy and making the most of your efforts, check out the materials below:

• Email Marketing for Beginners [All You Need to Know Guide] 
• Email Blast: What Is It and How to Send One [With Examples] 
• Bulk Email Explained: Definitions, Software, & Tips
• How to Manage Your Email Suppression List