According to data from Statista, spam messages account for about 45% of email traffic in March 2021. During this analysis, they found that Russia had the biggest share of unsolicited spam emails garnering 23% of global spam volume.
In another report, Google states that Gmail blocks more than 100 million phishing messages each day.
These numbers are quite scary, as this means many of us would be open to potential cyber-attacks. So how are these spam emails identified and discovered?
This is where email firewalls come in.
What is an Email Firewall?
An email firewall helps users to filter incoming emails and remove unwanted spam messages. It follows a certain set of rules designed by an email provider to decide which emails are relevant to the recipient and which are not.
The email firewall analyzes every email that arrives to determine whether or not it will flag that message as spam. Although not all firewalls are the same, they generally keep track of messages and user behavior.
People use email firewalls to protect themselves from malicious emails. One such example of a scam message is the Defender firewall email that asked people to renew their Defender license by paying a certain amount of money.
Whenever a user flags even just one of your emails as spam, this data is noted by the email firewall which it then shares to other email servers. As the sender, this can cause significant damage to your sender reputation.
How Do Email Firewalls Work?
An email firewall works just like a spam filter. The process begins when a message arrives within a protected network where it gets scanned. The email firewall will use a predetermined set of rules to either label the message as spam or allow it to pass through.
A mail firewall can blacklist a specific IP address if it gets flagged as spam numerous times. Since this information will be shared with other firewalls and servers, being blacklisted can have serious consequences for email senders.
Email server providers take special care to ensure that they do not receive spam complaints to avoid being blacklisted. They know that when this happens, they will have a hard time continuing to serve their customers.
Even when you abide by the mailing rules, some messages can still get labeled as spam. This can affect the sender’s ability to get past email firewalls as well as spam filters.
How Email Firewalls and Spam Filters Affect Your Reputation Score
Whenever a user or email firewall marks your message as spam, your email will be diverted to a different folder so that it will not arrive at the recipient’s inbox. This means that the user will generally not be able to access your email or its content.
The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets forth rules for commercial messages that give recipients the right to request senders to stop sending them emails. If an email sender has been found to have violated this act, they could be sued by their internet service provider (ISP).
For senders, you can avoid being flagged for spam or failing to meet the standards of an email firewall by following the best practices concerning unwanted emails.
Best Practices To Avoid Being Targeted by Email Firewalls
These are the best practices that you can follow to minimize the chances of being targeted by email firewalls including various spam filters.
Ensure That Your Email Lists Are Clean and Updated
Despite building your mailing list on contacts that went through valid opt-ins, you still put yourself at risk of being labeled as a “spammer” if you fail to follow the rules on proper email hygiene. This is because ISPs determine their complaint rates on active subscribers and not the total subscribers.
Furthermore, email addresses that are no longer being used can be a reason for being flagged. Although you may have legitimately obtained these emails, their abandoned state has transformed them into spam traps. You can experience email deliverability problems by hitting even one of them.
Expired email addresses can also turn into bounces. If you have been flagged for email bounces higher than 5%, ISPs will start considering your email account as having bad email hygiene. This results in your emails having a hard time reaching their intended destinations.
The good news is that you can reduce the likelihood that people and email firewalls will flag your messages as spam by keeping your email lists clean and updated. It’s possible to pinpoint inactive subscribers and expired addresses by analyzing metrics such as clicks, email opens, and website activity.
Take Advantage of Double Opt-Ins
A double opt-in is a feature that sends a follow-up email to a recent subscriber to confirm that they would want to receive messages from you in the future. People that have confirmed are those that are interested in reading and engaging with your emails.
Taking advantage of the double opt-in feature will help ensure that your email lists are filled with contacts who are more qualified for your messages. This also means that your subscribers will be more engaged compared to just relying on an initial opt-in.
Include a Clear Unsubscribe Link In Your Emails
Besides being compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act, you also improve your email list hygiene when you provide recipients with the ability to unsubscribe.
This is because you want your contacts to only consist of users who are interested in reading your messages. Otherwise, you’ll just end up spamming their inboxes, which is not good.
That’s why you should provide a way for recipients to unsubscribe from your mailing list by providing a clear link in your email. You could also let them send a reply email stating that they want to unsubscribe if they no longer want to receive future emails.
Whichever method you choose, it’s important that unsubscribing should be a simple process for users.
Expert email marketers commonly place their unsubscribe links at the bottom of their email messages.
Keep Your Messages Short and to the Point
Emails that have too much copy are one potential red flag for email firewalls and spam filters. That’s why it’s important that you keep your messages short and sweet. You do this not only to avoid being flagged but also because people generally like straightforward emails.
Since most people nowadays have a busy schedule and short attention span, why would you want to make things worse for them?
A great technique to make your messages short is by writing just like any normal human being would. When you write emails as if you were talking to them in real life, it makes your messages more relevant and approachable.
In case you need to write a longer email, you want to break it down into several paragraphs. Providing visual breaks and ensuring your email follows the best practices in writing content can make it easier to read.
Use a Sender Name That Your Recipients Will Recognize
With a significant portion of users today being fearful of spam, most would hesitate to open emails that come from senders they aren’t familiar with. That’s why you should use a sender name that your recipients can easily recognize — such as your brand name.
Another option would be to send the email from the account of a real brand representative. Recipients would normally be more receptive to messages that come from a personal sender compared to generic email addresses.
Add Alt Text in Your Email Images
Many email service providers block images as a default feature in user inboxes. When this option is activated, images that you send in your message won’t load up for recipients unless they change their settings or click a button to let them show up.
When you insert alt text into your images, you help your target users understand what your email is all about despite not seeing the visual content you’ve prepared. This is especially beneficial if you use an image as your call-to-action.
If you don’t use alt text, deactivated images would look like blank spaces. With alt text added, recipients will know what to do even if they can’t see the visuals.
You can use your email system’s rich text editor to add alt text to your images or manually input them in the HTML editor of your preferred email tool.
Check the Quality of Your Email Content
Quality content remains one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, and the same is true in your emails. You want to make sure that any grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors are fixed before you send your messages.
It’s also important to focus on what you’re trying to communicate or sell to your recipients. Providing email content that offers little value to recipients can easily get flagged in email firewalls and spam filters.
Get Through those Email Firewalls
Firewall email filtering is important because it helps protect users from unsolicited and potentially harmful emails.
If you want to become effective in your email marketing campaign, you must abide by the current laws concerning emails. You should avoid methods that can lead you to being targeted by email firewalls and spam filters.
By following the best practices listed above, you can improve your sender reputation and maximize email deliverability.
Break Your Way to the Client’s Inbox with MailMonitor
We help you reach your clients’ inbox by providing you all the information you need to avoid being filtered by email firewalls. We offer features that analyze the content of your email to identify if it can be flagged as spam.
