Reasons for complaints of spam recipients
First of all, in order not to wear the proud pride of a spammer, you don’t need to deal with spam. No matter how it sounds, but this is the only way to conduct an advertising campaign without complaints. Everything must be done according to the law, and if your business is legitimate, then the newsletter must be carefully considered. If you send the same type of newsletters or other letters for too long, then you will most likely be reported as a spammer. It is only a matter of time. In fact, if you have a mailing list of fifty thousand people, then involving it in the newsletter twice, you will receive one or two complaints. And this is the minimum. Sometimes, this is simply an erroneous action of a user who thus wants to “unsubscribe” from the newsletter or hide an unwanted email. He simply presses a special button in the mailbox interface, not knowing that he is “writing a complaint” about your company. But this is a very serious action, and it does not matter whether it was a mistake or not. For example, a mail server@ mail.ru , having received a very small number of complaints about you, will continue to block all letters from your server. Moreover, this is very bad if you do not send out mailings for your company, but provide such a service to many other organizations (like us, UniSender ).
In fact, receiving complaints from time to time is inevitable. E-mail newsletters constantly analyze spam messages and complaints from recipients. This allows you to immediately learn about the problem and respond to it. E-mail delivery is redistributed to other servers and IP addresses. In parallel with this, the issue of the existence of an account is being considered.
If the user receives a spam message from you, you are guilty until proven otherwise. After all, the main task of the email service is to make the mailboxes of their customers clean. Moreover, he has so many clients that there is absolutely no time to listen to the excuses and complaints of each of them.
However, as long as your mailing list is a legally compiled database, and you can hesitate to prove that each complaint is only a mistake - your situation can still be saved. If you can doubt the legality of your methods of collecting recipients, then most likely your account will be blocked. Therefore, even when you legally bought or rented the list of addresses from a legal point of view, you can still get into trouble, because the repeated use of the same list by you and your predecessors will lead to a very large number of complaints.
Let’s now see how complaints can be prevented.
It is very easy for the user to put a few checkmarks in their mailbox and turn the list of objectionable emails into spam. When this happens, the complaint is sent to the email operator. And many users do not even know about it. They believe that the “This is spam” button is just a way to “unsubscribe” from the newsletter. And they do it! After all, the mail server blocks the mailing completely, having received a sufficient number of complaints about the same sender. Then, the mailing list service employees send you (the author) a complaint message.
This is usually a very short letter that does not reveal the identity of the person who complained about spam. In addition, the letter will probably contain a warning that if you do not pay attention to this problem and the situation does not change in the near future, then all letters from your address will be blocked in the future. If complaints from users continue, the account is blocked. Sometimes temporarily, and sometimes forever. The distribution service monitors all incoming complaints (all 100% without exception), and almost always there are living people in the company’s staff who manually approve one or another account. The sender, in violation of certain rules, always receives a letter from one of these people with a short description of the complaint and some recommendations for further actions.
If you are an honest person and do the mailing according to the rules, then why are you accused of spam attacks? Sometimes it’s just a user’s mistake, but more often it’s your own mistake. And this is why this can happen:
In all these cases, the most important mistake is the lack of personal permission from the user. Legally conducting your business and Internet mailing is not enough for success. You need to obtain the consent of the addressee.
You probably already realized that the main secret to success is the permission to send out newsletters. If you do not receive it, then it is unlikely that the newsletter will be any good. Let's see how you can prevent some complaints from you:
If the user receives a spam message from you, you are guilty until proven otherwise. After all, the main task of the email service is to make the mailboxes of their customers clean. Moreover, he has so many clients that there is absolutely no time to listen to the excuses and complaints of each of them.
However, as long as your mailing list is a legally compiled database, and you can hesitate to prove that each complaint is only a mistake - your situation can still be saved. If you can doubt the legality of your methods of collecting recipients, then most likely your account will be blocked. Therefore, even when you legally bought or rented the list of addresses from a legal point of view, you can still get into trouble, because the repeated use of the same list by you and your predecessors will lead to a very large number of complaints.
Let’s now see how complaints can be prevented.
What is a spam complaint?
It is very easy for the user to put a few checkmarks in their mailbox and turn the list of objectionable emails into spam. When this happens, the complaint is sent to the email operator. And many users do not even know about it. They believe that the “This is spam” button is just a way to “unsubscribe” from the newsletter. And they do it! After all, the mail server blocks the mailing completely, having received a sufficient number of complaints about the same sender. Then, the mailing list service employees send you (the author) a complaint message.
This is usually a very short letter that does not reveal the identity of the person who complained about spam. In addition, the letter will probably contain a warning that if you do not pay attention to this problem and the situation does not change in the near future, then all letters from your address will be blocked in the future. If complaints from users continue, the account is blocked. Sometimes temporarily, and sometimes forever. The distribution service monitors all incoming complaints (all 100% without exception), and almost always there are living people in the company’s staff who manually approve one or another account. The sender, in violation of certain rules, always receives a letter from one of these people with a short description of the complaint and some recommendations for further actions.
What are the causes of complaints?
If you are an honest person and do the mailing according to the rules, then why are you accused of spam attacks? Sometimes it’s just a user’s mistake, but more often it’s your own mistake. And this is why this can happen:
- You have legally compiled a mailing list, but you’ve delayed the mailing list too much. If a person agreed to receive letters from you two years ago, then today the newsletter will surprise him or even piss him off - you need to ask permission again;
- if you have an online store, then you also have a user base, i.e. those people who shopped at you. When a profitable promotion or a series of discounts is planned, of course, it is tempting to immediately start mailing to the available addresses, but nevertheless, you need to ask permission;
- if you buy a list of addresses, then it seems to you that you can immediately do the newsletter. Nevertheless, it is imperative that you first send people small letters with a message about how you received their address and the question of whether they want to receive information messages from you;
- do not write off email addresses from business cards or profiles. This information is not for distribution, but for other needs.
In all these cases, the most important mistake is the lack of personal permission from the user. Legally conducting your business and Internet mailing is not enough for success. You need to obtain the consent of the addressee.
How to prevent complaints?
You probably already realized that the main secret to success is the permission to send out newsletters. If you do not receive it, then it is unlikely that the newsletter will be any good. Let's see how you can prevent some complaints from you:
- use the double opt-in method. This gives you proof that each person has given permission to the newsletter;
- even if the recipients are your customers, do not send them emails without permission. When a person buys products from you, fills out questionnaires and provides information about himself, he does not count on the rude use of his mailbox for advertising purposes;
- do not buy or rent lists; it is just a waste of money. As mentioned above, this list is probably bought not only by you, but by someone else. As a result, one recipient receives a whole sea of unnecessary letters every day. At one point, he simply marks all of them with the necessary checkmarks and sends them to the scrap. In this case, your mail account will also go there;
- make for the user a button or a link “Unsubscribe from the newsletter” in each letter. Such a button should be present not only by law, but also by the rules of good form. The button needs to be made bright, catchy, comfortable. Both you and the user will be much more comfortable with this particular method. In addition, you will earn trust in this way. Well, of course, complaints will not pour on you, because you no longer need to click the "This is spam" button. The most important thing is to understand that from the presence of such a button your profit will not decrease, but rather will increase along with your reputation;
- create a beautiful letter that will look so that your company appears to the user respected and reliable. If you yourself are not an artist or a designer, hire a professional. Remember that newsletters are the face of your organization. If it is a cheap design, content with errors, tasteless design and variegated font colors - you will instantly receive a million complaints and will be blocked;
- always make terms and conditions public. Tell people what, when and in what quantities you will send. If a person subscribes to weekly news, then you can no longer in addition to this send every four days advertising services or messages about your promotions. You will immediately turn into a spammer and a trickster. At the same time, even if the newsletter was interesting to the person, he will still refuse your letters, preferring to read the news in another place. You need to clearly understand the difference between a newsletter (news) and the crude imposition of their services, product advertising. Most likely you will need to create two different address lists - one for information and one for advertising.