Tutorial №8. Selzy campaign guidelines

We don't want our clients' emails to end up in spam — not only does it impair the performance of your email marketing campaigns, but it also damages your sender reputation, as well as email deliverability.  After your emails land in spam folders a couple of times, then even good campaigns may not pass spam filters. For this reason, the Selzy Customer Care Service and the Selzy Antispam Service moderators validate campaigns before they are sent. The validation process is quick and invisible to customers.

If we suspect that an email might go to spam, we reject it and tell you what needs to be improved. If you want to make sure that your campaigns pass our validation, here are some requirements and tips on email design.

Mandatory requirements for email campaign design in Selzy

1. Campaigns must contain text

An email should not be image-only, as there are users who have images disabled. Moreover, such image-only layouts cannot be adapted to different screen sizes.

This is what an email without text looks like to those who have disabled image loading

To ensure that your email passes the validation, always add text to the email.

2. Campaigns must include an unsubscribe link

Without an unsubscribe link, users who want to stop receiving emails will have no other choice but to send an email to spam. This will hurt your future emails — the sender reputation will be damaged, and all subsequent emails will automatically end up in spam.

An unsubscribe link can be placed in the email footer and saved as a template content block for your future campaigns. If you're sending campaigns in multiple languages, make sure to use the same language as the email text.

Example of an unsubscribe content block in an email

Don't try to hide the unsubscribe link: don't make it the same color as your email's background and don't make it too small or format it as plain, unclickable text.

If your campaigns receive an excessive number of spam complaints even if there is an unsubscribe link, we recommend that you place an additional unsubscribe link in the email header. In Selzy the unsubscribe link is added to each campaign by default.

3. Campaigns must contain information about where you got the subscriber's contact from

For example: "You're receiving this email because you are a customer of shop.com (your store)."  This information is best placed in the footer. If any of your subscribers mark your campaign as spam, you may also add this text to the email header, above the main content of the email.

Example of an unsubscribe block with information about where the company got the subscriber's contact from

4. Campaigns must comply with Selzy's Anti-spam Policy

We will reject an email if it contains:

• False, incorrect, or misleading information
• Unsolicited messages. Your campaigns must abide by international laws and policies, including the US CAN-SPAM Act, Canada's Anti-Spam Law, and other policies, rules, and regulations.
• Pornography and sexually explicit content
• Gambling-related content
• Content promoting counterfeit drugs, watches, clothing, and other counterfeit goods
• Content created in violation of copyright and related rights; content using trademarks belonging to another person or company
• Content promoting postal and email spam
• Content sent on behalf of other people or organizations
• Content related to pyramid schemes

5. Campaigns must be sent using a business email address

Your reply-to address and the sender’s address must use a custom email at your business domain. Marketing messages from generic free domains are 100% likely to land in spam. With Selzy, you can only send emails to 50 addresses at a time if you are using a free domain for your sender's address. We recommend using free email addresses only for test campaigns.

Selzy campaign guidelines

Selzy won't necessarily reject your email if you don't follow some of the guidelines listed below. But we still strongly recommend you to follow them. Here are some of our recommendations to help your campaigns pass spam filters and reach your subscribers.

1. Include information about your company

Make sure to add your company's phone number, website, physical address, and email address, so that recipients can easily get in touch with you.

An email with detailed information about the company

2. Pay attention to your emails’ file size.

The file size of your email shouldn't be too large. For example, Gmail will clip an email if it is larger than 100 KB. As a result, recipients may not be able to see a significant part of the email, including the unsubscribe link, and will likely send the email to spam.

An email was clipped due to its large size

3. Use email links instead of attaching files

The disadvantages of email attachments outweigh their advantages:

• Email attachments increase the file size of an email, which is bad for email deliverability.
• Some email clients scan attached files for viruses and flag even the most reliable and harmless files as suspicious.
• There’s no way to track whether recipients have opened the attachment or downloaded the file.

That’s why we recommend that you place the file on your website or in an external cloud storage such as Google Drive, and share a link to the file instead of attaching a copy to your email. Here's how you can do it.

An email with a link pointing to a file in an external storage

4. Don't add full URLs, use hyperlinks instead

Alternatively, add links to buttons or images.

If you have enabled conversion tracking in Selzy, we will add a UTM tag to your URL. The recipient's email provider will recognize that the link address does not match the link text, and will consider your link suspicious. Suspicious links are another reason why an email may end up in spam.

5. Ask subscribers to whitelist your email address

For email providers, this is a signal that a recipient is waiting for your messages. Your campaigns are more likely to pass spam filters if customers add your email address to the address book or to the safe senders list.

A content block asking subscribers to add the sender’s address to the safe senders list.

Helpful resources:

• Selzy's free Email Deliverability Course
• How To Send Bulk Emails and Not Be a Spammer: Dos and Don’ts
• How To Stop Emails Going to Junk Once and for All