Avoiding Email Blacklisting: Best Practices for 2024

Email blacklisting remains a significant concern for organizations in 2024. Being blacklisted can severely impact your ability to communicate with clients and contacts, potentially damaging your reputation and bottom line. This post explores the causes of email blacklisting and provides updated best practices to avoid it.

What Causes Email Blacklisting

• Spam Complaints: When recipients mark your emails as spam, it signals to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that your content or contact list may be problematic.
• High Bounce Rates: A significant number of bounced emails can indicate to ISPs that your list isn’t clean or current.
• Content Issues: Emails containing “spammy” words or phrases in the subject line or body may be blocked.
• Sudden List Growth: Lists that grow substantially and quickly can raise red flags, suggesting they might have been purchased.
• ISP and Network Criteria: ISPs and corporate networks use their own criteria for blocking, often combining information from blacklists and content filters.

Best Practices for Avoiding Email Blacklisting 2024

• Never Purchase Lists:
  • Only use organically grown, opted-in contact lists.
• Regular List Maintenance:
  • Routinely validate email addresses to reduce bad contacts.
  • Engage data quality professionals to update or remove inaccurate information.
  • Explore data quality solutions for your firm
• Compliance with Privacy Regulations:
  • Ensure your processes comply with current data privacy regulations like CCPA, GDPR, and other relevant laws.
• List Hygiene:
  • Only add contacts to regularly maintained lists.
  • Purge inactive contacts periodically (e.g., those with no activity in the past 12 months).
• Validate New Subscriptions:
  • Use methods like ReCAPTCHA or honeypot fields to prevent bot submissions on signup forms.
• Content Quality:
  • Deliver relevant, valuable content that aligns with what subscribers expect.
  • Craft appropriate subject lines that accurately reflect email content.
• Respect Recipient Preferences:
  • Honor unsubscribe requests promptly.
  • Implement preference centers to allow subscribers to control the type and frequency of communications they receive.
• Monitor Sending Reputation:
  • Regularly check your IP address reputation.
  • If using a shared IP, be aware that other senders’ practices can affect your deliverability.
• Authentication Protocols:
  • Implement email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability and reduce the risk of spoofing.
  • Learn more about our eMarketing services.
• Engage in Email Warm-up: When using a new IP or domain, gradually increase your sending volume to establish a positive reputation with ISPs.

CLIENTSFirst regularly helps firms establish customized, effective and sustainable processes for contact and list management. Our CRM Success Consultants can help you build effective communications and put data management protocols in place to gain and track consent. Our Data Quality Team can make sure your data and lists are clean, correct and complete and help you develop a plan to maintain good quality data.

Be Proactive

Don’t wait until you’re blacklisted to implement these best practices. Regular maintenance of your email lists and adherence to these guidelines can significantly reduce your risk of blacklisting and improve overall email performance.

Need help ensuring your email practices are up to date? Contact us at 404-249-9914 or info@clientsfirstconsulting.com to see how CLIENTSFirst Consultings email marketing experts can help your firm.

For more than a decade, the team at CLIENTSFirst Consulting has been helping professional services firms and other organizations successfully select and implement CRM and eMarketing systems to maximize value, adoption and return on investment. If you need help achieving CRM Success, please contact us at 404-249-9914 or Info@CLIENTSFirstConsulting.com.