Here at LevelTen Design, we have a monthly newsletter that we send out, but we have had trouble with it going to spam folders. Even though the LevelTen In-Site Newsletter passed all the spam filter tests for three different spam checkers, it is still getting dropped in Gmail and Outlook 2007 spam folders.

Since I am in charge of sending and getting the newsletter ready every month, I have been searching for ways to get through these spam filters. Recently, Smashing Magazine posted a thorough article on spam filters, and I plan to implement several of their ideas into our newsletter.

Here are some recommendations that Smashing Magazine mentions with our plans to carry them out, in blue.

• Send newsletters regularly. Let your subscribers know when your emails are coming. If you offer a subscription to your newsletter from your web site then tell each and every subscriber exactly when to expect your newsletter.

On the newsletter signup form on the website, we will let the users know that the newsletters are sent out on the 10th of each month. Instead of only having the month on the newsletter, we will include the number "10" making it obvious that we send only on the 10th, so subscribers know when to expect our emails.

• Slow down your newsletter delivery. Instead of using tools which boost your newsletter through mail servers to achieve instant delivery, use the slow delivery tools. Avoid sending mails to multiple (dozens or even hundreds) recipients using CC:-attribute. Use professional newsletter software or professional e-mail-delivery services. When ISPs detect a flood of email, it looks like the work of a virus or a spammer.

We will look for an alternate newsletter program to send out our newsletter. Currently, we use Campaign Monitor which does not allow delayed send-outs.

• Always insert the current date in the content. A correct date which indicates when the newsletter was sent is more important than you probably think it is. If the date isn't mentioned or is provided incorrectly, the newsletter is given spam score points.

Currently, the date in our newsletter is an image. So that spam filters can read the date, we will change the graphic to text.

• Motivate your users to add you to their whitelists. To ensure the bulletproof e-mail-delivery ask your readers to add you to whitelists.

In our next newsletter, we will include a link to instructions on how to whitelist our newsletter.

• Monitor new subscribers. Monitor new subscribers in your lists. Set suspicious spamflag addresses such as abuse@, nospam@, postmaster@, marketerspam@ as inactive subscribers.

I have seen several spam-named emails, but did not think twice about removing them. It makes sense that who you send to makes a difference in the spam filters. I will go through our newsletter list and delete the ones who are spam recipients.

I hope after implementing these recommendations, we will see a change in the number of opens in the next send-out. I will post an update when we receive results from the next newsletter. If you read our newsletters, please add us to the whitelist for your email client.

Test your own company's email out by using these free spam filter tests:

Contactology
SpamCheck