Symptom

You notice that some of your sequence emails sent through Outreach are landing in the spam folder of your recipients' email accounts, such as Outlook or Gmail.

Applies To

• Outlook
• Gmail

Resolution

1. Review and Optimize Email Content:

   • Use neutral language and avoid overly promotional words or suspicious links that spam filters commonly flag. Ensure your content is clean, concise, and free from excessive use of exclamation points or all caps. 
     
     

2. Authenticate Your Domain:

   • These authentication protocols verify your email's legitimacy, reducing the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam, setting up Branded URLs, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are key. Since Outreach uses your email server to send messages, maintaining a strong domain reputation is essential. You can learn more below:
     
     How To Configure a Branded URL in Outreach
     SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Overview for Outreach Email Users 
     
     

3. Monitor and Improve Email Practices:

   • Focus on engagement, and clean your email lists regularly to remove unengaged recipients. High levels of unopens can signal to email providers that your emails are unwanted, increasing the chances of landing in spam.
   • Avoid Using "No-Reply" Addresses, these are often flagged by spam filters and create a poor user experience. Use a monitored email address that recipients can reply to.
     
     

4. Leverage Outreach Tools:

   •  Use Outreach's analytics tools to monitor spam rates and identify problematic sequences. A/B testing can also help optimize your emails to avoid spam filters, seen below:
     
     Outreach A/B Testing Overview
     
     
   • Ensure that all Outreach users on your team understand and follow best practices for email content and sending behavior. Consistent, well-informed practices can significantly improve your overall deliverability. More insight on this topic below:
     
     Outreach Email Best Practices: Making Sure Your Message Lands in the Inbox

Cause

Outreach will always use your email to send your message. We do not send from our server or our domains. If any of your Outreach emails are appearing in your spam folder, make sure to unmark those and check the contents of your message for anything that may be flagged by your mail team. By implementing these strategies, you can reduce the chances of your Outreach sequence emails being flagged as spam and improve overall engagement

Note on Click Tracking: Be aware that enabling click tracking can cause links in your emails to be expanded or altered, which might look suspicious to spam filters and lead to your emails being flagged.

Additional Information:

The Outreach Email Deliverability Playbook 

Understanding Bounced Emails in Outreach