Today I’ll be talking about one possible reason your email campaigns may be hitting people’s spam boxes, and why it may not be your fault.

Often times, business owners will spend a lot of time and effort putting together a really great newsletter – only to see it wind up in people’s spam box in mass amounts. When this happens, deliverability suffers, open rates suffer, and click through rates suffer. In turn, revenue and overall ROI suffers.

All your time and effort gone to waste because your message simply doesn’t get through to your audience.

If your list is above board, every one is opted in, and you don’t have a lot of historical spam complaints….in theory this shouldn’t happen. However, you may be being affected by something outside of your control.

One possible reason your emails are hitting the spam box that you don’t have much control over, is the shared IP address used by your Email Service Provider (or ESP). If your ESP is using a shared IP address – your business could be sending emails from the same IP address that the Nigerian Prince begging for $1,000 is using. Your email reputation as a sender could be getting lumped together with spammers, resulting in your emails hitting the spam box at an alarming rate. In essence, you’re falling victim to guilt by association.

The solution to this, is to send your emails using a dedicated IP address – or an IP address that only email from your organization is sent from. This provides your organization sole control over what is sent and what reputation that IP address earns. Another solution is to use an Email Service Provider that pre-qualifies those sending from their shared IP to ensure that they’re not spammers and that they have good reputations to share with you.

Overall, if you’re seeing very low open / click through rates – and your emails are hitting the spam box on a consistent basis – look into whether or not a shared vs dedicated IP address can make a difference for your business. It could make a huge difference to your email marketing revenue stream.