A research by German Direct Marketing Association DDV, has revealed that, on
average, an e-mail database contains at least five spam traps. And, the CMOs need to actively look into all of these.
Five in a list of 100,000 might not sound that bad, as that’s only 0.005%. But perceiving that way is extremely wrong and risky. Those five e-mail service providers might not know how many e-mails were sent, but all they know is that the e-mail was sent to the spam trap, and if continued, they it could be blacklisted as well.
CMOs usually focus on bigger strategic decision-making, but the COVID-19 situation is an
exception. Spam traps that were usually not considered a relevant aspect by decision-makers, are now a huge concern that needs to be urgently resolved for healthy business continuity.
The battle against spam continues to rage. GDPR in the EU has reduced unwanted e-mail, but it still remains the number one consumer complaint levied on to the ESPs. Hence spam traps or the e-mail addresses which are used to lure spammers, do not subscribe to any firms’ mailing lists and therefore should not continue to receive any e-mails. With e-mail continuing to be one of the most preferred forms of customer reach during the pandemic, the risk of spam traps has multiplied substantially.
The pristine spam trap, including a new e-mail address set up by an ESP, is different from the second type of recycled trap. The recycled trap is more common as it is easy to use a dormant e-mail address, which was legitimately set up by a consumer in the past after being deactivated by the ESP. After a period of time, such e-mails are reactivated and used to monitor all incoming mails.
Of course, legitimate marketers would never want to be accused of sending spam –
especially because of the damage caused to the IP address, leading to restricted or even
refused e-mail delivery. This hugely impacts the campaign’s performance, ROI and
deliverability. So, for all e-mail marketing activities, spam trap screening is absolutely
fundamental to ensure the success of all future campaigns. Many organizations fail to do this as they believe in the offered quality of the data. However, the most pristine e-mail list can also potentially contain spam traps resulting in poor data sources, inefficient list contamination, or the data being old. Five simple methods to avoid any spam trap are listed below, and they remain incredibly crucial during the current times. CMOs need to precisely look out for each one of these:
a] Data quality: only utilizing e-mail data that comes with opt-in and provenance
b] Data cleansing: in-depth screening against lists of already known spam traps
c] Data longevity: this is especially crucial for recycled traps. The age of the e-mail address
and their interaction with other long-held e-mail addresses is important to consider,
especially for those over one year of age.
d] Data accuracy: ensuring the accuracy of each e-mail is vital to avoid sending messages
inadvertently to different spam traps as a result of misspelled e-mail addresses. This is
extremely common, but any malformed addresses should also be immediately identified
and then corrected or removed.
e] Data hygiene regime: a regular hygiene regime is a must to keep data fresh and spam
trap free always
Email Marketing is the most common and the most incredibly powerful tool used by B2B
marketers – returning a strong ROI. However, just a few unchecked or misspelled e-mail
addresses can serve to undermine the optimization of this entire channel as well as the brand name. And brand name and reputation remain the most crucial factors that will help firms survive the current economic crisis.
