Spam traps lurk in every corner of the Internet, biding its time for a misstep that can negatively affect the way you do email marketing. ISPs are extensively using these spam traps to identify spammers or spam emails. But why should it matter if you know you're not a spammer yourself?
The thing is that even though you're a well-intentioned email sender, you can still find a lingering spam trap in your contacts. When this happens, it could impact your email deliverability and sending reputation since it can deny your domain or IP address.
If you're an email marketer, you must know what spam traps are and how to best avoid them from being in your contact lists.
What are Spam Traps?
Spam traps are usually bot email addresses used by prominent blacklist providers and Internet Service Providers to detect email spammers so they can block them from sending messages.
More often, a spam trap looks similar to a legit email address - the only difference being it's not meant for daily communication, nor does it belong to a real person anymore. Basically, the main goal of a spam trap is to collect spam and catch spammers on the web.
How do Spam Traps Get into Your List?
Spam trap email addresses are usually never published directly or visible on websites. This serves as a precautionary measure for legitimate email senders, so they never fall prey to spam traps.
It's typically the work of the spammers who utilize various web crawlers to accumulate email addresses across websites and then sell them to gain profit. These web crawlers are almost often indistinguishable as there's no way to tell the difference whether they're authentic or hidden spam traps in disguise.
Because of this, legitimate email marketers and users inevitably become victims of spam traps. Web crawlers would store all the email addresses in their list and sell them to the market, which marketers will obtain to send out cold emails. Upon hitting these spam traps, the email sender will be instantly and incorrectly detected as a spammer, thus putting them on blacklists of many global DNSBLs.
For email marketers, falling for a spam trap is the quickest way to lose your reputation. It's a powerful and dangerous mechanism, so you need to know how to get out of one and prevent this from happening as much as possible.
How to Prevent Spam Traps From Being Added to Your Contact Lists?
Spamming traps can enter your lists discreetly, but most of this is usually due to poor upkeep and management of your email lists. Fortunately, you can prevent spam traps by ensuring a healthy contact list and adhering to some of the best practices regarding email deliverability and marketing.
1. Stay Away From Purchased Lists
Purchased lists are the definition of bad news. These lists aren't thorough and typically include contacts of people who shouldn't be receiving your company's communications.
Relying on purchased lists means a higher chance of spam traps, especially since the subscribers of these lists owe no loyalty whatsoever to your business or your brand. Because of this, they are usually the first ones to mark your emails as spam or delete them.
Such behaviors will significantly impact your reputation as a sender.
2. Keep Your Lists up to Date
Another important strategy you should practice to avoid spam traps is to update your contact list regularly, preferably with subscribers who often engage with your content more than usual.
Since most spam traps come from outdated and invalid email addresses, taking too long without sending mail to a certain email address will only open a clean path for you towards a spam trap.
Sending content to an email address that hasn't opened, interacted, or engaged with your email for many months is worth being wary about, so make sure to update your contact list once in a while.
3. Avoid List Contamination
There's a danger of list contamination when a spam trap email has been added accidentally or deliberately to an unconfirmed contact list.
To prevent this, you must verify the email addresses' correct spelling on your contact list. It might be helpful to use email deliverability tools or email validation within signup forms to check an email's legitimacy on the get-go.
It would also be wise to include another opt-in for your email subscribers. This extra layer of protection lets your email recipients validate their email addresses before you begin sending them various content.
4. Use Email Deliverability Tools
There are billions of emails being exchanged regularly, and almost a hundred million of them are blocked before reaching the target subscriber's inbox. With email marketing, you tend to have no idea where your email will eventually land, but email deliverability tools can assist with this dilemma.
Email deliverability tools help optimize your deliverability rate and inbox placement, thus ensuring that your emails don't end up getting deleted or in spam folders. Moreover, they also come with additional features like recipient validation that help prevent you from making errors like sending mail to spam traps or invalid email addresses.
Using these tools can help you avoid falling prey to spam traps and focus more on improving your email marketing campaigns.
5. Check Email Engagement Rates Regularly
It's best to establish a process of regularly checking email engagement rates. This helps you identify the invalid or non-existent emails easier, which will then help you clean your contact list so you can avoid sending them mail next time.
Conclusion
Spam traps can be pretty sneaky, but they will only catch you by surprise if you aren't prepared for them. One general rule to avoid being a victim of these spam traps is to take precautionary measures like the ones mentioned above. Be aware of what spam trap email addresses generally look like, and try to maintain a healthy contact list at all times.
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