Spam Traps 101

Threats to an organization’s sending reputation can come from many different directions. Even the most well-intentioned email marketer can end up hitting a “spam trap.” While these spam traps are keeping marketers up at night, the recipients reap the benefits as these are vital in the fight against undesirable mail. Despite what you’ve heard, spam traps are REAL email addresses that do not bounce. These sneaky guys are put in place to help identify and stop senders with poor list management and permission practices.

Spam traps fall into 3 categories:

Typo traps are domain addresses that are misspelled. This is the most common of the three types. Service providers often purchase commonly misspelled versions of themselves to monitor those not using verification methods.
Example: GaryBanes@gmalll.com.

(Were you able to catch the missing “i” and triple “l” at the end of that email address?)

Gray traps are addresses that have been dormant for a period of time, then turned back on by the ISP. These ISPs are checking to see which marketers are still sending to this recently inactive address. This makes it evident that the marketer is not looking at engagement metrics when sending.

Pristine traps are more detrimental than the others. These are addresses that have never opted into anything. They are placed into different forums, then monitored. Hitting this type of trap shows that you are likely sending to purchased lists or have poor list acquisition practices.

In order to stay out of the spam folder and away from spam traps, be sure to clean your active lists, implement, and follow strict list segmentation methods. Ensure that you are following the CAN-SPAM Act (check into international laws such as CASL and GDPR if you’re sending outside the United States). Use double opt-in when confirming your email address sign ups. Don’t send to contacts that have been pulled from purchased lists. Sending email to addresses without any permission will not only cause complaints, but it will also soon cause mail to be blocked completely. Monitoring tools (such as InboxMonster.com) will easily allow you as a marketer to stay compliant and sleep well at night.

• Category: Best Practices, Deliverability