How can I retrieve an e-mail address from spam?

Does the actual email address one has chosen matter when it comes to having sent mail end up in recipients spam folder?

• I have just started a company and I need to send emails to people who have given me their emails. I have a website and am using http://namecheap.comamecheap with email forwarding to gmail in order to preserve an email address which to the customer appears as . I have noticed in my initial testing of this email, that even when I send non-spammy text only emails to one email address at a time, they get either flagged or go to spam. If I create some junk gmail email address that seems like a real person () instead of a company, that same email gets delivered without issues. My question is two-fold: 1. Does the actual name used in the email address like matter? Would changing it to something else like , or make a difference for spam filter. My little experiment leads me to believe the name of email address matters. 2. If the email address name matters, what can I do to avoid being flagged or going to spam? I really would like to keep . Thank you!

• Answer:

  There are many factors that affect deliverability, i.e. your ability to deliver messages to the inbox. The IP addresses that the email is being sent from, the content of the message, the level of engagement of the recipients of such messages, the number of bounces recorded in your campaigns, the number of spam complaints filed by your recipients, etc.  The FROM email address is indeed one of the main factors affecting your deliverability. Typically the issue is with the domain, not with a specific address at that domain. That said, deliverability experts typically recommend not using generic addresses such as "info". If you do a search for "deliverability", you will find extensive literature. For example, here is a pretty in-depth report by Return Path: http://www.returnpath.com/wp-content/uploads/resource/email-deliverability-review/Return-Path-DMA-Deliverability-WP-9_12.pdf To start, you need to make sure you are using a FROM domain that has a good reputation. Begin by doing a blacklist lookup for that domain: http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx If there is a problem with the domain name that you want to use, you can try to contact the blacklists listed in the report, and work with them to resolve the issue and ensure that you are no longer listed. This, by the way, is one of the reasons why it's a good idea to work with a good ESP: the email service provider will take care of maintaining a high reputation for their shared IPs, and will work with you if you decide to use dedicated IP addresses. The recipe to maintain high deliverability is actually pretty simple: List quality. Make sure you only send messages to people that really want to receive them (double opt-in) List hygiene. Manage unsubscribes, bounces and spam complaints to keep your list "clean". Any professional ESP does this for you automatically. Message content. Follow best practices in the creation of the message (e.g. subject, text-image ratio, etc.). Check your message for things that can get you in trouble, like the use of URL shorteners (http://blog.mailup.com/2012/10/url-shorteners-can-hurt-deliverability-which-one-should-you-use/) Good Sender. Make sure that you - as a sender - have a good reputation. This refers to your FROM email domain (which you directly control) and MAIL-FROM email domain, which is the "envelope-sender" or "bounce" address (this is typically something your ESP controls) Good ESP. Send your messages using a professional email marketing service, leveraging their high deliverability (as long as you send good messages to a quality list, your messages will be sent from a "high reputation" IP address pool) You'll find a whole lot more on this by doing searches on specific topics.