Spam Complaint Rates are determined by subscribers who click “this is spam” or “mark as junk” buttons in emails they no longer wish to receive.
Subscribers often use this approach interchangeably with unsubscribing to stop receiving emails. But there’s a key difference: High spam complaint rates have negative implications on sender reputation and deliverability — unsubscribes don’t.
Overview
Cendyn CRM automatically suppresses any addresses reporting spam through traditional feedback loops. However, some webmail providers, notably Gmail, do not provide a traditional feedback loop out of privacy concerns. Rather, they provide an anonymous, aggregate report directly to us about concerning senders.
Where are Spam Reports (Complaints) recorded in Cendyn CRM?
In Cendyn CRM, Spam Reports (Complaints) are recorded under Campaign Manager > Campaign Report. Cendyn CRM displays a count of Spam Reports by campaign and the percentage of delivered emails that reported as Spam Report Rate.
A spike of Abuse/Spam Complaints over 0.2% may result in reputation bounces that require remediation.
If Abuse Complaints do not display on the screen, scroll out on the page, and the metrics will appear.
How do Email Recipients report a Spam Complaint?
Below are some of the common ways that a Spam Complaint is registered:
- In Outlook webmail, the user can right click on the message and select "Mark as Junk."
- In Gmail webmail, the user can select the email and "Report as Spam."
Best Practices
Spam Complaints offer an opportunity to implement better list hygiene, list maintenance and review campaign audiences.
- Don’t send email to destinations that have not previously opted into your campaigns/marketing.
- Remove friction from unsubscribing.
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- Email recipients are three times more likely to unsubscribe from an email program than they are to make a spam complaint. This is good news.
- However, subscribers generally take the path of least resistance—which in many cases is to mark emails as spam.
- To prevent unnecessary complaints, senders should simplify the unsubscribe process.
- Make unsubscribe links more visible. Instead of hiding unsubscribe links in email footers, make them prominent.
- If your list is opt-in, track who’s actually engaging with your email, as measured by click and open tracking. Make sure your campaign frequency and content are what the email user expected to receive and signed up to receive.
- For recipients who don’t engage with your email, we recommend you stop sending to them after a period of time that you determine to be appropriate. This tends to be a period between a few weeks to 6 months (as a standard best practice for IP/Domain Reputation), depending on your sending frequency.
Spam Complaint Rate Benchmarks
Use these benchmark ranges when wondering if your Spam Complaint Rate is too high:
< or = to 0.08% | Good/Normal Range |
between 0.09% and -0.1% | Concerning/Opportunity to investigate |
> or = to 0.2% | Need to Action & Course-Correct Behavior |
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