What is Spam complaint rate?
Spam complaint rate is the percentage of delivered emails that recipients report as spam.
Gmail and Yahoo guidance for bulk senders treats complaints as a key signal, with a commonly cited ceiling of 0.3 percent and a target well below 0.1 percent.
Complaints rise when people cannot find the unsubscribe link, when you mail people who did not ask, or when you send too often. Make unsubscribing easy and mail engaged contacts first.
A worked example.
A brand moves from weekly to daily sends and complaints climb in a few days. It returns to a lower frequency for most of the list, keeps daily sends for the most engaged group, and puts the unsubscribe link back where people can see it.
Common mistakes.
- Hiding the unsubscribe link
- Mailing contacts who never consented
- Ignoring complaint trends until a send is blocked
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