Unfortunately, there’s no direct or foolproof way to know from your end when this happens.

However, you can mitigate against this risk by following a number of technical guidelines and best practices. Doing so will often have a huge impact on the response rates of your campaigns.

Email Service Providers (ESPs)  “spam test” in three major areas

1. Your emails don’t appear to actually be coming from you.

Sending Infrastructure is the technical process that verifies the email domain of the sender legitimately belongs to the entity sending out the email.  DKIM ,SPF, and DMARC are three types of authentication protocols used by ESPs. This is primarily triggered when sending bulk emails through a third-party service (like Mailchimp for example).

2. Your emails look like spam

You’ve used spammy words, a high ratio of images compared to text, too many hyperlinks, or didn’t include an unsubscribe link. Occasionally, even URL shorteners can trigger a spam filter.

3. Your emails are behaving or being treated like spam

ESPs keep track of things like high bounce rates, unsubscribes, and of course, emails reported as spam. All of these elements, commonly referred to as “sender reputation,” impact whether your emails will be flagged and blocked system-wide.

If your emails don’t use flagged words and are well received by your audience, your deliverability should be quite high. A healthy deliverability percentage should be in the upper 90th percentile.

Copywriting: Best Practices in Creating Messaging That Gets Results

The ARM industry has a unique set of legal (FDCPA and CFPB) requirements when it comes to contacting a consumer about a debt. Depending on the kind of message you’re sending, some or all of these compliance requirements will be relevant and should be followed.

However, once a responsible party has been notified and the debt validated, you’ll want to send out notifications and reminders that encourage those consumers to resolve their account. At this point, we can apply some of the basics of email marketing to make sure your messages get read and acted upon.

These are the 4 main elements of an email:

1. Subject Line—this is what “sells” the open
2. Intro—this “sells” the message or messenger
3. Body—this is what sells your solution
4. Call-to-Action— this is what drives the consumer to take action

The 4 Most Effective Types of Subject Lines

Blind or Curiosity

This approach, which plays on the power of curiosity and the unknown, is one of the most effective ways to get your emails opened and clicked.

“{First name}, your special offer has just arrived…”

Direct or Benefit

“{First name}, resolving your debt has never been easier…”

“{First name}, your special settlement offer is just a few clicks away…”

Urgency or Scarcity

“{First name}, login to see your prompt pay discount before it expires…”

Proof or Results

“{First name}, join over 1000 consumers who took the next step to better credit by creating their own payment plan…”

Personalizing Bulk Emails Using Merge Tags/ Fields

You can use a merge tags to make mass email campaigns more personalized. Statistics show that emails that include the recipient’s first name in the subject are twice as likely to get opened.

Of course, if you’re sending emails that contain detailed account information, you’ll be using a lot of merge fields. However, in the case of limited content messages, including a first name merge tag will likely double your open rates.

Some Final Tips & Best Practices for Sending Emails

1. Timing matters. Avoid the “inbox purge” by sending your emails between 8:30 – 10 am, 2:30 – 3:30 pm, or after 8 pm (if permitable).
2. Add the consumer’s first name (%first_name%) in the subject line. Personalization in the subject line can increase open rates by 23%
3. Keep your emails short and to the point (6-10 words for the subject line and just enough information to convey your point and give a clear call to action)