Why emails going to spam happen and how to fix it

It's the moment every Shopify store owner dreads: you’ve poured hours into crafting the perfect email campaign, you hit "send," and... nothing. Crickets. Your masterpiece, designed to drive sales and connect with customers, ends up in the spam folder, completely invisible.

This isn’t just bad luck. It's a massive, industry-wide problem that stems from the sheer volume of emails flying around the internet every single day. Getting a handle on this is the first crucial step to fixing your deliverability for good.

The Hidden Reason Your Emails Go to Spam

The numbers behind this challenge are staggering. We're talking about 376.4 billion emails sent and received daily across the globe.

Here's the part that should really get your attention: a shocking 46-47% of all that email traffic is flagged as spam or unwanted mail.

Think about what that means for your marketing. Nearly half of the effort you put into your flows—from abandoned cart reminders to win-back sequences—could be dead on arrival. Breaking it down further, a full 10.5% of emails land directly in the spam folder, while another 6.4% just vanish into thin air, never to be seen.

When your emails consistently go to spam, your store is bleeding revenue from lost sales, missed upsell opportunities, and a weakened connection with your customers.

Why Good Emails Go to Bad Places

So, why does a perfectly legitimate email from your Shopify store get treated like junk? It all comes down to the gatekeepers: inbox providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail. Their job is to protect users from spam and phishing, and they use a complex set of signals to decide if your email is trustworthy.

Let's quickly run through the main things they're looking at.

Common Reasons Your Emails Land in Spam

This table gives you a quick summary of the top factors that negatively impact your email deliverability, from technical setup to content choices.

Problem Area	Why It Triggers Spam Filters	Quick Fix
Technical Authentication	Without SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, you look like a potential imposter.	Set up these three DNS records. It’s a one-time fix that proves you are who you say you are.
Sender Reputation	High complaint rates or sending to bad email addresses damages your domain's trust score.	Clean your email list regularly and make unsubscribing easy. Never buy lists.
Subscriber Engagement	If no one opens or clicks your emails, it signals that your content is unwanted.	Segment your list to send more relevant content and sunset unengaged subscribers.
Content & Design	Spammy words, misleading subject lines, or too many images can be major red flags.	Write clear, honest subject lines and balance your text-to-image ratio.

These aren't just isolated issues; they all work together to build (or destroy) your sender reputation.

A common misconception is that deliverability is all about your email's content. In reality, your technical setup and sender reputation are the foundation. Without that trust, even the most beautiful email will never see the light of day.

At the end of the day, poor email deliverability is a silent revenue killer. Every message that fails to reach the inbox is a missed opportunity. If you want a deeper dive, check out our guide on what email deliverability is and how to boost your revenue.

The good news? All of these problems are entirely fixable. You just need the right knowledge and a clear strategy.

How to Build a Trustworthy Sending Foundation

Before a single creative subject line or beautiful design can do its job, you have to earn the trust of inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook. This isn't about clever copy; it's about a technical handshake called email authentication.

Without it, you’re basically a stranger knocking on their door. It’s no surprise they’d send you straight to spam. Think of authentication as your email's digital passport. It's made up of three protocols—SPF, DKIM, and DMARC—that work together to prove your emails are legit. Getting this right is the absolute first step to stop your emails going to spam.

Decoding the Three Pillars of Authentication

I know, getting these records set up sounds dauntingly technical, but the concepts are actually pretty straightforward. Each one plays a specific part in building a verifiable identity for your sending domain.

• Sender Policy Framework (SPF): This is your approved guest list. An SPF record tells receiving mail servers which IP addresses are authorized to send emails for your domain. If a message comes from an IP that isn't on the list, it’s a huge red flag.

• DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Think of DKIM as a tamper-proof seal on an envelope. It adds a unique digital signature to every email, confirming the content hasn't been messed with in transit. A valid signature tells the inbox provider the message is authentic.

• Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC): DMARC is the rulebook that ties it all together. It instructs inbox providers on what to do if an email fails the SPF or DKIM checks—quarantine it, reject it outright, or let it through. It also sends back reports, giving you a crucial heads-up if someone is trying to spoof your domain.

Nailing these three protocols sends a clear signal to the big email providers that you're a legitimate sender who takes security seriously. It’s one of the most powerful moves you can make to fix your deliverability.

Why a Dedicated Sending Domain Is Crucial

If you're a serious Shopify store, sending from is a recipe for disaster. You absolutely need a professional sending domain that you own, like . This is about far more than just branding; it's about owning your sender reputation.

When you use a shared domain (like a free email provider), your reputation is tangled up with thousands of other users. If one of them acts like a spammer, everyone's deliverability can take a hit. A dedicated domain isolates your reputation so that your sending practices are the only thing that matter. This is a foundational step for any Shopify merchant looking to improve their email deliverability and avoid the spam folder.

A dedicated sending domain gives you full ownership over your sender reputation. Every positive interaction builds your domain's authority, while every mistake is yours to fix—giving you complete control over your path to the inbox.

Once you have your domain, don't just start blasting thousands of emails. You need to warm it up first.

The Art of Warming Up Your Domain

A brand-new sending domain is a blank slate, which immediately makes inbox providers suspicious. The "warm-up" process is all about building a positive reputation from scratch by gradually increasing your sending volume over several weeks. This slow-and-steady approach proves to mailbox providers that you're a legitimate sender, not a spammer looking for a quick hit.

A typical warm-up schedule looks something like this:

1. Week 1: Start small. Send just 50-100 emails per day, and make sure they go to your most engaged subscribers—people who recently bought something or opened an email.

2. Week 2: Time to ramp up a bit. Increase to 250-500 emails per day, still focusing on that highly active segment.

3. Week 3: Double the volume again. You can now expand to a slightly wider audience, but stick to people who are still pretty engaged.

4. Week 4 and Beyond: Continue this pattern of doubling your daily volume each week until you’ve reached your normal sending cadence.

Throughout this entire process, you must monitor your engagement metrics closely. High open and click rates send positive signals that build trust. On the other hand, low engagement or high bounce rates tell providers your emails might be unwanted, which can torpedo your new domain's reputation and land your emails going to spam. A little patience here pays off in a big way, setting a strong foundation for years of successful email marketing.

Why Your Sender Reputation Is Your Most Valuable Asset

Once your technical authentication is squared away, the real work begins. We now move into something less tangible but infinitely more important: your sender reputation.

Think of it as a credit score for your email domain. A good score gets your emails front-row seats in the inbox. A bad one? You’re getting bounced straight to the spam folder, no questions asked.

Inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook are always watching. They’re tracking every little thing associated with your sending domain and its IP address. This isn't just to be difficult; it's how they shield their users from the daily deluge of junk and malicious emails. Your reputation is built—or broken—one email at a time.

The Signals That Shape Your Reputation

Every single campaign you send adds to your reputation score. Inbox providers look at a handful of key metrics to decide if you're a sender people actually want to hear from or just another bit of noise to filter out.

Here are the signals that have a massive impact:

• Spam Complaint Rate: This is the big one. The reputation killer. When someone marks your email as spam, they're sending a direct, powerful signal that you’re unwanted. It’s shocking, but a complaint rate as low as 0.1%—that's just one complaint per 1,000 emails—is enough to start causing serious deliverability problems.

• Bounce Rate: High bounce rates, especially hard bounces from invalid addresses, scream poor list management. It tells inbox providers you might be using old, stale lists (or worse, purchased ones).

• Subscriber Engagement: This is where you score positive points. High open rates, click-throughs, and replies are gold. They prove that your audience genuinely values what you're sending.

• Spam Trap Hits: These are the landmines of the email world. They’re pristine email addresses set up by inbox providers specifically to catch spammers. Hitting one is a red flag because no real person could have ever signed up with that address.

Getting a handle on these signals is the first step to managing your reputation. It’s not about a quick fix; it's about building a long-term track record of good sending habits.

Your sender reputation isn't built overnight, and it can't be fixed overnight either. Every campaign is a deposit into—or a withdrawal from—your reputation bank account. Consistent, positive sending habits are the only way to build long-term trust.

The fallout from a poor reputation is brutal. Once it’s damaged, rebuilding that trust with inbox providers takes a ton of time and careful effort. This is why you have to be so protective of it. The email world is a hostile place, filled with bad actors trying to exploit everyone.

For context, phishing attacks—a particularly nasty form of spam—account for 3.4 billion emails daily, making it the world’s top cybercrime. In the U.S. alone, where many Shopify stores operate, an insane 8 to 9.1 billion spam messages are sent every single day. This is exactly why inbox providers are so strict. They have no choice. You can read more about the sheer volume of spam and phishing attempts online if you really want to see what you're up against.

Protecting and Improving Your Sender Score

So, how do you actually build and protect this thing? It all boils down to a few core principles that put your subscribers first. A healthy reputation is simply a byproduct of sending emails people actually want to get.

First, never, ever buy an email list. I can't stress this enough. It is the absolute fastest way to nuke your reputation. These lists are almost always loaded with invalid addresses, spam traps, and people who have no idea who you are. The result? Sky-high bounce rates and a flood of spam complaints.

Second, get serious about list hygiene. This means regularly clearing out unengaged subscribers. If someone hasn't opened one of your emails in the last 90 days, it’s probably time to let them go. Sending to a core group of engaged fans sends one of the strongest positive signals you can.

Finally, make it easy to unsubscribe. Hiding the unsubscribe link is a rookie mistake that always backfires. If someone can't find the opt-out link, their next click is going to be "Mark as Spam," which, as we've covered, is far more damaging. A clean, one-click unsubscribe link respects your audience and protects your reputation.

Creating Content and Lists That Inbox Providers Love

Alright, with your technical house in order and a healthy sender reputation, it’s time to focus on the heart of email marketing: what you send and who you send it to. This is where we shift from playing defense to going on offense, earning your spot in the inbox with every single send.

Don’t forget, inbox providers are incredibly smart. They watch how people interact with your emails to figure out if your content is valuable. If subscribers are opening, clicking, and replying, you're golden. But if they're ignoring, deleting, or—the ultimate sin—marking you as spam, your reputation will plummet.

Master the Art of the Subject Line

Think of your subject line as the digital handshake. It’s your first and often only chance to convince someone to open your email. If you get it wrong, you’re just one swipe away from the junk folder.

The goal is to be intriguing without being deceptive. Steer clear of classic spam triggers like "Free," "Guaranteed," or "Act Now!" They're huge red flags for filters. The same goes for using ALL CAPS, a dozen exclamation points, or sneaky tricks like adding "Re: Your Order" to a marketing email. It’s a fast track to the spam folder.

Instead, focus on clarity and value. A great subject line hints at the content inside while sparking a little curiosity or urgency. For a Shopify store, this could look like:

• Highlighting a benefit: "Your new favorite t-shirt is waiting"

• Asking a question: "Did you see what's back in stock?"

• Creating exclusivity: "A special offer, just for you"

These are honest, user-focused, and they work. They encourage opens without resorting to the spammy tactics that get your emails going to spam.

Design for Deliverability and Engagement

How your email actually looks and functions is a big deal, not just for your subscribers but for spam filters, too. Given that more than half of all emails are opened on a phone, a clean, mobile-first design is absolutely non-negotiable.

One of the biggest mistakes I see is the all-image email. Spammers used this trick for years to hide sketchy text from filters, so inbox providers are now highly suspicious of them. Always aim for a healthy balance—a good rule of thumb is at least 60% text and 40% images. This makes your message accessible and shows you have nothing to hide. You can learn more by exploring the debate between plain text vs HTML email formats and their impact on engagement.

Key Takeaway: An email that's a pain to read on a phone is an email that gets deleted. Stick to a single-column layout, use large fonts, and make your call-to-action buttons big enough for a thumb to tap easily.

Embrace the Power of List Hygiene

This might be the most important—and most neglected—part of keeping your emails out of the spam folder. Blasting emails to a giant, unengaged list is the quickest way to tank your sender reputation. Seriously, a smaller, highly engaged list is worth so much more.

List hygiene is just the simple practice of regularly cleaning out inactive subscribers. If someone hasn't opened an email from you in 90-120 days, they are telling inbox providers that your content isn’t for them anymore. When you keep emailing them, your open rates suffer and your spam complaint risk goes up.

This process is called sunsetting. By creating a segment of these unengaged contacts and politely removing them from your main campaigns, you're protecting your reputation and getting a much clearer picture of who your real audience is.

Segmentation: The Ultimate Engagement Booster

Sending the same generic message to your entire list is a recipe for lackluster results. The real magic happens when you slice up your audience into segments and send them content that feels like it was made just for them.

Segmentation is just dividing your list into smaller groups based on data. For a Shopify store, the options are incredibly powerful:

• Purchase History: Send loyalty rewards to your repeat customers and helpful "getting started" content to first-time buyers.

• Browsing Behavior: Remind people about the specific products they checked out but didn't purchase.

• Geographic Location: Announce local pop-ups or run promotions for specific regions.

• Engagement Level: Give your most loyal fans early access to sales or exclusive content as a thank you.

This targeted approach makes a huge difference in open and click-through rates. When subscribers consistently get emails that match their interests, they engage more, sending a powerful positive signal to Gmail and Outlook that your emails belong in the inbox.

Here's a quick cheat sheet to help you visualize what good and bad practices look like.

Spam Trigger Checklist Do's and Don'ts

Email Element	Do This (Inbox Friendly)	Don't Do This (Spam Trigger)
Subject Line	"Your Fall Style Guide Is Here 🍂"	"FREE SHIRT! OPEN NOW!!!!!"
Email Design	Balanced text and images, mobile-friendly.	One large image with no text, broken links.
List Management	Regularly remove unengaged contacts.	Send to a purchased or stale list.
Personalization	Use segments for relevant offers.	Send a generic "one-size-fits-all" blast.

Ultimately, it comes down to creating genuinely valuable content and sending it only to people who have asked for it. This creates a positive feedback loop: high engagement leads to better deliverability, which drives even more engagement. It’s the only sustainable way to win the inbox game.

Keeping Your Emails Out of the Spam Folder: Ongoing Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Getting your emails into the inbox isn't a "set it and forget it" task. Think of it more like maintaining a car; you need to perform regular check-ups to make sure everything is running smoothly. Once you've laid the groundwork with solid authentication and engaging content, the next crucial step is building a system to track your performance. This vigilance is what lets you spot trouble before it torpedoes your sender reputation.

This isn't about staring at dashboards all day. It's about establishing a rhythm for checking the vital signs of your email program, much like you'd monitor your Shopify store's traffic or conversion rates. This ensures all your hard work actually pays off with consistent inbox placement.

The Metrics That Matter Most

Your email platform throws a lot of numbers at you, but when it comes to deliverability, a few key metrics are your canaries in the coal mine. These are the first signals that something is wrong.

• Spam Complaint Rate: This is the big one. If your complaint rate ticks above 0.08%, you're in the danger zone. This is a direct, unambiguous message from your subscribers to inbox providers that they don't want your emails.

• Bounce Rate: Specifically, keep an eye on your hard bounces—the emails sent to invalid addresses. A rate that consistently creeps over 2% is a clear sign that your list hygiene is slipping.

• Open Rate by Domain: Don't get fooled by a decent overall open rate. The devil is in the details. If you're seeing 30% opens from Gmail users but only 5% from Outlook, that's not a content problem; it's a deliverability problem with a specific provider.

• Unsubscribe Rate: While not as immediately damaging as a spam complaint, a chronically high unsubscribe rate tells you there's a disconnect between what people signed up for and what you're sending.

Tracking these numbers week-over-week helps you establish a baseline. When you see a sudden, ugly spike in any of them, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and investigate.

Don’t just glance at your aggregate open rate and call it a day. The real story is always in the segments. A hidden issue with a single major inbox provider like Gmail can quietly sabotage a huge chunk of your revenue potential.

Your Go-To Troubleshooting Toolkit

You don't need a massive budget to keep tabs on your sender reputation. In fact, some of the most powerful tools are free and give you data straight from the source.

Google Postmaster Tools is absolutely essential. I consider it non-negotiable for any brand that's serious about email. It’s Google’s free dashboard that shows you exactly how Gmail perceives your sending domain. It provides direct feedback on:

• IP & Domain Reputation: See your grade—Bad, Low, Medium, or High. This is a direct look at your sender score with the biggest email provider on the planet.

• Spam Rate: This tracks the percentage of your emails that actual Gmail users are flagging as spam.

• Authentication: A simple pass/fail check to confirm your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are working as they should.

• Delivery Errors: Pinpoints technical issues causing your emails to get rejected outright.

Setting it up is a breeze and it gives you an unparalleled view into your deliverability. It’s the difference between guessing what’s wrong and knowing exactly where the problem is.

A Simple Framework for Diagnosing Problems

Okay, so you've spotted a dip in your deliverability. Don't panic. The key is to work through the problem logically instead of randomly changing things.

Start by asking a few simple questions about what's changed recently:

• Did we do something different? Go back and look at the campaigns sent right before the numbers went south. Did you try a new subject line style? Send to an old, unengaged segment? Redesign your email template?

• Are we emailing new people? If you just imported a fresh list, they might not be as engaged yet, which can temporarily increase complaints and lower open rates.

• What is Google telling me? Open up Postmaster Tools. Is there a sudden drop in your domain reputation? A spike in user-reported spam? This data will often confirm your hunch.

Let's say you see a high bounce rate after a major sale announcement. The culprit is almost certainly list quality, and the solution is to clean your list more aggressively. But if your bounce rate is low and your spam complaint rate is high, the problem is more likely with your content, audience targeting, or sending frequency. This systematic approach turns a vague, stressful problem—"our emails are going to spam!"—into a specific, solvable task.

Frequently Asked Questions

When you're trying to figure out why your emails are landing in spam, a lot of questions pop up. It can feel like a moving target. I've heard just about all of them from Shopify merchants over the years, so let's clear up a few of the most common ones.

How Long Does It Take to Fix a Bad Sender Reputation?

I wish I could give you a simple answer, but fixing a sender reputation is more like rebuilding your credit score than flipping a light switch. It's all about consistent, good behavior over time.

If you've just made a few small mistakes, you might see improvements in a couple of weeks. This usually involves pausing sends to your unengaged subscribers and really cleaning up your list. But if you're dealing with something more serious, like getting your domain blacklisted, you could be looking at a few months of hard work to regain the trust of inbox providers. The most important thing is proving that you're sending emails people actually want to open.

Will Switching Email Tools Instantly Solve My Spam Problems?

Moving to a high-quality email platform is a great move, but it's not a silver bullet. The reputation that matters is tied to your domain, not the tool you're sending from.

Think of a new platform as a fresh start with a clean car and a full tank of gas—it gives you the best possible chance to get where you're going. But you still have to be the one driving responsibly. You have to nail the fundamentals: authentication, list hygiene, and creating great content. The tool helps you do it right, but it can't erase a history of bad sending practices on its own.

Your sender reputation follows your domain. A new email service provider gives you a clean slate technically, but the historical data associated with your domain still influences how inbox providers see you.

Why Do My Test Emails Go to Spam but Not My Live Campaigns?

This one is super common and always throws people for a loop. The reason is that test emails don't act like real emails, and spam filters are smart enough to notice.

When you send an email with a subject line like "Test Email #3" to the same five internal addresses over and over, it looks strange to an automated filter. Real campaigns go to a diverse group of people who (hopefully) open and click. Your internal tests have none of that engagement data, which is a huge part of how inbox providers judge an email's legitimacy. To get a better read, try to make your tests look as much like a real campaign as possible.

Can Images or Links in My Email Cause Spam Issues?

They absolutely can. A few specific content habits are major red flags for spam filters.

An email that's just one big image is a classic spammer move used to hide text from filters. You always want a good balance of text and images. Another big one is using URL shorteners. Scammers love them for hiding sketchy links, so inbox providers are naturally suspicious. Always link directly to your Shopify store or other trusted sites. And make sure your links actually work! Broken links frustrate users, which hurts engagement and, you guessed it, dings your sender reputation over time.

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