What is a SPAM complaint?
Spam complaints are reports made by email recipients against emails they don’t want in their inbox (SPAM). It’s important to understand how spam complaints work, and how to do your best to avoid them. Even legitimate senders get complaints.
What happens when too many complaints are received?
When an email address in your audience receives an excessive number of complaints, it could result in your next email being blocked by ISPs so that even people who do want to hear from you may not.
In 2024 Google and Yahoo introduced inbox protection rules with stricter requirements for bulk emailers.
The industry standard for spam complaints is less than .1% (1 spam complaint for every 1,000 recipients).
How spam complaints are made
Mailbox providers provide a “Report spam” button in the inbox to allow people to report unwanted emails. Here’s an example “Report spam” button in Gmail:
Why do people report spam
People click the report spam buttons for many reasons. For example, they may not recognize your email address, or understand why you’re emailing them, or it could be because they can’t find the unsubscribe link.
Reduce spam complaints by always including a prominent unsubscribe link.
Review our anti-spam policy
In addition to reporting spam complaints through the inbox provider, you can also follow the steps outlines in our anti-spam policy.
What happens when we receive complaints
As an email service provider (ESP), DailyStory has a “feedback loop” with all of the major inbox providers, for example: Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook. When a recipient marks an email as spam, we are notified through the feedback loop.
All major ESPs utilize a similar feedback loop for spam complaints.
Recipients who report your email as spam are immediately unsubscribed and marked as opted-out. And, you will no longer be able to send marketing emails to that contact.
Transactional emails by pass opt-out rules.
Spam complaints are recorded by us and we regularly calculate the percentage of complaints generated by each customer.
Higher-than-normal spam complaints
If you send an email that receives more than a .03% complaint rate, we will notify you with a warning email that includes advice to help you address the situation.
We understand that even legitimate senders get complaints so, provided you’re doing the right thing, do not be alarmed if you get a warning email from us.
If complaints for a single email exceeds .04% your account will be suspended in order to prevent your sender reputation from further damage.
Best practices for preventing spam complaints
To avoid your emails being marked as spam, you’ll want to follow the guidance in our email inbox placement and avoiding the junk folder article.
