13 Things Email Marketers Should Know About Spam

Email marketing is one of the best performing marketing channels available to businesses today, but unfortunately, legitimate companies aren’t the only ones who use email to reach their intended audience. Spam—unsolicited emails sent in bulk—is annoying at best and criminal at its worst.

In order to make sure your emails aren’t getting trapped by spam filters or misinterpreted by subscribers, it’s important that all email marketers be familiar with spam and spam practices.

After all, increasing your deliverability ensures your emails go straight to the top of your subscriber’s inbox where they’re more likely to get opened, read, and acted on.

This infographic reveals the 13 facts you should know about spam as well as a few of the best practices to build trust with ISPs and your subscribers:

13 things you should know about spam

There are 3.7 billion email users worldwide in 2017 (estimated to grow to 4.3 in 2022). Approximately 135.4 billion spam emails are sent per day in 2018.

269 billion emails were sent and received each day in 2017, but that number is expected to increase to over 333 billion daily emails in 2022.

Out of those emails, only 28% actually make it to the inbox.

What is spam?

Spam is any unsolicited email sent in bulk.

Sometimes spam is merely an email with irrelevant content, but often spam is malicious, hiding malware or phishing.

In fact, companies lost $676 million to spam emails from fake vendors in 2017.

Examples of spam emails:

• “Suspicious activity on your account!”
• “Your information has been compromised”
• “Buy 1 Get 100 Free: special cryptocurrency deal”
• “Update your privacy settings”

Bonus fact: The first references to junk mail as spam actually refer to a Monty Python skit: a cafe has SPAM in every menu item and Vikings sing “Spam! Spam! Spam!” drowning out all other conversation.

Where does spam come from?

China is the leading generator of spam, sending 14% of all spam.

The US is the second greatest generator of spam, accounting for 12%.

Germany is third, generating 11%.

The most frequent types of spam globally were healthcare (26% of total spam) and dating spam (21.4%)

Who are spammers targeting?

Where do the majority of spam attacks occur?

• 15.5% of users attacked are in Brazil
• 14.77% in China
• 7.53% in the US

What industries are targeted the most?

Which industries does spam target most?

• Global internet portals: 25.1%
• Financial institutions and banks: 21.1%
• IT companies: 13.8%

But every industry (and individual) is likely to receive spam emails at some point.

The current state of spam

The good news: The amount of malicious spam is decreasing.

In March 2014, spam emails accounted for 71.1% of all emails. Four years later, in March 2018, spam emails only accounted for 48.2% of total email traffic.

Wrap up

Email only works when it’s in your subscribers’ inboxes, not blocked by a spam filter.
Make sure you give your subscribers what they want, offer them the chance to opt out, segment and automate to send personalized content, and maintain list hygiene.

In order to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns, your emails need to actually reach their destination. Learning these basic facts about spam is the first step to elevating your marketing practices and ensuring your deliverability rate remains high, and your revenue with it.

Your subscribers will thank you for trusting the deliverability experts and you’re sure to see improved inbox placement, greater engagement, and increased conversion from your next email marketing campaign.

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