What is Spam? Weird Pink Meat or Annoying Email?

A Brief History of Spam

In 1990, spam was a canned precooked meat product, made by Hormel Foods Corporation.

In 2000, spam was unsolicited bulk commercial email.

In 2024, spam is any email that is not wanted. This includes the unsolicited bulk commercial email, which continues to be sent in record numbers. And it now also includes any email that was originally asked for but is no longer welcome.

Why would someone mark something as spam that they signed up for?
Great question! We hear it all the time. Maybe their interests have changed, maybe your emails are boring, or maybe they get too much email.

How Spam Gets Labeled as Spam

Many email providers, such as Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, and Yahoo, have Report as Spam buttons, allowing their customers to designate any email as no longer wanted. These providers will relay that information back to the mailing list delivery service, asking them to take the person off the list.

These email providers ALSO keep track of how many people report a message as spam versus how many emails were not. If the ratio of bad emails from a list delivery service is too high, then future sending privileges may be reduced or revoked.

What Spam Means to You as a List Owner

Why is this important to you as a List Owner or newsletter sender? Because it affects how many of your emails end up in the Inbox!

Spam is what you DON’T want your messages to be. If your mailing list emails get shuffled into the spam folder, then most people will never even see them!

Here’s how you can avoid your group’s emails being labeled as spam:

Choose a host that doesn’t associate with other spammers.
In this case, it is truly “guilt by association”. Your emails might get labeled as bad too, and sent into oblivion.
Avoid certain keywords in your email subject.
Words such as “free” or “enhanced.”
Never send emails unsolicited.
Only send group emails to those who have subscribed.
Keep your group email relevant to your readers.

If getting reported as spam is still a problem, make sure your list members “white list” your sending address or add it to their “safe sender” list. This will keep your emails where they belong….in their Inbox!

No one likes spam, at least not the email kind. 😉

Are you having trouble keeping your Inbox clean? We have all kinds of tips: