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13, Mar 2026

Tips to Improve Your Email Deliverability & How to Use a Spam Score Checker

Learn how to understand your spam score and discover effective tips to improve your email deliverability. Read the article and watch the video to enhance your outreach.

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Email deliverability is a crucial aspect of any email marketing strategy, as it determines whether your emails reach the intended recipients’ inboxes or get lost in the spam folder. Users often face challenges with their emails being blocked and not reaching their inboxes. It is important to understand the common reasons for this and strategies to troubleshoot and resolve these issues. A high spam score can significantly impact your email deliverability, making it essential to understand the factors that affect spam score calculation and how to maintain a healthy spam score. Email service providers use spam filters to block emails that appear spammy, and a good spam score is directly linked to your email deliverability. In this section, we will explore the importance of email deliverability and how to improve it using tools like a spam score checker.

What is a Spam Score?

Your spam score is a numerical representation of how likely your email is to be flagged as spam by various email providers’ filters. It’s a valuable indicator of your email deliverability. A lower score is better, indicating a higher probability of your email reaching the recipient’s inbox. 

Several factors contribute to your spam score, including:

  • Sender Authentication: Proper implementation of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
  • Content Quality: The presence of spam trigger words, excessive use of capitalisation or exclamation points, and overall content relevance. The use of anchor text is also crucial; an overabundance of anchor text without valuable content can trigger spam alerts, while using branded anchor text in backlinks can enhance brand authority and search rankings.
  • HTML Coding: Clean and well-structured code versus bloated or poorly formatted HTML.Sender Reputation: Your sending domain’s history and reputation.
  • List Hygiene: The quality and engagement of your email list.
  • Data Utilisation: Leveraging recent data to inform spam score algorithms can provide insights into common reasons emails end up in spam folders and enhance email deliverability.

Why is Your Spam Score Important?

Your spam score provides valuable insights into how your emails are perceived by spam filters and recipient mailboxes. A high spam score indicates a need for further investigation into the email’s quality and relevance. It’s a more granular measure of your email deliverability than simply looking at “delivered” rates, as an email can be technically delivered but still end up in the spam folder. By monitoring and improving your spam score, you can:

  • Increase Inbox Placement: Ensure your emails reach the primary inbox, maximising visibility.
  • Improve Engagement: Drive higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
  • Protect Sender Reputation: Maintain a positive sending reputation, which is crucial for long-term deliverability. A high spam score doesn’t necessarily mean the email is spammy, but it does require careful analysis to understand the contributing factors.

How to Use a Spam Score Checker

You can use various tools to evaluate your spam score and analyse your email’s deliverability. Running a spam test is crucial to understand where your emails are landing and uncover potential deliverability issues. Some popular options include:

  • Paid Platforms:
    • Litmus: Offers comprehensive email testing, including spam scoring, rendering previews, and deliverability insights. (Note: Litmus is a paid service.)
    • Moz Pro: A valuable tool that includes features like spam score checkers, allowing users to analyse the spam score of their domain. It helps in understanding website health, categorising spam scores, and advising users on the implications of high spam scores on search engine rankings.
  • Free or Low-Cost Tools:
    • Mail-Tester.com: Provides a free email analysis report, scoring your email and highlighting areas for improvement.
    • Analyse Email: Another free tool that analyses various aspects of your email to assess its spam risk.

Conducting various tests with these tools can significantly improve your email deliverability and overall email strategy.

 Steps to Check Your Spam Score (Using Mail-Tester.com as an Example)

  1. Go to mail-tester.com.
  2. Copy the unique email address provided on the Mail-Tester homepage.
  3. In your Marketing Cloud instance (or your email sending platform), select the email you want to test.
  4. Use the "Preview and Test" or equivalent feature to send a test email to the email address you copied from Mail-Tester.com.
  5. Click the "Then check your result" button on Mail-Tester.com.
  6. Wait for the report to generate. It will display your spam score and provide detailed feedback on what's working well and what needs improvement.

Key Areas to Focus On

When reviewing your spam score report, pay close attention to these areas:

  • Authentication: Ensure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are correctly configured.
  • Content: Avoid spam trigger words (e.g., “free,” “guaranteed”), excessive capitalisation, and misleading subject lines. Manage links in emails carefully to avoid being marked as spam, and always include a clear unsubscribe link.
  • HTML: Use clean, well-structured code. Avoid excessive use of images or inline CSS.
  • Sender Reputation: Monitor your sender reputation and address any issues promptly.List Hygiene: Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive or invalid addresses.
  • Page Quality: Evaluate the quality of individual pages within your website. Ensure each page has high-quality content, a dedicated contact page, and proper interlinking to signal valuable information to search engines.

Best Practices and Quick Tips

  • Pre-Send Testing: Check your deliverability scores before large sends or when using a new email template design to prevent widespread deliverability issues. Start improving your inbox placement immediately by utilising specific tools designed for this purpose.
  • A/B Testing: Experiment with different subject lines, content, and sending times to optimise your deliverability. Conduct various tests to understand how different factors affect your email outreach strategies and improve your sender reputation.
  • Monitor Performance: Regularly monitor your email metrics (open rates, click-through rates, etc.) to identify any deliverability trends.
  • User Feedback: Pay attention to user feedback and reports, as they can influence which terms get flagged as spam. Craft your emails considering user perceptions and behaviours to improve deliverability.

Understanding and actively managing your spam score is essential for maximising the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. By using the right tools and following best practices, you can ensure your emails reach the intended recipients and drive meaningful results. 

If you’re struggling with deliverability issues or need expert assistance, don’t hesitate to consult our Marketing Cloud specialists.

There are several common mistakes that can negatively impact your spam score and email deliverability. These include using spammy backlinks, keyword stuffing, and sending emails from low-quality domains. Additionally, using too many external links or links from the same domains can raise red flags for spam filters. It is also essential to avoid using words or phrases that are commonly associated with spam, such as “buy now” or “limited time offer.” By avoiding these common mistakes, you can maintain a healthy spam score and improve your email deliverability. A spam score checker can help identify potential issues and provide recommendations for improvement.

Effective email list management is crucial for maintaining good email deliverability. A well-managed email list can help reduce the risk of emails landing in the spam folder, while a poorly managed list can increase the risk. It’s essential to focus on building a high-quality email list with engaged subscribers and to avoid sending mass emails to uninterested recipients. Email service providers use spam filters to block emails that are likely to be spam, and a good spam score can help improve email deliverability. By using a spam test tool and monitoring email campaigns, businesses can identify potential issues and take corrective action to improve deliverability. Regularly cleaning your email list and ensuring you have permission to email your subscribers can significantly enhance your email strategy.

Email authentication is a critical component of email deliverability, as it helps verify the sender’s identity and prevent spam. Avoiding spammy practices can also help improve email deliverability by ensuring your emails are not flagged as spam. Techniques such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can help improve email deliverability by authenticating the sender’s IP addresses and domain. A spam checker tool can help identify potential authentication issues and provide recommendations for improvement. Furthermore, using a custom tracking domain and avoiding mass emails can also enhance email deliverability. By implementing these strategies, you can significantly reduce the risk of your emails being flagged as spam and improve your inbox placement. 

Maintaining a healthy spam score requires regular monitoring and testing using a spam score checker tool. Adhering to SEO best practices can help maintain a low spam score and avoid penalties from search engines. This involves checking your spam score regularly, identifying potential issues, and taking corrective action. Additionally, implementing best practices such as using high-quality links, avoiding keyword stuffing, and authenticating your emails can help maintain a low spam score. It is also essential to regularly test your email campaigns using a mail tester tool to identify potential issues and optimise your email content. By following these best practices and using the right tools, you can significantly enhance your email deliverability and avoid deliverability issues. A good spam score is directly linked to your email deliverability, and maintaining a healthy spam score is crucial for achieving optimal results.

A website’s backlink profile is a critical factor in determining its spam score. A backlink profile with a high number of low-quality links can increase a website’s spam score, while a profile with high-quality links can improve it. It’s essential to monitor and analyse the backlink profile regularly to identify potential issues and take corrective action. A spam score checker can help identify spammy backlinks and provide recommendations for improvement. By maintaining a healthy backlink profile, websites can reduce their spam score and improve their search engine rankings. Regularly auditing your backlinks and removing any that are low-quality or irrelevant can help maintain a good spam score.

Content quality plays a significant role in determining a website’s spam score. High-quality, engaging, and informative content is less likely to be flagged as spammy by search engines. Conversely, low-quality content can increase a website’s spam score, making it more likely to be penalised by search engines. 

A good spam score is essential for maintaining strong search engine rankings and avoiding the spam folder. To achieve a low spam score, focus on creating high-quality content that provides value to users. This means avoiding keyword stuffing, ensuring your content is relevant and well-written, and regularly updating your site with fresh, valuable information.

Link building is another critical factor that affects a website’s spam score. Building high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites can help improve a website’s spam score, while spammy backlinks can increase the risk of being penalised. It’s essential to focus on building a diverse backlink profile with links from different domains and IP addresses. A spam score checker tool can help identify toxic backlinks and provide recommendations for link removal. By monitoring and adjusting link building strategies, websites can reduce their spam score and improve their search engine rankings. Remember, quality over quantity is key when it comes to backlinks.

Several factors can affect spam score calculation, including the presence of spam words, toxic backlinks, and keyword stuffing. Analysing the root domain is crucial to identify spam sites, as characteristics like the length of the root domain and its resemblance to spammy domains can establish correlations with the likelihood of a website being deemed as spam. 

A higher spam score indicates a higher risk of being flagged as spam by email service providers. Factors such as domain age, domain authority, and backlink profile can also impact spam scores. Additionally, the use of low-quality links, such as those from spammy sites, can increase the spam score. The role of the URL is also significant in determining the likelihood of a website being categorised as spam. 

A secure HTTPS URL and well-structured URL characteristics, such as length and domain name composition, can build trustworthiness and reduce the risk of being flagged as spam. It is essential to monitor your website’s spam score regularly using a spam score checker tool to identify potential issues and take corrective action. A low spam score is crucial for maintaining good email deliverability and avoiding deliverability issues.