Spam Triggers | MightyMerchant eCommerce Blog

Email No No’s: Words to Avoid in Email Subjects

I’m constantly amazed at what appears in my spam folder–emails about my “mortgage” at the house I rented 5 years ago, pharmacy orders (ten different pill refills each day?), loan applications and “R0lex” watches. I like to think people are generally savvy enough to not respond to the “Y0ur M0rtage Appr0val” email, with all of the letter o’s replaced by zeros, but if there was no gain the spammers would presumably move on to more profitable work.

I’m one of those weirdos who checks their spam folder almost as often as I check my inbox. Rarely does actual spam appear in my inbox, but quite frequently email that is not spam is trapped in my spam folder. How can you ensure that your electronic communications don’t end up in this email graveyard?

Avoiding George Carlin’s 7 dirty words you can’t say on television is a good start, as is not using numbers in place of letters. But seriously, seemingly innocuous words or phrases appear frequently in spam subject lines, so don’t use ‘em, or your customers may never see your emails.

Here is my list of phrases to avoid:

Amazing; anything with all CAPITALS; 100% free; 50% off; act now; buy now; double your anything; any punctuation, especially exclamation points or dollar signs; for only; free samples; text with s p a c e s; just for you; hot; instant; lose; lower; offer; opportunity; satisfaction; cash; winner; yours

There are doubtless many more. When crafting your subject lines, try to think of other contexts in which your words could be used. “Save cash instantly with our BIG fall S A L E!” seems like it would be an attention-getter, but that’s very likely to be flagged as spam. “Company X Fall Specials” may not be as snappy, but it’s a lot more likely that this email will make it to the inbox. And, the straightforward, “soft sell” approach has been shown to have a higher open rate than an email that screams like a newspaper advertisement.

Ecommerce consultant Ralph Wilson over at WilsonWeb.com has compiled a list of more than 250 spam triggers. View them all here.

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