Why do video emails get classified as spam?
As a sales professional leveraging email as your outreach channel, you understand the impact of your cold emails not reaching your prospective recipients. After all, your success invariably depends on effective reach.
Did You Know: As opposed to text emails, video emails are great at dodging the spam folder. How? Because of their capability to generate qualified engagement. Properly formatted video emails outshine their text-based counterparts by delivering performance that is 2-3 times superior!
However, when it's bulk messaging, like in cold outreach, it's crucial to stay vigilant and mindful of the factors that could lead them to Spamville. If you’re geared up to harness the power of video emails, then here are a few tips to maximize your video email deliverability.
Best practices to keep Video Emails from getting Spammed
1. Integrate Hippo Video with Gmail
By integrating Hippo Video with your Gmail account, you can record a video or send previously recorded videos to your recipients and keep track of your emails without leaving your Gmail account.
Be it 1:1 videos or video campaigns, by using the Hippo buttons on Gmail’s compose box you can create videos right from your email inbox and send it right from there hassle-free.
2. No video autoplay
Avoid embedding videos that automatically play at high volume when opened, especially in cold email outreach. This practice may not be well-received by certain recipients and could result in your emails being blacklisted.
To prevent videos from autoplaying, you can disable the "Autoplay Video" option in Hippo Video's Video Settings.
Kindly Note: As a precautionary measure we have muted the audio when Auto-Play is enabled. Viewer has to click un-mute to hear the audio from the video player either on the left-top or at the bottom next to play button.
Important Information: New Browser Autoplay Policies
We'd like to inform you about the recent changes in web browser autoplay policies, which may affect your online experience. These updates are designed to enhance user satisfaction, discourage the use of ad blockers, and reduce data consumption on networks with limited bandwidth.
Key Points:
1. Stricter Autoplay Policies: Web browsers are now implementing more stringent autoplay policies.
2. User-Centric Approach: These changes aim to give users greater control over media playback while benefiting legitimate content publishers.
Chrome's Autoplay Policies:
Muted Autoplay: This type of autoplay, where videos play without sound, is always allowed and will not be affected by the new policies.
Autoplay with Sound: Videos with sound will be allowed to autoplay if one or more of the following conditions are met:
User Interaction: If the user has interacted with the website domain, such as clicking or tapping on it, autoplay with sound may be enabled.
Media Engagement Index: On desktop devices, if the user's Media Engagement Index (MEI) threshold has been reached, meaning they have previously played videos with sound, autoplay with sound may be permitted.
Mobile Home Screen or PWA Installation: Autoplay with sound may be allowed if the user has added the site to their mobile home screen or installed the Progressive Web App (PWA) on their desktop.
Top Frame Delegation: In some cases, top frames have the ability to delegate autoplay permissions to their iframes, allowing autoplay with sound within these embedded frames.
These changes reflect a growing emphasis on providing users with more control over their online experience and ensuring that autoplay policies align with individual preferences.
If you have any questions or need further assistance regarding these evolving autoplay policies, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team. We're here to help!
3. Avoid emojis and ALL CAPS
N E X T… Refrain from peppering your email body copy with excessive exclamation marks or capitalized words with generous spacing. Though it might be attention-grabbing, it would unleash the wrath of spam filters.
Likewise, use emoticons with caution. A couple of them are fine. But using them in excessive numbers would ruin the effectiveness of messages and make them appear differently on different devices and email service providers.
4. Healthy Subject Lines
To ensure your messages reach the intended inbox, you have to craft subject lines that could delight your prospects and, at the same time, outsmart spam filters. To not let them get caught, steer clear of the following spam-triggering words listed below:
Amazing
Check or money order
Click here
Congratulations
For only ($)
Free or toll-free
Great offer
Guarantee
Increase sales
Risk-free
Special Promotion
Winner
This is not spam
Also, confirm that your subject line is not misleading and reflects the email body copy. Because honesty is not just the best policy but also the key to bypassing spam radar.
5. Good Email Copy
Give your copy a grammar-check
While a few typos won’t topple your messaging, be careful of hastily written or bot-generated copies; they could lead you to the spam folders. Ensure a strict grammar check is in place while you pen your email copies.
Strike a balance with colors and fonts:
Additionally, keep your copies free of bold colors and weird fonts to keep them easy on your recipients eyes and away from spam folders.
Say no to false links:
Stay on the right side of email etiquette by adhering to best practices when it comes to links. Never use a false link (e.g., linking the word "google" to your domain) or alternate them with shortened links.
Hippo Video provides you with a Video CNAME to use your own domain when sending videos or when they view it on the landing pages, so recipients can feel confident clicking on links.
6. Accurately configure email address
Authenticate your email through SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI protocols. This way, your email service providers know that you are a legitimate sender. Use a clear sender address so that the recipients can see where the email is from and don't think it's spam.
Additionally, ensure that the sender address aligns with your domain to prevent email service providers from mistaking it for a phishing attempt.
While it's common to set up separate domains for emails to safeguard your main domain from blacklisting, exercise caution when creating a new email domain. Avoid making it too similar to your regular domain to prevent it from being flagged as spam.
7. Warm up your IP address
When you have acquired a new email-sending domain, it’s advisable to warm up your IP address by gradually increasing the number of emails sent from it. This is essential to establishing the credibility of your domain.
Rather than immediately dispatching thousands of emails in a single go, commence with a few hundred emails and then consistently and incrementally keep adding more every day to your cadences.
8. Monitor your reputation
Keep monitoring your spam score to proactively address any decline in performance—it’s best to maintain it below 5%. If things start slipping away, consider reducing the frequency of outbound emails until you can enhance your approach.
A tip here: You can check your domain’s spam score in search results produced by Google.
9. Use a spam-checking tool
Unsure whether your emails are spam-proof? Then, put them to the test with a spam grading tool before blasting it out to your audience.
There are numerous free tools available that could help you optimize your email content and structure to pass through the spam filter.
10. Monitor email-engagement metrics
As mentioned above, your email engagement levels greatly influence your deliverability. Based on this, the email service providers determine whether your emails deserve to be seen or marked as spam.
This is why video emails are always the first choice when it comes to leveling up sales engagement. Plus, you can also keep email engagement high by:
Targeting an appropriate audience
Validating emails with verification tools
Eliminating unengaged contacts
Conclusion
After reading this, you might think email delivery is a game for experts. But in essence all it requires is a good domain health, solid IP reputation, and a message that your audience would truly be interested in engaging with.
Use platforms like Hippo Video that could help you create and optimize video emails and heighten your sales engagement.