Spamtraps: Know All About It

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Well, most of us know what 'spam' is, but it's time email marketers learnt what a 'spamtrap' is. To put it simply, a spamtrap is an email address designed to receive spam and trap mailers who send spam or have questionable data collection practices. Spamtrap addresses are never used to subscribe to any email communications; so sending them an email raises an alarm on how they got onto your mailing list.

It's easier to understand spamtraps, when you know their various kinds. There are two kinds of spamtraps:

1. Classic Spamtraps or Honeypots: These kind of email addresses are deliberately created by ISPs and placed on websites and forums. They can be picked up by search bots. These are used to track those involved in poor data collection practices like harvesting email addresses or scraping them. It would be helpful to know that such kind of traps can be present in purchased mailing lists. If you send an email to just one such address, you can get blacklisted.
2. Reactivated Address Spamtraps: These were once valid email addresses which became inactive/ invalid and have been reactivated by ISPs as spamtraps. ISPs ensure that these invalid email addresses return hard bounce messages for at least a year before they are reactivated to track spammers. They usually trap legitimate marketers who do not maintain email list hygiene. Sometimes domain names of companies that went out of business are converted as spamtraps.

How Do Spamtraps Impact Delivery Rates?
If a sender continues to email invalid or bounced contacts and if some of them have been converted into spamtraps, then emails from that specific IP or domain will be subject to bulking (sent to Junk folder) or blocking (email rejection). It can even get the sender's IP or domain blacklisted.

At SEO Resources, we ensure proper bounce processing as per the industry standards. Hard bounces are immediately taken off the database after the first email campaign.

Best Practices to Avoid Spamtraps:

• Avoid email addresses like abuse@, postmaster@, info@.
• Avoid role account addresses like sales@, customersupport@, webmaster@.
• Exclude malformed email addresses.
• Do not reactivate bounced subscribers.
• Send a confirmation or welcome email to new subscribers to verify addresses.
• Email your subscribers at least once in six months.
• Do not use purchased lists. It's preferred to send emails to subscriber databases only.
• If a third-party database or purchased list is used, first email a small batch of contacts to monitor bounce rate, unsubscribers or complaints.
• Regularly cleanse out inactive subscribers, i.e., those who do not open/click on the email.

Happy emailing!