Spam Complaint

For email, a spam complaint refers to when an email user flags a message as “junk” or “unsolicited.” Spam complaints can be reserved for emails of a promotional nature that are sent to email users without their permission. Email providers often display a simple, one-click solution to report and block spam from an account. However, spam complaints have evolved with the increased popularity of email marketing to affect email communications that users perceive as unwanted. If a user has subscribed to a mailing list requesting regular messages, they may still mark these messages as spam as soon as the messages transition in the email user’s mind from “useful” to “bothersome.”

Email users sometimes mark legitimate messages as spam because it is the easiest way to “unsubscribe” from a list that is no longer valuable to them; this can occur because the unsubscribe option is not readily available to the user or because they are unaware that reporting as spam and unsubscribing are not synonymous actions. Because there is no check to ensure that email users are only marking truly unsolicited emails as spam, email marketers must be careful to avoid being marked as spam. Those that are marked as such run the risk having their emails blocked and their email campaign efforts stunted.

Email marketers can take precautions to prevent their messages from being marked as spam. First, the marketer can implement clear opt-in subscriptions — or double opt-in subscriptions to recruit list members. This practice ensures that members actively request information. Second, the marketer can ensure that all messages are relevant to the list’s interests and that messages are not sent at an overwhelmingly frequent or infrequent rate. Finally, marketers can provide a clear “unsubscribe” option in each email message that signals to readers that they should follow these steps to end further communication.