The spam rate indicates the percentage of emails that Gmail recipients have reported as spam. If this value increases, Gmail may start delivering more messages to the spam folder or limit their delivery.
In magnews, you can monitor the spam rate of the sender domain and identify when the data exceeds the thresholds recommended by Gmail.
How to interpret the Spam Rate
Gmail recommends keeping the daily spam rate:
- Below 0.1%: the value is low and in line with recommendations.
- Between 0.1% and 0.3%: the value exceeds the recommended threshold and should be monitored.
- Equal to or above 0.3%: the value is high and may cause deliverability issues.
The rate is calculated daily and can vary depending on the communications sent and the reports received. Even a single spike can negatively impact email delivery.
This data considers emails that recipients move or report as spam, but not those automatically classified by Gmail into the spam folder. For this reason, a low rate does not guarantee that all emails were delivered to the inbox.
Learn how to monitor the spam rate of your sender domain on Gmail from magnews.
Identify sent communicatins to review
If the spam rate increases, check the chart available in magnews, under the sender domains section, for the date when the value worsened. Then review the communications sent during that period and evaluate:
- The targeted audience
- The origin and quality of contacts
- The level of recipient engagement
- The frequency and volume of sends
- The relevance of the content to the contacts’ expectations
This analysis helps you identify the communications or sending strategies that may have generated more reports.
Take action on contacts
Contacts selection is one of the factors that most affects the spam rate.
To reduce reports:
- Send only to contacts who have given valid and informed consent
- Prioritize recipients who have opened or clicked recent communications
- Temporarily exclude inactive contacts from more frequent sends
- Do not use purchased lists, those received from third parties, or collected without proper consent
- Remove invalid addresses and keep magnews’ automatic management of hard bounces and soft user bounces active
- Consider using double opt-in to verify the email address and interest of new subscribers
If the value is equal to or greater than 0.3%, temporarily reduce sends to less engaged contacts and focus on more active recipients.
Check frequency and volumes
Too frequent sends or sudden volume increases can generate more reports and appear suspicious to Gmail.
We recommend that you:
- Avoid repeatedly sending emails to contacts who do not interact
- Maintain regular and consistent volumes over time
- Distribute very large sends over multiple phases or days
- Perform a gradual ramp-up when using a new sender domain or one that has been inactive for a long time
- Allow contacts to choose the frequency or type of communications, when possible
Improve content and unsubscribe
Every communication must be recognizable, relevant, and consistent with what the contact signed up for.
Verify that:
- The sender is immediately recognizable
- The subject and content clearly represent the message
- Communications offer useful and expected content to the recipient
- The unsubscribe link is visible, functional, and easy to find
- The unsubscribe process does not require unnecessary steps
A contact who cannot easily unsubscribe might use the “Report as spam” button.
Verify authentication and compliance
Actions on recipients and content must be accompanied by proper technical configuration.
Check that:
- DKIM and DMARC are correctly configured on the sender domain
- The domain complies with Gmail’s sender requirements
- The Compliance Status section of Google Postmaster Tools does not report requirements to fix
- The sender domain has no other issues in magnews’ Deliverability Check
Authentication does not directly reduce user reports but is essential to help Gmail recognize the sender and properly evaluate its messages.
Continue monitoring the Spam Rate
After applying corrective actions, monitor the spam rate daily in magnews. Improvement may not be immediate: it depends on new sends, their volume, and recipient behavior.
Maintain a cautious strategy until the value consistently returns below 0.1%. If the rate remains high, further reduce the target and sending frequency and review again the communications associated with the days showing the highest percentages.