When you send an email, you want to make sure it actually goes to the person you sent it to. The way you write your emails and what you include can affect whether they end up in someone's inbox or get marked as spam.

Here are some things to keep in mind to help with email deliverability and reaching your subscribers’ inboxes.

Who is this email coming from? When you send an email, use a sender name and email address that your subscribers will recognize. Try to keep this consistent so people know it's really you. You can set your sender name and sender email address in Flodesk under Account settings > Email setup.

As a best practice, use a domain name you own and avoid using freemail email addresses. This helps with authentication and builds trust with your recipients.

Get your readers involved. Encourage recipients to reply to your emails, and remind them to add your email address to their address book. These actions can have a positive impact on your sender reputation and inbox placement.

Watch your words. Be mindful of anything that might trigger spam filters. This guide gives an overview of the most common reasons why your email may go to spam and what to do about it.

Note that sometimes the most harmless phrases (and intentions) could get your emails delivered to spam. Before hitting send on your next email, run it through some free tools that can test the spamminess of your emails.

For example, Mail-Tester checks your email and gives it a score on a scale of 1-10. They tell you what’s working well and where you could improve.

You can also use the built-in test send feature. In the email builder, click the paper plane icon in the top left corner and send your email as a test to an email address you have access to.

We recommend using a free Gmail address for such purposes. If your test email lands in Gmail’s spam folder, it’s an indication that you still have some work to do.

Always include an easy way for subscribers to unsubscribe from your emails. The larger and more prominent your unsubscribe link is, the better. This helps you avoid spam complaints, which can seriously impact your deliverability.

Don’t be afraid of the unsubscribe link. Your goal is to have highly engaged, interested subscribers on your list. And they should also be given the chance to change their minds at any time and leave your list. You wouldn’t want to be held hostage on someone else’s email list either, would you?

Use optimized and compressed images in your emails. Large images can trigger anti-spam filters and lead to a poor user experience. Try to keep each image under 50kb where possible. You can achieve this by using JPGs instead of PNGs and compressing them.

Online services like TinyJPG can help optimize and compress your JPEG and PNG files before uploading them to your Flodesk email.

Avoid using link shorteners like Bitly before hyperlinking text in your emails or adding links to buttons, layouts etc. While you may be tempted to shorten lengthy links, spammers often use link shorteners to disguise where their links point to and it could be flagged by spam filters.

Similarly, adding full HTTP(S) links as the forward-facing text of a hyperlink could get your email land in spam. Let’s see an example of what it looks like.

Why are these types of links problematic? Using a full hyperlink as the forward facing part of a hyperlink could look suspicious, because there's no guarantee it actually redirects to that URL. And it’s often used by scammers to direct people to harmful websites.

Instead, use simple, descriptive text such as “Click here to watch my latest video on 4 things about Flodesk templates,” and embed your link into that text.

You can also include a button in your communication that links to your page or use the video block like in the below example.

Try to make your emails personalized for the person receiving them. And this goes beyond using their first name. Targeted messages are more likely to be recognized as important by the inbox and can improve deliverability.

Flodesk offers various ways to collect information from your subscribers that can help you create targeted emails, including:

By understanding how your content affects email deliverability and following these guidelines, you can improve the chances of your emails reaching the inbox.