How to Recognize And Avoid Spam traps
Is it possible that your email list contains some hidden agents waiting to determine if you are a spammer? It is entirely possible. Email addresses known as scammers exist for the sole purpose of identifying potential spammers and then blacklisting them. In some cases, these traps may once have been valid email addresses, which have been abandoned by their owners and have been cheated by email service providers; in other words, they have been seeded in an attempt to be collected. Below we offer some examples of common pitfalls as well as tips for avoiding them.
[email protected] - Have you ever tried to guess an email address? For example, by placing common names with random patterns on the front of a Gmail or Hotmail email address? Many spammers use this technique to spread their messages, but email providers are prepared for these cases. When emails reach non-existent accounts, email providers are immediately suspicious of spam.
Trap Seeds - Email service providers are notorious for creating traps and distributing them on websites, forums, and other places on the internet, specifically to attract "harvesters" who scan the web for email addresses and spam them.
User-Created Traps - Some users will create special email addresses to gain access to a special report, register for a forum, or fill out a required email address because they do not want to provide their real email address (because they do not want to receive spam).
Pitfalls in purchased lists - Avoid the temptation to purchase a list and you will avoid subscriptions that are potential pitfalls.
To avoid getting caught, follow these tips:
Clear your list immediately and frequently - When was the last time you removed inactive contacts from your list? If your contacts don't open or interact with your messages, they are either disinterested or not receiving the messages - or it could be bogus addresses. In any case, it is time to clean up your list. Even if a contact is legitimate, if the contact is not interested after several emails, it is time to abandon it and move on.
Always use a confirmed subscription process - This verification process ensures that the email address is legitimate and that the contact receives your messages.
Follow acceptable email marketing practices and avoid any techniques that may cause problems such as collecting email addresses or randomly guessing email addresses.
How do I identify a spam trap?
Spam traps are impossible to identify because they are kept secret. There is no way to identify one by looking at it. They are a component of the secret sauce of reputation systems. If the trap is provided, the trap is useless to its owner from that point forward. It often occurs in the case where a listed sender is provided with a pickup address, that only the pickup address is deleted and no other work is done to resolve the underlying data collection / maintenance issue.
How does a spam trap appear on my list?
There are a few different ways a spam trap can get onto your list:
Accidentally
Someone may accidentally sign up to your list and misspell their email address. The misspelled address can happen to be a spam trap. This happens more often than you might think by nature from the large number of registrations that are on the Internet every day. This is why it is very important to check the new email addresses that enter your double-subscribed list.
Bots
It is becoming more and more common for bots to bomb your list. This means that thousands of email addresses are maliciously enrolled in your lists via subscription forms. Some of these random email addresses they use can also happen to be spam traps. This can happen if you are using a form that is not protected by captcha or a double subscription.
Old data
Some spam traps are email accounts that have been closed for 5, 10, or even 15 years. This can happen when an email account owner stops bouncing back to signal to senders that the address is undeliverable. The old unused email address can become a "recycled" spam trap. If you get caught sending it to a "recycled" spam trap, it means you haven't cleaned your list in years or you have recently purchased a list of very old data. Both will get you into deliverability issues.
Non-opt-in data
Spam traps can enter your list if they are bought, scratched, or attached with contacts who have not opted out. This practice is against our Terms of Service and will release your ability to deliver. Spam traps are distributed on purchased databases and posted on public web pages. Anyone using these disallowed email lists will likely have a list full of spam traps.
Do spam traps cause delivery problems?
Spam traps are not a "cause" of delivery problems and removing them will not make any problems go away. Instead, spam traps are symptomatic of a deeper problem with their practices. This can include how you collect data, the type of subscription you use, the list's hygiene practices, and much more. For example, a typographic spam trap on your list could mean that you are not using a double subscription on your form. A double option can help you avoid a typographical spam trap, as it will check if the email is valid.
How do I keep spam traps off my list?
Use double opt-in on your forms
A double subscription is a two-step process that a person must go through to be added to your list and receive your emails. The process starts when a contact submits a subscription form. Only real and valid contacts can complete this process. Spam traps can't, which keeps them off your list. This is because spam traps cannot open messages or click links in messages. So even if a contact submits their signup form with a typo that turns out to be a spam trap, they can't be added to your list. Instead, they will have an "unconfirmed" status on your account and you will not be able to send them emails.
Add Captcha to your forms
Captcha is a security solution that will help prevent bots from bombarding your forms. Using captcha with a dual subscription can help protect your shipping reputation.
Clean your list regularly
Regular cleaning of your list to remove offline contacts (contacts that won't open or click your emails) is a best practice. Not only can you increase your deliverability, but you can also remove any potential spam traps from your list. You can use free engagement tagging automations to achieve this. These two automations work together to add and remove interaction tags from your contacts based on when they interact with your emails.
Do not buy, scratch, attach or trade lists
This practice is prohibited by our Terms of Service and means that your list will be full of spam traps. This will cause a blacklist. Scanning your list for suspicious-looking addresses won't help. This is because spam traps seem normal and are completely secret. There is nothing about the name of the email address that gives them away. Deleting contacts who have unsubscribed, bounced, or marked as spam won't help either. Spam traps never bounce, unsubscribe, or mark emails as spam.
Can List Verification Tools Eliminate Spam Traps?
List verification tools cannot be used to remove spam traps. That's because spam traps are secret. Any spam trap that a list checking tool intends to remove is probably not a genuine spam trap. If the trap was easy to identify, then it would be ruled out by the monitoring organization. They would discard it because it is of no use to them. You should not try to remove only spam traps from your list. Instead, you need to identify the root cause of how they got there and correct it.
I think I have spam traps on my list, what should I do?
We recommend immediately deleting all contacts who have not opened a message in the last 3-6 months. Removing unhooked contacts is a sure way to clean spam traps from your list.