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Including the word 'Free' in emails

by cooler1
14 replies
Is it usual that just including the word 'free' in emails causes the email to go to the spam folder?



I included the word 'free' in a welcome email, not in the subject line but in the email body and when I tested it, the email went to the spam folder even though the email to confirm the subscription did not.



I then removed the word 'free' from the email, then when I tested it again the email went to the inbox and not the spam folder. I'm not sure if that is the reason or not, or if its because I clicked 'Not spam' when the first email went to the spam folder.
#emails #free #including #word
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    I'm not sure if that is the reason or not, or if its because I clicked 'Not spam' when the first email went to the spam folder.
    Did you test it WITH 'free' in it and click 'not spam' - and send it without 'free' and without clicking 'not spam'?

    What I'm saying is 'test all the options'.
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      Did you test it WITH 'free' in it and click 'not spam' - and send it without 'free' and without clicking 'not spam'?

      What I'm saying is 'test all the options'.

      Yes. I only clicked 'not spam' for the email WITH 'free' in it. Then after I edited the email to remove the word 'free', the email went to the inbox and not the spam folder.
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      • Profile picture of the author trafficwave
        You may need to set up a new test.

        Send once with "Free" and once without.

        This will give you a clear answer as to what impact the word "free" had on the routing.
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  • Profile picture of the author WF- Enzo
    Administrator
    Suggest test sending to selected customers and see how they respond to it.
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  • Profile picture of the author spartan14
    I am not sure but i think this has an impact as email providers dont like so much marketars who try to sell all the time
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  • Profile picture of the author surfer30
    Yes. having FREE word in subject email leads your newsletter to spam. FREE is the most powerful word in the world. you can build a big list giving away stuff for FREE. but when using it on subject lines will put you in spam. this happened to me several times.
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  • Profile picture of the author trafficwave
    Even worse is trying to use the . in the word as in: F.ree ... This is an old trick and I see it get flagged EVERY time.
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  • Profile picture of the author IM2Pat
    Banned
    what about the formatting of the the word 'FREE" was it in caps, regular, italics, spaced oddly? Sometimes that can all impact whether or not a subject heading gets tossed into spam/trash.

    Thanks,
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  • Profile picture of the author billwide
    There is some questions that you have to check before. Just write the word "Free" on subjects dont matter so much. You need first to warm your domain withh all the correct DNS records. Doing this, you will have more that 90% of your emails delivered directly on inbox, don´t matter what you write on subjects title.
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  • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
    Hi All,

    There is a thing called Spam Assassin. This is the baseline that most ISP (Internet Service Providers) use in order to rate your email on whether your message is spam or not, based on the words you have used.

    Anything ranked under 5 would have a chance to inbox, but really, you want to be 1.4 and below if you want any real chance of inboxing your message.

    Spam Assassin is a program that can be installed for free on any VPS or Dedicated server, and I highly suggest that you do install it so you can test your emails and see how they are rated and if you are actually having a chance to hit the inbox or not.

    From what I remember, a single word of "Free" is ranked 2.8 within Spam Assassin, so your really making your email less likely to hit the inbox, especially if your trying to inbox with any kind of volume there.

    I am happy to assist anyone who might need help setting up Spam Assassin to test their own email campaigns.
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  • Profile picture of the author arthurnyc
    Once you click 'not spam' I think that effects all future delivery from that domain.

    I cheat when I have to and you the free emoji https://emojipedia.org/free-button/
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  • Profile picture of the author Klara Pelhe
    Yes, it could definitely be a reason because word free seems spammy and usually only fake emails include this word, although it's not the case all the time, but algorithms scan it and mark it as spam automatically. Since you did a testing you already have come to conclusion that it caused problems, so try to present you offer with some synonims and without explicitly mentioning some free things.
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  • Profile picture of the author forous
    Auto responders don't like the word Free in titles and will 95% of the time flag it.
    Try as much as possible to stay away from it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Saurav Gami
    Nowadays, everybody knows that nothing is free, many companies for very long time have been using this word and it is already polluted, so i would recommend not to use free, instead start your mail with interesting word,
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