Klaviyo Emails Going to Spam? Here’s How to Fix it

If you’ve been using Klaviyo for some time now, you might have encountered the issue where your emails are landing in peoples spam folder. Unfortunately, this is a common problem, which typically leads to low open rates, little to no revenue, or worse – getting your domain flagged. 

The good news is there are ways to fix this problem so you can improve your email deliverability, open rates & email revenue. 

Let’s get right into it!  

Why are My Klaviyo Emails Going to Spam?

If you’ve recently had a Klaviyo campaign or automation end up in a customer’s spam folder, you know firsthand how frustrating this can be. There are multiple reasons this can happen, many of which can be avoided. 

Let’s go through each of the reasons above in detail so you can see the best strategies to fix the problem. 

Before we do that though, let’s talk about what you SHOULD be sending to people via email – if you get this right, you’ll be able to fix a lot of the spam issues mentioned above. 

What Type of Content You Should Send To Avoid Landing in the Spam Folder

Wanna know one of the biggest problems brands make with their email marketing? 

They send crappy emails to their customers. 💩

What you should be doing is sending quality emails that are a mixture of relevant offers, content, storytelling, surveys & brand building. 

If you’re sending random junk coupons and off-the-cuff sales whenever things are slow, you could be doing serious damage to your sending domain and your brand reputation.

Email marketing, when done right will be your most reliable, most profitable source of revenue – so it’s important to do it properly. 

This blog post will guide you through the best practices to fix spam folder issues, and how to create content people actually want to read! 

But remember, quality content will land you in people’s inboxes. 

Email marketing, when done right will be your most reliable, most profitable source of revenue – so it’s important to do it properly. 

– Luke

Email Deliverability – What You Need to Know

If you’re new to email marketing or Klaviyo automation you might not be aware of how email deliverability works. Put simply, it’s the percentage of your emails that actually land in people’s inboxes.

The higher your percentage, the more likely your email arrive in someone’s inbox, rather than the promotions, socials, or spam folder.

A good email deliverability rate generally sits at about 95% for most brands, this means there is a small percentage of people who won’t see your email in their inbox. It’s important to note that sometimes there are technical issues that can prevent emails from being delivered to your audience – and this too can account for a lower deliverability rate.

Here’s a great article from Active Campaign that goes over email deliverability in detail. Just remember, if you follow the steps in this article, you can improve your deliverability rate and land in the inbox far more often.

Your email is too image-heavy

Creating a beautiful email that’s image-heavy can be really tempting. I mean, who doesn’t like receiving an email with awesome graphic art in it? 

Unfortunately, this does not follow email marketing best practices and often lands your emails in someone’s promotional/spam folder. 

According to Klaviyo’s best practices, emails should be roughly 100kb to increase deliverability. They should have a 60/40 ratio of image and text.

That doesn’t really allow much wiggle room when it comes to content, text, and graphics. My suggestion is to keep things simple and use 1-2 email templates in Klaviyo. When I work with a new brand, this is typically the first thing we do together so any future emails can be quickly created and use for flows and campaigns.

The solution: Use a tool like tinypng or ShortPixel to decrease the quality of your images and use a simple email template that has an even mixture of text, buttons and images.

Your domain isn’t “warmed up” yet

If you’ve just built a new eCommerce store, or you’ve moved to a new domain name, what you might not realize is that your domain sending score is probably low. 

If you start sending hundreds of emails a day from a brand new domain, this looks suspicious to your ESP (Email Service Provider) and they might restrict your sending capabilities (or stop you from sending emails all together). 

The solution? Warming up your domain. 

Here’s a detailed video that outlines how the process works:

Basically, your ESP wants you to start sending emails slowly/to a small number of people. This looks like normal behavior and doesn’t raise any flags. 

Then as your business grows, the total number of daily emails you send can increase too. There are no hard and fast rules around warming up your domain, but my recommendation is to slowly ramp up how many emails you send per day to avoid getting flagged.

Solution: Gradually warm up your domain by sending emails to smaller numbers to begin with. Over time you can increase the total number of emails sent and reach a wider audience.

You’re Emailing Customers Too Frequently

If you’re using email automation & email campaigns in conjunction, sending too many emails can quickly become a problem. 

The good news is this can easily be rectified!

Here’s how: 

Klaviyo has a built-in function that ensures people aren’t receiving too many emails in a set period of time. This feature is called Smart Send, and it restricts the total number of emails a subscriber will receive in a set period of time. 

This automagically stops subscribers from getting multiple emails from your Welcome Sequence, Abandoned Cart and weekly Campaigns. It evenly spaces your emails out so that during a 16-hour (customizable) window subscribers only get a limited number of emails. 

Solution: Use Smart Send inside Klaviyo to make sure your audience doesn’t receive too many emails from you in a short period of time. Smart Send ensures subscribers don’t get bombarded with too many emails.

People aren’t opening or engaging in your send

Out of all the items on the list, this might be the most important! Taking the time to create high-quality marketing copy & content works wonders for your email deliverability and open rates. 

I see a large number of brands put email marketing in place, but they don’t give it the time and attention it really deserves. 

Check out my Welcome Sequence “Warm Hug” article here, and see the type of content I recommend you share with your audience. 

Klaviyo | Guides

The Welcome Email Sequence “Warm Hug”: How I Helped This eCom Store Add 50k in Recurring Monthly Sales

ByLuke September 7, 2023September 15, 2023

I created a welcome sequence in klaviyo that helped this brand add an additional 50k to their monthly recurring revenue. Find out how.

Take the time to survey your audience, find out more about your audience, who they are, what problems they’re having, why they love your products, and the experience they’ve had with your products. 

Solution: Your email strategy is about building trust, storytelling, and being more than just another commodity product. If people aren’t opening your emails and content – it’s because you’re not taking the time to understand them and write great content they want to read. 

People are marking your email content as Spam 

Unfortunately, no matter how awesome your email content is, there will always be a small percentage of readers who consider your emails as Spam. Typically, most brands will see an average Spam score of about 0.2-0.5%. This means only a tiny fraction of your subscriber list considers the content you’re sending as Spam. 

If your Spam score is higher than that, you’ve got some work to do. 

I recommend you book a free audit of your existing Klaviyo account so we can review your current email flows and campaigns to determine what’s wrong. 

Typically, people who mark content as Spam either can’t remember who you are, or consider your emails are rubbish, so they mark it as Spam in their inbox. 

Personally, I know I do this when I get content from brands who are constantly trying to sell me junk that i’m not interested in. Take the time to make your content engaging, fun and helpful and your spam score should generally stay low. 

Solution: Check what your current spam score is inside Klaviyo and if it’s higher than 0.5% you might be sending content that is too image-heavy, not relevant, not engaging, or delivered to the wrong segment. 

You have a high unsubscribe rate

Being marked as spam, and having a high unsubscribe rate normally go hand in hand. 

What I love about Klaviyo is you dig into the weeds to see which campaigns and automation are driving people to unsubscribe from your list. 

If you notice a particular email in your Welcome Sequence sees a high unsubscribe rate, spilt test it with another headline or a new email that improves your open rates. 

I’ve personally noticed your headline has a lot to do with unsubscribe rates, as customers quickly become aware of when something is spammy/ultra salesy. 

Solution: Review your stats in Klaviyo to see if individual emails are driving higher than normal unsubscribes. If someone looks off, try a new headline or rewrite the email. 

You’re not sending to the right segments in Klaviyo

Who are your best customers? Do you know? 

In Klaviyo, it’s those who have recently purchased, engaged with your website, or joined your newsletter in the last 30-45 days. 

This means you should be focusing your energy on this audience to drive more sales and revenue. 

If you’re not familiar with creating segments in Klaviyo, check out this article about creating a clean list. Rather than send emails to a massive list of people (who might not of engaged for 2 or more years), send only to thoses who are actively engaged, and care about your brand and products. Doing so will lead to more sales, higher open rates and improved deliverability rates.

Solution: If you’re seeing high unsubscribes, low sales, and a decrease in sales, use segments in Klaviyo to only send to those who are highly engaged. 

Taking it to the Next Level: How to Avoid the Spam box and crush it with email marketing

There are lots of reasons that your emails can land in someone’s spam folder, but the solution to the problem is to dedicate the time to create high-quality content that your audience wants to read and actually cares about.

Once you’ve got high-quality flows & campaigns in place, you’re well on you way to increasing your sender score and improving your deliverability score.

This comes down to planning out flows & campaigns that your audience cares about. If you need him with this, feel free to reach to me and I can do a free Klaviyo audit of your account.

Wrapping Up and My Experience With Emails Going to Spam

Landing in the spam folder is no fun! 

But the good new is, there’s a lot you can do to fix the problem. Follow the list above, create quality content and make sure it’s going to your best audience segment in Klaviyo. 

In some circumstances, your domain might have a low sending score or needs to be warmed up prior to doing mass email automations. 

If that’s the case, reach out and we can schedule a free audit to find out what the problem is.