Rant: Our email blast to 3000 past attendees got flagged as spam

We sent a follow-up email to everyone who came to our June conference in Chicago, about 3000 people. By the next morning, almost 80% of them landed in spam folders. Our open rate dropped to like 2%. Turns out our email service flagged us because too many people marked us as spam last year when we sent too many reminders. I spent a whole day cleaning our list and adding a re-engagement sequence. Has anyone else had a similar issue with a big mailing list that went sour?

3 comments

3 Comments

hollyc921mo ago

Jumping off what the_robin said, once that spam flag is on your domain its basically a permanent stain that takes months of careful sending to scrub off. The only real fix I've seen is moving to a fresh domain and warming it up slowly from scratch before touching your old list.

nancy_ross2mo ago

Honestly once flagged it's almost impossible to fix that reputation.

the_robin2mo ago

Tbh that list rot is brutal and once you get flagged it's a nightmare to dig out of.