What Is "Spam Trap" in Email Marketing? How to Protect?

A spam trap is a fraud control tool used by ISPs to catch spammers. "Spam trap" addresses are e-mail addresses that do not belong to any real person or institution and are created purely for feed purposes. Since they do not have the ability to be opt-in, the way they enter your data list is completely against the rules and permissions. If you send it to one of these addresses, it will most likely cause you to enter the blacklist.

If the necessary checks are not made due to the different types of "Spam trap" addresses, you may be sent to these addresses without realizing it. There are 3 types of "Spam traps".

1- Trap addresses

Since there is no one managing "spam trap" addresses, they cannot be opt-in or added to your list via a business card in any way. In short, it is not possible to be organically included in your data list. The only reason it is on your list is that you have not collected the data opt-in with permission. They are often embedded in e-mail lists for sale or intentionally embedded in websites to be scanned by robots. It may have been received by people without knowledge and then transmitted from hand to hand without questioning the source.

2- Recycled traps addresses

Even if you collect all your data with permission, some addresses may be "Spam traps". The reason for this is that ISPs have turned unused addresses into "Spam trap" addresses for a long time like a year. The aim is to encourage email marketing to always be done to an active audience.

For this reason, you need to clear your mailing lists at regular intervals and distinguish between active/passive members who do not read for a long time.

3- Invalid e-mail addresses

As the data collected in offline channels are transferred to the online platform later, there may be typographical errors, as well as the wrong e-mail information of the people in your current member list, by chance, a "Spam trap" may occur.

Incorrect e-mail information provided to take advantage of a one-time advantage, or allowing a report to be downloaded in exchange for this information, can often result in a "Spam trap". Therefore, choosing the double opt-in method when collecting data will always eliminate these dangers.

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Damage Caused

How many times you get caught in the "Spam trap" and what action the organization controlling the "Spam trap" address will take depends on variables.

The main possible negative consequences are as follows:

• Your sender reputation will be negatively affected, your "bounce" rates will increase and as a result, your accessibility will decrease.
• Your IP may be blacklisted and your availability may decrease again. Therefore, you may not be able to reach the people you have reached before.
• If you come across "Spam traps" managed by major ISPs such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, your domain address may be permanently blacklisted.
• If you come across "Spam traps" managed by known anti-spam organizations, you will not be able to reach organizations that use their filters, and your access to known ISPs will also be blocked.

What is the solution?

Your submissions will be suspended until the aid actions of your e-mail service provider are finalized. Although it is shocking to encounter such negativity, it is not very clear how to reach this point, even expert email marketers may find it difficult to control the situation quickly.

The examination and recovery time is as follows:

• How the existing data is collected should be examined, and if there is a purchased data or data obtained from a third party, it should be deleted immediately.
• It should be examined how long the data list has been kept and how often mass submissions are made to this list. The long passive mass should definitely be deleted.
• You need to segment your entire database based on information such as reading, clicking, retransmitting. When the ban on sending is lifted, you need to make your e-mail marketing activities fully active, to the audience that communicates with you.

It may take from a few days to a few weeks to conclude these processes. For this reason, in order not to experience a similar situation, starting the above controls as soon as possible will be very advantageous in the long term.