Overview

Spam Complaint Rate is a metric that measures how often email subscribers complain about receiving emails.

What is Spam Complaint Rate?

Spam Complaint Rate is an important email marketing metric that measures how many subscribers complain about receiving emails from a company. It is typically calculated by taking the number of spam complaints and dividing it by the total number of emails delivered. A high complaint rate can have a negative effect on the sender’s reputation, the deliverability rate, and ISPs may even block the sender. It is important to keep an accurate list of opted-in and unsubscribed contacts, use double opt-in, personalize emails with the subscriber’s first name, identify and remove inactive subscribers, send emails at regular intervals, split test subject lines, include an unsubscribe link in all emails, and avoid using sent from addresses with ‘no-reply’.

Formula

It is typically calculated by taking the number of spam complaints and dividing it by the total number of emails delivered.

Example

Let’s say a company sends out 200 emails and receives 10 complaints. Their Spam Complaint Rate would be 10/200 = 5%.

Why is Spam Complaint Rate important?

Spam Complaint Rate is an important email marketing metric, as it measures how often a sender’s emails are irritating or unwanted to their subscribers. A high complaint rate indicates that subscribers are unhappy with the content you’re sending, which can result in them unsubscribing or even reporting your emails as spam. As a result, this can bring down your reputation as a sender, your deliverability rate, or even get you blocked by ISPs.

Which factors impact Spam Complaint Rate?

Keep accurate lists of opted-in and unsubscribed contacts
Use double opt-in to guarantee people have asked to receive emails
Personalize emails with the subscriber’s first name
Identify and remove inactive subscribers
Send emails at regular intervals
When sending emails, ensure that the list is segmented meaningfully
Split test subject lines to see which gets better responses
Include an unsubscribe link in all emails
Avoid using sent from addresses with ‘no-reply’

How can Spam Complaint Rate be improved?

There are a number of factors that can influence your Spam Complaint Rate. First of all, the size of your list is very important. If you have too many contacts who have not opted in, or are inactive, then your rate will likely be higher. The quality of your content is also very important – if it’s not well targeted or relevant to your audience, this could lead to subscribers reporting your emails as spam. Additionally, if you are not segmenting your lists correctly or if you are not sending emails at regular intervals, this can also lead to an increase in complaints.