Common SpamAssassin errors and how to correct them

SpamAssassin is an anti-spam tool which helps filter out unwanted messages. We screen each outgoing email message and score it based on its spam characteristics. By default, messages with a score of 5 or higher are considered spam. 
 
If you score 5 or higher, here is a list of the most frequent reasons why and some suggestions to correct your email campaign.

1. No valid text
Problem: The text in the body of your email is not valid. You likely left default template text in the body of your email.
Solution: Replace the text with your own content.

 

2. Hidden formatting

Problem: Text can have hidden formatting from where it was pasted from. 

Solution: Paste in text using plain text pasting or add the text into a plain text editor first, then copy from there to remove any additional formatting. 

 

3. Font formatting

Problem: The text in the body of the email has hard to read color scheme. Conflicting font/background colors can cause spam issues alluding to hidden text.

Solution: Modify the colors of the text and/or background color to ensure visibility. For example, white or any light colored text can be changed to a shade or two darker. 

4. Images with text
Problem: An image in your email contains a lot of text. Email clients cannot read text in images and can systematically block the email as spam.
Solution: Delete the image from your email and replace with text in the body of your email message

5. Bad ratio of text to images
Problem: Your email message has many images and little to no text. A good ratio is 2/3 text and 1/3 images.
Solution: Remove some images and add more text to the body of your email message.

6. Subject line is in all caps
Problem: Your subject line is all uppercase. This creates a false sense of urgency and is common with fraudulent emails.
Solution: Avoid using all caps in your subject line.