How to make a letter fall into spam. What is spam and how to deal with spammers on the Internet

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A month ago a client contacted us. He had welcome emails set up, but they ended up in spam. The details: what percentage of letters it was, on which email clients, what quantity - were not known.

In this article I will tell you how we looked for the source of the problem and what we did to solve it. I advise you to apply the same steps if you find yourself in a similar situation.

Getting into spam may be due to one or several reasons at once, so you need to check everything completely. The first step is to understand what emails are sent, where and from where. You also need to know when emails started ending up in spam and under what circumstances. Often people involved in email campaigns cannot name the circumstances and time when it started, and then it becomes more difficult to find out the reason. Therefore, it is better to seek help from people with good experience in the field of email newsletters.

What to check if emails end up in spam

sender settings (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.)
On which clients exactly do emails end up in spam?
what kind of letters does the sender send?
where and with what parameters the newsletter is sent (names, domain, IP address)
sender reputation
customizing the letters themselves (layout, themes, etc.)

Step 1. Check the settings of the sender itself

Each email sender has three settings that must be configured: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Using these settings, mail agents protect users from spam. More information about their configuration and purpose can be found in the help of any of the mail providers.

For SPF checks, DKIM and DMARC there are many services. I use MX Toolbox or just send email tests to different email accounts.

To check the settings, we asked the client to send us test letters to different mailboxes (mail.ru, yandex, gmail). Then we opened each letter and looked at the settings: “Service headers” (mail.ru), “Letter properties” (Yandex.Mail), “Show original” (Gmail).

Gmail showed that everything is fine with the settings:

In Yandex.Mail, to check, open the letter, top menu Click “more” and select “email properties”. We saw that everything was fine:

In Mail.ru we do the same thing - open the letter → “more” → “service headers”:

If the value = pass, then everything is configured correctly. Other values will depend on the situation and will tell you what exactly the sender is not configured properly. The client is fine with setting up records. This means that you need to look for the problem elsewhere. But of all the tests that the client sent, they showed that only those sent to Gmail ended up in spam. This is a good hint.

Step 2. Check the sender's reputation

There is such a thing as sender reputation. We have already written an article about it. The sender's reputation is the history of his behavior, which is used by mailers to decide whether to trust the sender or not. Everything is like in life. The sender's reputation depends on the history of his mailings and on the reaction of users to his letters. It increases when users interact with emails:

open letters;
follow links;
add sender email V address book;
click on “not spam”;
respond to the sender's letters.

Mail providers provide services for tracking reputation: Postmaster from Mail.ru, Postofis from Yandex, Postmaster Gmail. In some of them, you can track which folder in users' mailboxes your emails go into, how users react to your emails, and the overall reputation for a particular email service.

Since the problem was in gmail, we decided to check the reputation there. But it turned out that the volume of mailings to gmail was not enough for Google Postmaster to display reputation information:

This is a feature of gmail mail - the sender's reputation is displayed if he sends at least 200-500 letters per day to Google boxes. Our client sent much less, so there was no reputation. Another feature is the lack of support for problems with mailings. For example, in Mail.ru and Yandex, if necessary, you can contact the support service, where you can get advice to avoid spam in the future, or get advice. You can ask for support regarding emails being classified as spam in Yandex here: https://yandex.ru/support/mail-new/web/spam.html#mailing-not-delivered), and you can contact Mail.ru using this link: https://help.mail.ru/mail-support/abuse/spam_folder/. U Google people do not participate in such processes, everything is determined automatically using the antispam system, and all recommendations are described in the help.

Step 3. Check the domain and IP reputation

Next, we check the general reputation of the client’s domain and IP address, and whether it is included in the black lists (black list, block list). We use https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx for this. If you want to check yourself, the link will open a page where you need to enter the domain or IP address from which you send mailings:

After checking, a list of block sheets will be visible. Opposite each of them, information will be displayed whether the resource being checked is in one of the lists or not. Green tick and “OK” means that the requested resource is not on this blacklist:

The list of blocklists is quite large. They mostly include unscrupulous senders. But sometimes there are good ones. This usually happens after sudden changes in the volume of mailings, the start of using new resources for sending, or an increase in user complaints about the sender’s letters. Sometimes an IP or domain ends up on some block list by mistake. After hitting at least one of them, the sender's reputation deteriorates, because many email clients check the sender for his presence in block lists.

The most famous blacklists are “BARRACUDA” and “Spamhaus”. If you fall into one of them, then your mail will simply not be delivered to some mail systems. If you find yourself on one of these lists, take immediate action. We have instructions in our knowledge base.

Our client did not have any problems with block lists. So you need to check further.

Step 4: Checking the gray list

Let's move on to the next feature of gmail - the gray list, or, as we often call it, “without reputation”. Not only Google has this feature, but it plays a greater role there than in other email systems. The fact is that new IP addresses and domains from which mail has not yet been sent or has been sent in very small quantities have no reputation, and different mail systems treat this differently.

For example, by sending test letters from such addresses and domains to Mail.ru and Yandex mailboxes, you will most likely end up in your inbox. But that's not quite the case with Google. It determines the reputation individually for each user, and after that builds a general one, which still has less than value than individual. To build a reputation in gmail from the very beginning, you need to send letters to your subscribers, even if they arrive as spam.

This is where your reputation begins - the reaction of users. If users really wanted to receive these letters, they will read them and click “not spam.” No one knows what percentage of people need to do this for your reputation to grow and new emails to start arriving in their inboxes. But it works like this: click “not spam” → move the message to the inbox → the next letter will arrive in the inbox. Clicking "spam" works exactly the same way. So it turns out that your reputation will be different for each user.

It is impossible to know for sure whether this is the reason client’s emails end up in spam, but it is quite likely that this is the case. However, before making a final conclusion, you need to check the rest.

Step 5. Checking the layout

Valid layout is another factor that helps email clients know that your letter is not spam. Unsolicited mailings are done “quickly”, and few people in such mailings pay attention and time to high-quality layout. There is in our knowledge base, and in the blog - detailed description, with code examples.

We asked the client to send letters in .html format. Code part:

There were a lot of incorrect things in the layout, here are a few points:

dir="ltr" - this parameter is used to make the text displayed from left to right, it is practically not used, it is unnecessary.
font-size:14.6667px is a strange size for a font, just 14px is enough.
font-size:11pt;margin:0pt - pixels (px) are used in the layout of letters. The items are not so reliable for correct display, so they are not used. But it is wrong to use dimensions in both sizes at the same time.
id=docs-inter… - it’s clear that this is an identifier, but what it’s here for is unclear.

Most likely, the letter was sent through visual editor, and then copied the html code from there. So we ended up with a lot of unnecessary code. It is unlikely that a person entered such values manually.

In addition to unnecessary code, there was not enough required code. For example, the layout of a letter should start like this:

Then everything else comes. The client's letter contained several html tags, there was no common table (the letters use a table layout), the letter was not adapted for different devices, which was very noticeable when viewed from a mobile phone.

Apparently, the letters end up in spam because of the layout. We do it as simply as possible - we set up a table with clear and working parameters, add content to it:

We send tests to 6 gmail mailboxes. Two are in spam, four are in “promotions”. The result is already very good, since most of the letters arrived in the inbox. This is quite predictable, since sometimes unnecessary and incorrect code is perceived by mail systems as spam.

Then we tried to adjust the layout several more times, but the letters sometimes continued to end up in “spam”. This means that the layout really required correction, but this alone was not enough to get all the letters into the inbox.

Sometimes not only incorrect code, but also some components of the letter (texts, html excerpts, subject of the letter, sender's name, sender's address) can affect the delivery of letters. We tried changing these parameters and tested the options. But any changes in these values did not lead to improvement.

What we found out during the inspection:

To summarize what has been said, we found out that:

records and settings are in order;
there are no problems with the reputation of the sender, domain and IP;
resources are not included in blacklists;
there is no reputation on gmail - this affects deliverability, you need to earn it;
Layout errors prevent emails from reaching your inbox.

The conclusion is quite simple: for Google mail, the sender's reputation is not enough for letters to end up in the inbox. And there are two ways out of the situation: earn a reputation or change the sender.

What's fixed

In addition to correcting the layout, it was necessary to earn a reputation. But the client’s mailing volumes were not enough to do this quickly, so they decided to change the sender.

To do this, we created an account in MailChimp. To send letters, they use common IP addresses (so-called “pools”) from which mailings have already been sent. In other words, different emails are sent from these IP addresses from different accounts. Accordingly, they have a reputation, and your mailings will not be the first - you won’t have to build a reputation from the very beginning.

Tested several times - the result is positive - letters in the inbox. This means that the reason for the letters ending up in “spam” has been found. At the same time, we tried to send the original letter that the client sent. Tested several times - it goes to spam.

Now the client sends letters through MailChimp, and the layout is redone.

If you do not have the opportunity to change the sender, you will have to increase your reputation on your own. To do this, you need to send only good letters, try to do it more often and with better quality. You can add a call to the letter to respond to the newsletter or add your address to the address book - these actions improve your reputation. The time it takes to improve your reputation is individual for each case.

This is just one of many cases that occur with clients. This time everything was quite simple, and the reasons were easy to track. If your case is completely different from this, then below there is general recommendations for mailings and maintaining the sender's reputation.

How to avoid emails getting sent to spam

In general, cases of emails ending up in “spam” are quite unique. You can always figure this out and improve the situation. If for some reason you cannot figure it out yourself, you can always contact us - we will definitely help you :).

Make sure you're sending emails that users want to receive. Use Double Opt-in (double email confirmation) to avoid having your emails reported or sent to non-existent addresses. Monitor the percentage of complaints. If it rises, then you need to find the reason and take the necessary measures.
Monitor your subscriber base and validate it regularly. Do not send emails to users who have not been active in mailing lists for a long time.
If your emails end up in spam, there may be more than one reason. Often this is a combination of many reasons.
Emails from new resources will not always arrive in your inbox, since without a reputation they are considered undesirable by default. Earn your reputation gradually with the help of good, valid letters and newsletters, or use already proven resources for sending. Consider the peculiarities of postal systems.
Make sure you have everything configured correctly as a sender. The technical part of newsletters is no less important than their content. A good reputation is necessary, but it appears over time (depending on the volume and quality of letters sent), and it cannot be earned quickly. If you want good and stable newsletters, then you shouldn’t rush. If you want to speed up the process of gaining reputation, be careful - it is sent abruptly large volume emails can have a very bad impact on your resources initially. Correcting this later will be very difficult or impossible at all. The initial volumes of sending should not be large if mailings have not yet been carried out from your resources.
Monitor the quality of the layout, it is important not only for readers, but also for mail clients. Pay attention to the sender's name, subject line, sender's address, and the general content of the letter. Sometimes senders who want to attract the attention of subscribers neglect the quality of the text and use techniques that are used in spam, for example, many exclamation marks or capital letters.
Conduct preventive checks of your mailings. Check your resources for blacklists, send yourself tests, check whether emails are displayed on different devices Before sending, monitor the percentage of email openings. If it drops sharply, you can assume that your emails are ending up in users’ spam folders, and urgent action needs to be taken.
If you contact the mail service support service, then provide them with all necessary information so that they can help you quickly and efficiently. Know the history of your mailings, as well as what you send, to whom and how much.
Try not to send your newsletters too infrequently or too often. The stability of your mailings and schedule will help you not only with deliverability, but will also let your users know when to expect your emails and in what quantity.

In this article I answer the reader’s question:

The letters I need end up in spam, which disables the links in the letters. If this can be fixed, please tell me how.

Fighting what necessary letters end up in Spam – this is a user problem that he needs to solve on his own. There is no point in complaining somewhere, you just need to set up your mail the way you think is right, and I want to help you in this matter.

Why do emails end up in Spam?

An email may end up in the Spam folder for one of two reasons:
1) the user himself marked this letter as Spam (that is, it is possible that you yourself once highlighted (marked) the letter of this sender and clicked on the “This is spam” button),

2) postal system(other name: mail server) decided that such a letter was spam and sent it there. More precisely, the mail server (Yandex.Mail, Mail.ru mail or other mail to which your e-mail belongs) recognized this letter as unwanted according to criteria known to it.

One of the possible criteria why, for example, (yandex.ru, ya.ru) or Mail.ru mail (Bk.ru, List.ru, Inbox.ru) send letters to spam is big number subscribers from the one who sends such letters (the sender of the letter) and, therefore, the sender is sending a mass mailing. The mail system “does not believe” that these subscribers voluntarily signed up and wished to receive this letter. It (the postal system) “thinks” that the sender of the letter is sending it to forcibly. Therefore, if you are waiting for a letter, but there is none, then it makes sense to look into the Spam folder.

Some emails end up in Spam for good reason. And it is often contraindicated to pass messages received from recipients unknown to you. As they say, “don’t make it big while it’s quiet.”

Two options to rescue the necessary letters from the Spam folder

If the required emails end up in Spam, there are 2 ways to resolve this issue:

1) Open the letter and click on the “Not spam” button. Perhaps once will not be enough and you will have to do this several times.

2) Place the sender of the letter on the white list or set up a filter.

Below we will consider both options in more detail using the example of Yandex.Mail and Mail ru mail.

The first option with the “Not spam” button is the easiest way that any user can handle:

open the email in the Spam folder and
Click on the “Not spam” button.

Let me remind you that situations are considered when we are sure that the letter was received from a reliable sender. And then you can safely move it from the Spam folder to the Inbox folder. If the letter is moved to the Inbox folder, then all links in this letter will automatically become active and working again. Accordingly, you first need to move the letter from one folder to another, and only then open and view it.

Let's look at the process of moving a letter from “Spam” to “Inbox” using the example of Mail ru mail.

“Not spam” button in Yandex Mail

We go to Yandex mail, for example, by entering address bar browser yandex.ru. Enter your username and password for Yandex mail. Click on the “Spam” folder (number 1 in Fig. 1).

In the Spam folder that opens, we find a letter that we are absolutely sure is not spam. We put a tick next to such a letter (or several ticks if there are several reliable letters in the Spam folder) (number 2 in Fig. 1)

Click on the “Not Spam” button, which will be active only after the letter has been selected, that is, a check mark has been placed in front of the letter to be moved to the “Inbox” folder (number 3 in Fig. 1).

By clicking “Not Spam”, we inform Yandex or Mail.ru that we ask it to no longer consider this letter as spam and not to place letters from the same sender in Spam. This procedure (click “Not Spam”) sometimes needs to be done more than once (if letters from this sender continue to arrive in Spam) so that Yandex or Mail.ru understand that you insist on your decision and remember this in relation to this sender letters. Apparently, the saying “repetition is the mother of learning” is also true for the spam defense of Yandex and Mail ru.

After clicking on the “Not Spam” button, the letter will automatically be moved to the “Inbox” folder, and all links in it will become clickable.

Yandex Mail: white list for necessary letters

A more reliable option for the necessary emails than the “Not Spam” button is a whitelist. To ensure that the letter does not end up in the Spam folder, you should place the e-mail of the sender of the letter in the white list. For this:

we find the letter, for example, in the Spam folder,
open it,
highlight the e-mail of the sender of the letter, that is, “paint it in blue”, as in Fig. 2,
press two on the keyboard CTRL keys+C:

Rice. 2. Select the email sender of the letter and press two keys CTRL + C

After pressing the CTRL + C keys, the sender’s e-mail will go into the computer’s memory.

Now you need to move this e-mail from the computer memory (from the clipboard) to the Yandex.Mail white list. This process is shown below in Figures 3 and 4:

1 in Fig. 3 – open “Settings” of Yandex.Mail.
2 in Fig. 3 – click on the “Rules for processing letters” option, a window will open:

Fig.4. Add the sender's e-mail to the white list in Yandex.Mail

In the “White List” window:

place the cursor in the field to the left of the “Add” button,
press two keys CTRL + V, after which the e-mail of the sender of the letter should appear in the field,
Click the “Add” button.

Now the sender's e-mail is in the Yandex.Mail white list.

If the need arises remove email from whitelist , open the “Settings” of Yandex.Mail (Fig. 3), go to the “White List” (Fig. 4), check the box next to the “bad” e-mail and click the “remove from list” button, as shown below:

Rice. 5. Remove email from the white list in Yandex.Mail

Let's go to Mail ru mail.

“Not spam” button in Mail ru mail

In the case when you are sure that the Mail ru letter is worth moving from Spam to Inbox, you need to follow the same steps as in the case described above:

Rice. 6. “Not spam” button in Mail.ru

We go to the Mail.ru website, enter the login and password for our mail, click on the “Spam” folder, which is highlighted with number 1 in Fig. 6.
We find the required letter in the “Spam” folder, put a check mark next to such a letter (number 2 in Fig. 6).
Click on the “Not spam” button (number 3 in Fig. 6).

By clicking on the “Not Spam” button, you will automatically move the letter from Mail ru spam to the “Inbox” folder, and all links in this letter will become working.

Note. Please DO NOT perform this procedure for real spam emails or emails received from sources unknown to you! They can contain anything, including very unpleasant and problematic viruses that destroy operating system that perform other destructive actions on your computer.

Create a filter for the necessary letters in Mail ru

The filter is needed in order to incoming letters would be sent NOT to Spam, but, for example, to “Inbox” or another suitable folder. To set up a filter in Mail.ru, let's start with the steps shown in Fig. 7:

Rice. 7. Create a filter to filter Spam in Mail.ru

1 in Fig. 7 – open the letter in the Spam folder, which does not belong there,
2 – click on the gray “More” button (do not confuse it with the blue “More” button),
3 in Fig. 7 – click “Create filter”, the window “ New filter”:

Rice. 8. New Mail.ru filter so that the necessary letters do NOT end up in Spam

In the “New Filter” window, the “From” Field is automatically filled in, because the step above (Fig. 7) a letter from the sender with exactly this e-mail was opened.

Rice. 9. Filter for messages included in Mail.ru Spam

1 in Fig. 9 – check the box next to “Apply spam filter”,
2 – you need one checkbox next to “Apply to messages in folders”,
3 – another checkbox should be opposite “All folders”,
4 in Fig. 9 – don’t forget to click the “Save” button. As a result, we get approximately the same picture as in Fig. 10:

Rice. 10. Filtering rules: which letters should NOT be sent to Mail.ru Spam

Do you think that as soon as you set up the filter using the above method, Mail ru emails from Spam will automatically go to your Inbox? No,

the filter is configured for new Mail.ru letters that will arrive in the near future, and old letters from Spam must be moved manually to Inbox or another folder.

Moving Mail ru emails from Spam

To move old necessary emails from Spam to your Inbox or another folder, you can use one of two methods:

Let’s look at how to use the “Move” command for emails in the Spam folder:

Rice. 11. Command “Move” a selected letter from mail.ru Spam, for example, to “Inbox”

1 in Fig. 11 – in the Spam folder, select the letter that needs to be moved to the Inbox,
2 – click on the “Move” command,
3 in Fig. 11 – click on the “Inbox” option. After this, the mail.ru letter will be moved from Spam to Inbox.

Mail ru support service

It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to simply contact support. First you need to go to your mail, then move to the bottom of the page and click on the “Support Service” link:

A lot of options will open with a list of problems that are most common among mail users. You should choose one of these problems and then answer the proposed questions, if any. As a result, you can go to the form to contact mail.ru technical support. You need to fill it out, answering all the questions in as much detail as possible, and then click on the “Submit” button.

You can expect a response from technical support within a few business days. However, there is no guarantee that your letter was not lost; you may have to fill out the form again and send it to technical support.

Video of Mail.ru mail developers“Actions with a received letter”

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments.

P.S. By computer literacy you can also read:

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Getting acquainted with spam Almost every one of us can “boast”: both old and young; both in this country and beyond its borders. The dubious popularity of spam does not mean that the average Internet user knows everything or almost everything about it. In practice the situation is completely different.

To the rum of the banal " annoying advertising By e-mail“If you look at it, he doesn’t know anything about spam. Where did the word "spam" come from? When was the first case of spam recorded in history? Who is the unspoken “king of spam” on the planet? Who benefits from spam?

These questions regular user The network often does not have a clear answer. I daresay that you don’t have it either. Therefore, I think you will find the following material about the history and development of spam useful.

Spam: what encyclopedias and statistical collections say

In the Russian language, in a general interpretation, the word “spam” is used to refer to advertising mailings via e-mail. This does not mean that other types do not exist. Nowadays, spammers are using all existing means to carry out their dirty deeds. electronic communications. As a result, it is customary to distinguish between its other types/methods of distribution: spam in instant messaging systems, search spam, Usenet spam, spam in social media, file sharing spam, sms spam, TV spam, etc.

Despite the many types, email spam dominates among them. And this is entirely justified, because according to Western analysts, the annual number of unauthorized advertising messages sent by e-mail is estimated at seven trillion! This enormous figure, in turn, accounts for 70 to 90% of the annual mail traffic on the planet!

American ham and English humor

Let's start writing about the main milestones in the history of the development of spam with the appearance of the term “spam” itself. Moreover, this story is quite original and fascinating.

It all started back in 1936 in the United States, when a food company Hormel Foods Corporation registered a new trademark - SPAM. This word became a shortened form (acronym) of the phrase “Spiced ham”, which translated from English meant “spiced ham” or “spicy ham”.

True, there was no smell of ham there. In practice, we were talking about a product of dubious origin, to which the manufacturers gave a truly unique name - spicy minced pork.

Before World War II, ordinary Americans consumed this goodness in moderate doses. And when the war began, Hormel Foods entered into a lucrative contract with the US Army to supply the notorious canned food to it and its allies.

Soon the Second World War ended, which cannot be said about canned “spam”. During the war years, the manufacturing company accumulated huge reserves of minced sausage, which were never in demand by the military. Something had to be done about this, since the expiration date of the food “spam” was coming to an end. And according to some estimates, it has long expired.

The solution to the situation was an advertising campaign of unprecedented scale in the United States. SPAM canned food was constantly advertised on the radio and in newspapers. You could learn about them from store windows and on board ships, trams and buses. Even the facades of residential buildings persistently advertised the appetizing pieces of “ham.” In short, “spam” was everywhere!

P lody advertising campaign turned out to be quite unexpected. Wealthier Americans greeted it with hostility, while the impoverished inhabitants of devastated Europe took the bait. Thus, the American canned “delicacy” settled into the diet of Europeans (primarily the British) for many years after the war.

After many years, its dominance on the tables of the British became fairly boring, which in 1969 resulted in the creation of a household name TV sketch by the famous comic group Monty Python about the ubiquitous canned “spam”:

The gist of the video was that in one of the English cafes, all the dishes on the menu contained a certain dose of SPAM. When the main character of the sketch asks for a dish without “spam,” he is offered food that doesn’t contain much of it. The main comedy of the situation was the intrusiveness of canned “spam”, since over the course of just over 3 minutes of the sketch the word SPAM was mentioned 108 times!

Decades passed. It would seem that everyone has long forgotten about American minced meat and subtle English humor. But it turned out that no...

In 1993, at the dawn of the Internet in its current form, it was especially popular computer network Usenet. The latter consisted of many news groups. Participants in each group could communicate with each other and publish files in line with their chosen topics.

So, this year one of the administrators of the news.admin.policy group, a certain Richard Depew, created the ARMM program. This program was supposed to make it possible to delete posts by group users after they were published. However, the software turned out to be “crude”. An error in its operation led to unauthorized sending of 200 messages to the group on behalf of the administrator. The group's readers accepted this incident with understanding and even with a smile. And one of them used a new, or rather old, term in relation to the incident - “spam”. So this word took on a new meaning!

Spam before the Internet era

This all happened later, but until 1993, history knew more than one example of unauthorized advertising, in relation to which the term “spam” itself was not used.

So, in the middle of the 19th century, the undisputed leader in the international market money transfers Western Union gave the go-ahead for simultaneous dispatch of messages via telegraph to any available destinations. This opportunity was soon taken advantage of by the first spammer in human history (his name remains unknown to this day), who in May 1864 sent an unauthorized mass telegram to prominent British politicians. The content of the telegram was purely commercial - it advertised the services of a dental institution.

There is no doubt that this was followed by other cases of spam around the world, but the first documented case of spam in its current sense occurred a century later.

The year was 1978, when a representative of Digital Equipment Corporation Harry Suerk, using communication channels (one of the ancestors of the Network), sent an advertising message to several hundred Americans. The message talked about the advantages of new computer models produced by DEC. After reading office equipment, most users information network expressed their contempt for the author. Like, this is not what ARPANET was created for. True, as a result of the aforementioned spam, a small number of new computers were still sold.

Later, in the late 80s of the last century, spam took a fancy to the so-called MUD (Multi-User Dimension) - text-based multi-user worlds with role-playing elements and mandatory chat. Using chat, users of these gaming platforms filled the accounts of their rivals with spam.

In 1988, the first ever virtual world“letter of happiness” (“letter of good luck”). According to official version, its author Dave Rhodes, was a student at one of the American universities who decided to slightly improve his financial situation. Naturally, with all possible help from people unknown to him. Calling your letter a big name Make Money Fast(Russian - make money quickly (like this)), he sent it through Usenet channels to a huge army of users of this network.

How did the attempt to involve in Make Money Fast end, which was essentially financial pyramid, thousands of people, it is not known for certain (but it is known for certain). However, it is certain that by 1994, spam under the resounding cover of Make Money Fast had become one of the most popular in the world. Dave Rhodes's invention spawned many variations on the theme and eventually secured one of the most significant places in the history of spam.

To others important events that preceded the era of spam, including in our country, include the following facts:

~ 1991- at the height of the summer putsch, the head of Relcom Alexey Soldatov I sent Boris Yeltsin’s appeal to all the company’s clients using e-mail. This was the first case of mass unauthorized mailing emails in Russia.

~ January 1994- large-scale spam attack on Usenet. A certain sender posted a message to almost all groups on the network with the subject “Global Alert for All: Jesus is Coming Soon"(Russian - Global warning to everyone: Jesus will arrive soon). The controversial message caused a lot of heated discussions on Usenet, and the person who allegedly sent it, according to some rumors, got into big trouble.

~ April 1994- spam has been mastered by serious businessmen. Married couple of lawyers Lawrence Kanter And Martha Siegel, resorting to the possibilities of the same Usenet, launched an advertisement for its legal services in the field of obtaining a free Green Card for immigration to the USA. What made the couple different from previous spammers? The fact is that they made no attempt to hide their identities. On the contrary, they were proud to be among the first to recognize the incredible commercial potential of spam! It is generally accepted that it was from this moment that the victorious march of Internet spam across the planet began.

The fight against evil and the king of spam

The subsequent history of spam can be succinctly described in two phrases: increasing scale and the fight against the annoying advertising evil. If everything is obvious with the first one, the stormy years that followed led to no less rapid development spam (its scale and methods of distribution, topics and forms).

But with the second, everything is not so clear. It would seem that the widespread rejection of spam by the majority of Internet users should have given rise to effective system fight him. However, in practice things are not quite like this. While some countries outlaw spam, others, on the contrary, secretly encourage it under the guise of freedom of speech on the Internet. So it turns out that the effectiveness of combating spam varies in different parts of the world. Quite often, victims of malicious spammers can only rely on their own strength to eradicate this evil (response spam, hacker attacks against spammers, etc.).

An example of a successful fight against spam can be considered the actions of the US judicial system. In 2006, 2008 and 2009, US resident Sanford Wallace was fined $4, 234 and 711 million, respectively, for spam attacks on MySpace and MySpace. The damage from spam, estimated by American justice at such fabulous sums, gives every reason to call Sanford Wallace the “king of spam.”

Spam: benefits and harms

It is widely believed that the main benefit from spam is the spammer himself. However, it is wrong. Recent studies refute such beliefs. One overseas company sent out 350 million advertising messages by email (!) within 26 days. The result of this massive spam attack was only 28 sales. To put it mildly, it won't be enough. Especially considering that the advertisement was not about ultra-expensive airliners, but about an affordable drug.

It turns out that if not a spammer, then who? Most experts are inclined to think that these are IT companies that give spammers the opportunity to spam. Some are developing special software for sending spam (in a “soft” form, these are programs and ), others resell it, others collect and sell a database of email addresses of Internet users, etc. According to experts, hundreds of millions of dollars are mastered in this market every year.

In addition, spam is a headache for the final recipient (providers also sometimes have a hard time). The arithmetic is simple. Let's say, if you receive 2 - 3 unauthorized emails a day, then there is objectively no tangible harm from them. Deleted and forgotten! It’s another matter if up to fifty letters or more arrive in your mailbox every day. It will take you about a minute to clean up your new correspondence: figure out what to delete and which messages to keep. And that’s 6 hours a year! Almost full time! Spending so much time on no one the right job, you see, is an unaffordable luxury in our time. Not to mention the psychological side of the issue.

1). India(12.3% of the world’s total);

2). USA (11,38%);

3). South Korea (4,6%);

4). China (4,19%);

5). Vietnam (4%);

6). Russia (3,88%);

7). Brazil (3,6%);

8). Saudi Arabia (3,6%);

9). Taiwan (2,94%);

10). Poland (2,72%).

The language of spam attacks is also diverse. English dominates (79%). It is followed by Russian (5%), Catalan (3%), Japanese (%), Danish (2%), German (1%), French (1%), Romanian (1%), Spanish (1%) and Chinese (1%).

No less interesting is the activity of spammers by day of the week. Their favorites are Tuesday and Wednesday, when the amount of spam sent is 10% higher than average, and outsiders are Saturday and Sunday (25% drop).

Most courses on making money online are related to selling affiliate programs. For the seller, this is just a link that you need to “stick” anywhere and expect that they will click on it and buy the course offered by the partner. Eat different ways distribution of such links: in in social networks, on forums and third-party sites, on your blog, through paid advertising, and also through email newsletters. For example, Sergey Kamardin offers such work with affiliates. You can. We will focus on the last one - email marketing and tell you how to send mailings so that the letters do not end up in spam.

How simple everything seems at first glance: I made up a letter, inserted an affiliate link, set up automatic mailing and wait for the money to flow into your wallet. Well, it's not that simple! You're expecting sales, but suddenly you discover that none of your emails have reached their target. The letters ended up in spam, and your account was banned for intrusive mailing.

We don't know exactly how anti-spam filters work, but there are some obvious tricks that will help prevent emails from ending up in spam.

What should I do to prevent emails from going to spam?

We've put together a list of things you need to do to ensure your emails reach your target audience.

1. Connect monitoring services for your mailings in all popular mail services: postoffice.yandex.ru, postmaster.mail.ru, postmaster.google.com, postmaster.aol.com, help.yahoo.com/kb/postmaster. They help track the movement of your emails throughout the day and their deliverability. If a problem arises, you will be able to find out about it in time, see which letters ended up in spam, what was in them, when and to whom they were sent.

2. Your letters must contain: DKIM record(confirms that the letter came from exactly the sender written in the address), DMARC record(checks authentication and sends reports), SPF entry(protects your domain from counterfeiting). Thanks to them, both the recipient and the robot will be sure that your account has not been hacked or forged, and that it was you who sent this letter. This builds trust and increases not only the percentage of inboxes, but also the open rate of emails.

3. Every letter should contain information why the person received this letter: because he subscribed to your blog, for example. Usually this is a not very noticeable note at the bottom, in the footer, in the format: “You received this letter, because they subscribed to our newsletter - and a link to the site.”

4.Unsubscribe link must be mandatory, and it must be clearly visible and not hidden by anything. If it is not there or the person cannot find it immediately, then he will click on the “Spam” button. This will greatly damage your reputation, and if there are a lot of such complaints, then all your letters will end up in spam. It’s better to write below that “you can always unsubscribe using such and such a link, but then you will miss a lot of interesting things.” If a person does not want to receive newsletters from you, then he is not yours the target audience and there is nothing to hold him back.

How the spam filter works

5. It would be a good idea to add it to every letter. information about the subscriber himself: date of subscription, IP address from which this subscription was made. To prove to the person that he really signed up, even if he completely forgot about you. This can be easily done on the mailing services you use.

6. Check that your IP and IP service are not in the spam database. You can do this here: 2ip.ru/spam/

8. In letters there should be no “spam words”. To prevent your emails from being classified as spam, these words cannot be used either in the body or in the subject line of the email. These are the most popular words in sales, such as: sale, earnings, free, buy, 100%, etc. To find out if your letter contains such “safe words”, you can check the letter for free service, for example, emailcheck.ru or spamtester.bazaaremail.com

What kind of newsletter is this?

So, since the end of May, the phones of hundreds of thousands of users have been subject to a hidden attack by scammers. Short, intriguing messages arrive on smartphones - “Hey, look at the photo and link!”, to which the site address for the transition is attached. Sometimes notes are added that “this is not spam”, or “we need to figure it out”, can be added surname, or call "Help". In fact, if you don’t think about it right away, you can click on it and download the file. You hope that you will open a photo from a friend, but you get nothing. It is at this moment that the phone downloads virus app.

If you look at the file extension in the download log, you will see that there is no jpg there, it is running APK program. The viral bootloader, specifically in this case, causes changes in many settings on the phone:

blocking the user from sending messages;
change settings mobile browser(advertising and changing pages);
subscription to paid Internet content;
sending expensive messages that will eat up your mobile account;
tracking account data in applications, mobile banking.

In fact, not all of this can be combined. Thus, there are separate cases where people are sending SMS messages, and some people have paid subscriptions, for which a considerable bill is issued at the end of the month.

How to remove such a virus from your phone

One thing is obvious - you can open such tempting messages for reading, but you absolutely cannot follow the links in search of photos! If you came here after following the link provided, then you need to check your phone completely and remove the malware.

Conclusion

This quick cleanup approach will help eliminate the consequences and loss of your money. Let me remind you once again - the main thing is to find and remove loader. I hope you understand what to do if you receive the message “Hi, look at the photo and link” on your phone. You should also understand that it is not worth responding to the recipient with angry rants - this is also expensive. It is impossible to track them on the site - the address is temporary and constantly changing. It is advisable to delete your mobile number from public access. Fraudsters use Avito and Social Networks as a base, where the phone is often open for viewing.