If you send an email from CRM, the end user's email provider may mark it as spam. There are rules about what spam is and what it isn't and Cobalt has to report back to our data management center to make sure that those rules are being followed. If you get an email returned as spam, it is important to find out as much as possible to make sure that your system is sending out emails appropriately and that your email service is secure. The article below will provide you some steps to help you determine the record responsible for a spam trigger.
Skip to the bottom and look for Subject (you can also use a Find feature)
The notification message is often very long and usually the top half of the message is filled with information from the server which isn't helpful to you. In most cases the information you need to sort out which email went out is toward the bottom.
Below the subject look at the content of the email to confirm it is from your system.
Does the email message look familiar? It could be a message you send out regularly like a payment confirmation or a unique quick campaign message. The message comes through with some HTML, but you can get an idea of the content and confirm that is a legitimate message from your system.
If the content is from your system will need to follow the steps below to determine the specific email that caused the alert (if possible).
If the content is unfamiliar, then you will want to report this back to us as this may mean unauthorized spam coming from your email account.
Check the Date above the Subject Line
The first step to determining the specific record is to look at when it was sent. You can see this date above the subject line.
Do an advanced find for Email activities on the date
Filter Results by Time (Last Updated) to find the time in the Date line of the message.
For example the time on the example is 11:12pm an the subject is Payment Confirmation. So that should help you narrow results to a single, or at least a small group of records.
Open the Email Record/Records and click the link to the Contact Record
On the Contact Record check Email settings
If the Contact Record has Email and/or Bulk Email set to Do Not Allow you will need to make sure your email and/or quick campaign are not attempting to send email to these people. If you are sending to people who do not want to receive email update your process. See the article on Workflow Email Best Practice Article for steps to correct your email process.
If both fields are set to Allow, as seen below, then you may want to check with the individual contact to let them know that their email service rejected email from your organization. Some work emails can be very secure and the person will need to let their IT group know to allow emails from your organization. Or they may wish to provide a different email address to receive communications from you.
Update Cobalt with your findings
Cobalt needs to report back to the Data Center to ensure the security of your system. So we need to know answers to the following questions.
1. Was this email sent from the organization intentionally?
2. Was this a single email or an email sent as a bulk campagin?
3. Which email(s) caused the issue? (Please provide links)
4. Was the contact set up to receive or block emails? (Provide link to contact)
5. If the person was set to block have you made corrective steps to avoid sending this person emails in the future?
*You may not be able to answer everything, but if you can provide as many answers as possible that will help us get accurate information on the issue.
More information about Spam
Want to know more about Spam policies in general. Below are two resources you can check out.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
http://help.clickdimensions.com/what-is-a-spam-complaint-and-what-should-i-do-about-it-2 (Disclosure - Click Dimensions and Cobalt are partners)