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Ask HN: How do you handle spam reports against transactional email

by aquark on 11/8/21, 2:42 AM with 5 comments

We provide a platform SaaS so generate emails on behalf of our customers to their customers.

While our spam rate is very low, at least 2/3's of the spam reports we do get are for what appear to be totally legitimate transactional emails (eg. purchase receipts). Some could be typo's in an email address but I suspect the majority are misclicks on the end users part.

Currently we unsubscribe all spam reporting addresses from all emails which causes some problems with support questions as to why people aren't getting emails they then expect as follow ups.

How do people handle this: treat all spam reports as a hard 'never-going-to-email-you-again' to protect your email reputation or continue to send high priority transactional emails regardless, or ???

  • by OJFord on 11/8/21, 8:13 AM

    As much as it annoys me as a user, I learned recently that the reason you often get a confirmation page in the browser, rather than an immediate unsubscription, is that some clients (not mine mind) automatically open all links for whatever reason.

    So if you're not doing that, maybe that's the problem.

    Also, even if they're transactional, are they honestly necessary? According to whom? I hate getting transactional mail I can't unsubscribe from when I don't care, I'll see it on the site when I want to, but the site's decided for me that it must be in my inbox. Unless it's a legal/regulatory requirement, can't you just allow unsubscription, even though it's 'transactional'?

  • by dqv on 11/8/21, 4:42 AM

    Add a place in your offering to report on your customers’ customers marking email as spam and have some reconfirmation flow. I would also contact the postmaster to say it’s not spam.

  • by itsrajju on 11/8/21, 10:03 AM

    One thing you could do is to provide an area in your SaaS where your customers' customers could view all emails sent to them. Add a small "unread" counter too in a place they can't miss. That way, even if they did unsubscribe from your emails, they could still get the messages.

    And you could also add an option to resubscribe right there.

  • by gerardnico on 11/8/21, 7:02 AM

    Don't take action without feedback is a pretty golden rule.

    At least send an email to confirm that they have been unsubscribed.