I began to think, she could not be the only one in this situation. Not surprisingly many users simply delete all their junk emails without even looking at the headers. Others are more trusting and simply set it to automatically delete the messages after a time period. It is important to always check your junk emails folder as it is easy to have legit messages thrown in.

The word “spam” is interpreted many ways, depending on who your service provider is. In general, follow these guidelines when sending messages to ensure you make it to the inbox. Don’t repeat words, never use symbols, and avoid spam phrases like “pre-approved”, “guaranteed”, “click here”, or anything relating to financial and debt relief. As a general rule, most messages with an .exe file attachment will be considered junk emails. If you are sending a program, provide them the URL where they can download it themselves.

There are many other ways of ensuring you receive the right messages in your inbox. Your spam filter reads your usage patterns. Over time the system will notice you move all messages from Tom Smith from your junk emails folder to your inbox and vice versa. For a quick permanent solution you can add users to your Whitelist and Blacklist. These are essentially the naughty or nice lists, any sender you put on your whitelist will never go to spam, while senders on your Blacklist always go to spam.

Sometimes you, or your service provider, have no control as per what is determined to be junk emails. There are three detection levels; sometimes emails are scanned for spam before reaching your provider. Often times your emails are filtered by the provider (i.e. Yahoo and Gmail spam folders). Lastly, you may have computer programs filtering your emails for you and marking them as spam.

There are other, more drastic, options out there. If you have had your email address for a long time and receive thousands of spam messages, consider changing e-mail addresses. Another option is to have a disposable address that you provide only to online retailers, mailing lists, and other third parties.

The best spam filtering web-based providers seem to be Gmail and Yahoo. If you are using a POP3/IMAP account with a desktop application ESET Smart Security is the most reliable. It scans each message individually and is easy to use.

However, even if you have painstakingly created a targeted email list, your emails are still susceptible to bouncing problems. An email will bounce if and when the intended recipient refuses or can’t receive the email at all. In cases like this, the message will go back to the sender with an error text signifying the reason the message can’t be sent.

But you can solve the problem of bouncing emails in just a few steps. However, this solution will only work for created email lists and not for bought email lists.

1. Put a proper sender’s name on your emails.
Email spam filters are always checking where the email came from before it can be cleared. If it can’t find the valid sender’s name in the proper fields, then it will be considered as spam. And as such, it will never find its way in the recipient’s inbox. It would stay forever in the spam folder until the come across it and take it out of there. And that scenario is not very likely.

2. Request your email subscribers to add your address in their contacts list.
If your name and email address are added to the contacts list, then the email filters that could bounce your message back would be avoided. It’s like giving your emails an exclusive entry pass to the inbox without having to go through scrutiny.

3. Double check the spelling and format of the email address you have on your list.
In the digital world, the worse mistake you can make is a human error. Make sure that you ask your prospects to retype their emails on the fields provided on the opt-in pages to be sure of an accurate address every time.

4. Provide for a confirmation link for subscriptions.
In order to make sure a real person had subscribed to your emails and not a robot, have your users check their emails and click the confirmation link provided therein. This way, you also protect your own interest. With an email confirmation process in place, you won’t be accused of sending unsolicited mails to your prospects.