You spent an hour writing a market commentary email. Your compliance team reviewed it. You hit send to your list of 400 contacts. And 150 of them never saw it because it landed in their spam folder. Or their Promotions tab. Or nowhere at all.
This happens to financial advisors constantly, and most of them don’t even know it. They look at their open rate, see 22%, think “that’s fine,” and move on. But that 22% might be 45% if half their list was actually receiving the emails.
Email deliverability is not glamorous. But if your emails aren’t reaching inboxes, nothing else about your email strategy matters. The best subject line in the world doesn’t help if nobody sees it.
Here’s what’s actually causing the problem and how to fix it.
Why Advisor Emails End Up in Spam
There are a handful of common reasons, and most of them are fixable in a day.
Missing email authentication. This is the number one issue we see. If your domain doesn’t have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records set up, email providers like Gmail and Outlook have no way to verify that your emails are really coming from you. Without authentication, your emails look suspicious to their spam filters. And suspicious emails go to spam.
SPF tells email servers which platforms are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain. DKIM adds a cryptographic signature that proves the email wasn’t tampered with in transit. DMARC ties them together and tells servers what to do when authentication fails.
If those three letters don’t mean anything to you, that’s fine. Your web developer or IT person can set them up in about an hour. If you’re working with us, we handle this as part of every content studio setup.
Sending from a free email address. If you’re sending marketing emails from a gmail.com or yahoo.com address, you’re practically guaranteeing spam folder placement. Use your firm’s domain. yourname@yourfirm.com. Always.
Dirty list. If a significant percentage of your list is bouncing (bad addresses) or completely disengaged (haven’t opened an email in a year), email providers notice. High bounce rates and low engagement tell Gmail and Outlook that your emails aren’t wanted. That reputation follows you.
Spam trigger words and formatting. Subject lines with all caps, excessive exclamation marks, or phrases like “ACT NOW,” “FREE,” “LIMITED TIME” trigger spam filters. Financial services emails are already under more scrutiny than most industries. Keep your subject lines clean and specific.
Too many images, not enough text. Emails that are essentially one big image with minimal text look like promotional spam to filters. Use a healthy balance of text and images. A good rule of thumb is at least a 60/40 text-to-image ratio.
No unsubscribe link. This is both a legal requirement (CAN-SPAM) and a deliverability factor. Every marketing email needs a working unsubscribe link. If people can’t unsubscribe, they mark you as spam instead. And spam complaints hurt your sender reputation far more than unsubscribes do.
How to Fix Your Deliverability
Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. I already said it, but I’m saying it again because it’s that important. This is step one. Do it today. If you’re using Kit, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, or any other email platform, they all have documentation for setting up authentication. Your DNS provider is where the records get added.
Clean your list. Go through your subscriber list and remove hard bounces immediately. For soft bounces that have bounced multiple times, remove those too. For subscribers who haven’t opened a single email in 12 months, either remove them or run a re-engagement campaign. “We noticed you haven’t opened our emails in a while. Still want to hear from us?” If they don’t respond, remove them. A list of 250 engaged contacts will outperform a list of 1,000 dead ones every time.
Send consistently. Erratic sending patterns trigger spam filters. If you email your list once, then disappear for four months, then suddenly send three emails in a week, that looks suspicious. Pick a cadence (biweekly or monthly) and stick to it. Consistency trains email providers to expect your messages.
Warm up new domains and platforms. If you just set up a new email platform or changed your sending domain, don’t blast your entire list on day one. Start with your most engaged segment (50 to 100 contacts), send to them for a couple weeks, and gradually increase. This builds sending reputation before you’re sending at full volume.
Monitor your sender score. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools (free) show you how Gmail views your domain’s reputation. If you see your reputation dropping, that’s an early warning sign that something needs attention before you end up in spam across the board.
Use a real reply-to address. Emails sent from “noreply@yourfirm.com” signal to both spam filters and prospects that you don’t actually want a conversation. Use a real person’s email address. When people reply to your emails, that’s one of the strongest positive signals you can send to email providers.
Content Practices That Help Deliverability
Beyond the technical setup, how you write your emails affects whether they reach the inbox.
Write like a person. Emails that read like a human wrote them (because one did) consistently outperform templated corporate newsletters in deliverability and engagement. Spam filters are sophisticated enough to detect patterns associated with mass marketing content. A conversational email from your personal address looks different to Gmail than a branded HTML blast.
Keep your HTML clean. If you’re using email templates, make sure the underlying code is clean. Bloated HTML with inline styles, broken tags, and unnecessary elements can trigger spam filters. Most modern email platforms handle this for you, but if you’re importing custom templates, have someone check the code.
Don’t use link shorteners. Bitly links and similar shortened URLs are commonly used by spammers. Use full, direct links in your emails. Your email platform will handle click tracking with its own redirect, which is fine. But manually shortened links raise red flags.
Balance your links. An email with 15 links looks like a promotional blast. Keep your links focused. One or two links per email is ideal. Link to your latest blog post and your booking page. That’s enough.
Personalize when possible. Using the recipient’s first name in the subject line or opening isn’t just a nice touch. It’s a deliverability signal. Personalized emails have higher open rates, which tells email providers your content is wanted. Most email platforms make this trivially easy with merge tags.
What Good Deliverability Looks Like
Here are the benchmarks we aim for with our advisor clients:
Delivery rate (emails that didn’t bounce): 97% or higher. Below 95% means your list needs cleaning.
Open rate: 25 to 40% for financial services. If you’re below 20% consistently, suspect deliverability issues, not just weak subject lines.
Spam complaint rate: below 0.1%. That means fewer than 1 in 1,000 recipients are marking you as spam. Above 0.3% and you have a serious problem that needs immediate attention.
Unsubscribe rate: below 0.5% per send. Unsubscribes are normal and healthy. If your unsubscribe rate spikes on a particular send, look at what was different about that email.
If your metrics look significantly worse than these numbers, start with the authentication check. That’s the issue more often than not.
We monitor all of this for our content engine clients and address deliverability issues before they become problems. It’s not the exciting part of email marketing, but it’s the part that makes everything else actually work.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I check if my emails are going to spam?
Send a test email to your personal Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo accounts before every campaign. If it lands in spam or Promotions in any of them, you have a problem to solve before sending to your full list. You can also use tools like Mail Tester (mail-tester.com) to score your email’s spam likelihood before you send.
What’s the difference between spam and the Promotions tab?
Spam means email providers actively flagged your message as unwanted. The Promotions tab (Gmail) is a softer filter. It means Gmail recognizes your email as marketing content and sorts it separately. Promotions tab placement is less damaging than spam, but still reduces visibility. Sending from a personal address, keeping HTML minimal, and writing conversationally all help avoid the Promotions tab.
Will adding an unsubscribe link hurt my list?
No. It protects it. An unsubscribe link is legally required under CAN-SPAM, and it gives dissatisfied recipients a way out that doesn’t damage your sender reputation. The alternative is they mark you as spam, which is far worse. Every reputable email platform includes an automatic unsubscribe link.
How often should I clean my email list?
At minimum, quarterly. Remove hard bounces immediately after every send. Review disengaged subscribers (no opens in 6 to 12 months) quarterly and either re-engage or remove them. A clean list of 300 engaged contacts will consistently outperform a neglected list of 1,000.
Can my compliance disclaimers trigger spam filters?
They can if they’re excessively long or contain patterns spam filters associate with scam emails. Keep your compliance footer concise and formatted as plain text, not images. Include your ADV link, firm registration, and required disclosures without turning the footer into a 500-word legal document. Most compliance teams are fine with a two-to-three line footer plus a link to your full disclosures.
Does the time I send emails matter for deliverability?
Not directly for deliverability, but it affects open rates, which indirectly affect your sender reputation. For financial advisor audiences, Tuesday through Thursday mornings (8 to 10 AM in your recipients’ time zone) tend to perform best. Avoid weekends and Monday mornings. Test different send times over a few months and let your data guide you.
What’s Next
If you’re not sure whether your emails are actually reaching inboxes, book a discovery call with us. We can audit your authentication setup, review your list health, and make sure the foundation is solid before you invest more time in content that nobody sees.
Pullman Marketing builds email and content systems for independent financial advisors and RIAs. Learn more about our content engine.