It has probably become one of the most common complaints that most ISPs face when a corporate entity complains that its bulk emails from a marketing campaign or its newsletters are blocked out as spam. This can have quite a few ramifications for the corporate entity and the ISP of the corporate entity as well. Both parties are technically liable to pay damages if they cannot prove their case in a court of law. However, this problem may be mitigated if the entity is an overseas one but, in any case, one of the eventualities is blacklisting from ever mailing again. Even if the ISP doesn't get you, the chances of the end users marking your emails as spam are pretty good.

Spam filters are the inanimate entities that are responsible for this action. These filtering mechanisms use artificial intelligence methods and complex mathematics to understand what comprises a spam mail in the eyes of that specific user. They also come with some preloaded settings so that the user doesn't really have to “train” the software from scratch. These filtering mechanisms search for specific patterns in the number of keywords or entire phrases, which could be suspect. Considering all these attributes, there are times in which even legitimate mails get lost in the process. This is called a false positive and if studies of user behavior are anything to go by, false positives are worse than the odd spam mail getting through the filter.

So, when you are in a position in which spam filters have blocked you out, the first step that you should take is to check if you have gotten a report from the domain that you were mass mailing to. Some filters will actually send you back a mailing stating that your activity seemed like you were spamming and are now blacklisted. The site will also give you the option of getting yourself delisted. However, in most cases this does not happen and there is a very good reason for this. By telling a spammer that he has been blocked because of being recognized as a spammer, the spammer might just elicit a change of identity. It makes more sense to just let the spammer believe that the mail has reached a recipient and then blacklist the specific IP quietly. If this is what has happened, then you must again check with the domain administrator for blacklisting and also check email open rates.

Spam filters are a fact of life and the chances of blacklisting are quite good, unfortunately. One good remedy for this is not to mail at domains but rather to mail to webmail accounts. Mass mailing to a webmail domain will not cause the same amount of uproar or ruckus. You should also carefully consider from this point on what you are sending and the contents and subject lines of the mails. These are sometimes dead giveaways and can ruin your reputation and business.