Let’s speak the obvious for a second: if a lot of people are complaining about you, you likely have a bad reputation. That is true with most things, but it is especially true when it comes to your email program. When we review email delivery issues for our clients, we find that complaints drive 70 percent of blocking and filtering issues. Preventing complaints -- people hitting "This is Spam" or otherwise complaining to their ISP -- is the most important thing you can do to improve your email reputation and increase your inbox success rates.

Consider these four easy steps to minimize complaints in your program:

1. Deliver what you promise. When someone signs up to receive your emails, make sure you are perfectly clear about what you will be sending them and when. It is a good idea to send a welcome email that reiterates what they registered to receive, as well, so there are no surprises.
2. Segment your emails based on demographics, response, or choice. Allow people to choose what you talk about or try to sell them in the emails they receive from you, and even how often they get emails from you. If you can’t do that, try to optimize your campaigns based on response or demographic data. By giving people what they want to receive, they will be a lot less likely to complain about your emails.
3. Make it easy to unsubscribe. When someone wants off your list, let them get off easily. If you make it too hard, they will hit "This is Spam" instead of unsubscribing, which puts your whole email program in jeopardy.
4. Carefully screen any acquisition partners. If you have third parties helping sign up people to your email program, make sure they are following the rules and promising the right things. If they don't, the leads you get will likely be junk, and when you send email to them you'll get a higher rate of complaints than normal. Bad lead generation partners make your program suffer greatly.