Why are my SES emails going to spam?
Common causes: missing SPF/DKIM/DMARC records, high bounce or complaint rate, new domain without warmup, spam trigger words in content, no plain text version, inconsistent from address, or bad sender reputation. Use mail-tester.com to diagnose.
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More FAQs in Amazon SES Email Deliverability Best Practices Avoiding Spam Folders
Start with 50 emails/day in week 1, 200/day in week 2, 500/day in week 3, 1000/day in week 4, and continue increasing. This builds sender reputation gradually. Sudden spikes of thousands of emails trigger spam filters on new domains.
Bounce rate should be below 5%. Complaint rate (users marking as spam) should be below 0.1%. If rates exceed these, email providers may block or throttle your domain. Set up SNS notifications to track bounces and complaints, and never send to bounced addresses.
Shared IPs (free) are fine for most apps. Consider a dedicated IP ($24.95/month) if you send more than 100,000 emails per month, want full control over sender reputation, or are not affected by other SES users' sending behavior.
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