Beehiiv Spam Complaints — What’s Going On?
Beehiiv, a popular email marketing newsletter platform, has recently found itself at the center of a growing controversy. Users on social media claim they are receiving newsletters they never signed up for. They add that this is a Beehiiv-only issue, as similar issues aren’t happening with the platform’s competitors.
And it’s not just email marketing subscribers facing troubles; Beehiiv users, too, have been experiencing significant email delivery and deliverability problems.
For a platform catering to some of the best newsletters out there, this is a troubling matter.
Below, we tune in to what users have to say about the Beehiiv spam issue and what it could mean for the company.
Twitter Users Claim Beehiiv Spam is Out of Control
Beehiiv is facing criticism on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) after users reported receiving unsolicited newsletters in their inboxes. These users alleged that they never signed up for Beehiiv or any specific newsletters yet have been receiving unwanted emails regularly.
The unexpected influx of irrelevant emails has caused significant annoyance and frustration among affected users. Many are concerned about privacy breaches. On a platform as large as Beehiiv, there’s ample potential for spam to infiltrate their inboxes.
The incident has also raised questions about two concrete aspects of Beehiiv:
- Its data security practices,
- Its commitment to protecting user information.
Beehiiv has not issued a public statement addressing the complaints yet; however, it’s unlikely the company is unaware of the situation, given how active it is on social media platforms.
Beehiiv’s Email Delivery and Deliverability Issues
If you thought the unsolicited emails were bad, the situation has led to a predictable situation — senders on Beehiiv’s platform are now struggling with inbox placement.
And that’s not all; some users even report their emails aren’t being delivered at all!
Reddit and X users wrote that their emails are going to spam or just not sending at all. These issues have particularly impacted individuals who are growing their newsletter.
These issues are most likely related to the shady use of Beehiiv, as multiple spam complaints will automatically lead to red flags from mailbox providers. This means messages from the erring email domain will head straight to the junk mail folder.
As all Beehiiv users send emails over the same shared domain, this has led to email deliverability problems for the entire user base.
The ongoing delivery problems have raised concerns about Beehiiv’s technical capabilities and its ability to be a reliable email newsletter service.
The matter could make users flock to Substack as a safer alternative — read more about the differences in our Beehiiv vs Substack comparison. We also have a collection of Beehiiv alternatives users can consider.
Beehiiv’s Strange Sending Practices
Besides the issues above, we observed that Beehiiv sends its email newsletter using Customer.io and, by extension, Mailgun. This is interesting because Beehiiv typically uses Sendgrid’s email infrastructure to send its customers’ newsletters.
We verified this by examining the email headers they send to their users; we compared them with the email headers and the documentation Beehiiv gives customers for domain authentication.
Effectively, this means Beehiiv isn’t using its own sending engine it offers to clients, but a different one.
This raises a couple of valid questions:
- Why isn’t Beehiiv using its own email configuration it sells to customers for email newsletters?
- Why isn’t Beehiiv’s own email platform good enough for them to send emails on?
For now, we are left without a clear answer.
What Does Beehiiv’s Acceptable Use Policy Say?
The recent incidents of unsolicited newsletters and email delivery problems stand in stark contrast to Beehiiv’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).
Beehiiv’s policy explicitly prohibits the sending of unsolicited emails without explicit consent from recipients who opted in voluntarily. It also emphasizes the importance of providing a clear opt-out mechanism and accurate email sender name as well as other information. The company’s AUP is designed to protect the privacy of recipients.
However, the recent issues suggest that Beehiiv may have fallen short of its own standards. The newsletters sent to users who never signed up for the service directly violate the AUP’s consent requirements. Additionally, the email delivery problems indicate that Beehiiv may have struggled to maintain the email infrastructure necessary to ensure reliable delivery.
As the company continues to face backlash on social media, it will be crucial to:
- Address these issues,
- Demonstrate a renewed focus on compliance and user satisfaction.
Incidents like these remind us of the importance of responsible email marketing practices. Companies should ensure users on their platform get clear consent from users before sending them any emails. When an issue gets out of control and spills over to social media like this, it can be terrible for brand reputation. And we are yet to see what happens with Beehiiv.
Best Practices for Building And Running an Email Newsletter
While you can’t control what your email service provider does, there are guidelines you can follow to ensure you build and maintain a happy newsletter audience.
If you don’t want to be a spam email sender, follow the 14 best practices we’ve tried and tested::
- Be clear about your audience: Identify who your ideal subscribers should be — this includes their demographics, interests, pain points, etc.
- Use the double opt-in method: Send confirmation emails so that your readers can confirm they really do want to hear from you.
- Offer value: Provide enticing incentives such as e-books, guides, discounts, or exclusive content in exchange for email signups.
- Interact with your audience: Newsletter subscribers often write back to email senders. In such email chains, ensure you respond promptly and maintain the right email tone.
- Leverage social media: For newsletter promotion, use social platforms and ads to drive traffic to your signup forms; find more info in our newsletter advertising guide.
- Optimize for mobile: Ensure your signup forms, emails, and newsletters are suitable for mobile email marketing to capture subscribers using smartphones and tablets.
- Run a welcome email campaign: Send personalized emails to welcome your signups and set expectations about your newsletter content.
- Segment your audience early: Collect relevant data on your subscribers during signup to send targeted content right from the start.
- Offer a one-click unsubscribe: Make it simple for subscribers to opt out to reduce spam complaints.
- Comply with email laws: Follow email marketing regulations such as GDPR or CAN-SPAM to protect your audience’s privacy and maintain a reputable list.
- Encourage forwarding and sharing: Include shareable content and social sharing buttons in your emails.
- Be consistent: Set a newsletter schedule so subscribers know when to expect your emails.
The Right Way to Do Email Marketing
Best practices aren’t just restricted to email newsletters. If you want to attain top-tier email performance, you need to become a diligent email marketer.
We’ve made a checklist of pro tips to help you achieve this.
- Email authentication: Add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to your email domain. With these protocols, mailbox providers will see you as a legitimate email sender.
- Email unsubscribe laws: Comply with GDPR and CAN-SPAM laws which require you to include a sender name, a physical address, and a clear opt-out link in all emails.
- Email validation: Remove inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses to maintain a healthy sender reputation.
- Email marketing mistakes: Learn what the top mistakes in email marketing are and avoid them.
- Email IP address: Keep an eye on sender scores for your IP address. If it drops, you’ll soon see spam complaints and bounces spike.
- Domain reputation: Your email domain’s reputation is equally critical. A low score can cause damage that will take a long time to fix.
- Trigger emails: Use behavior-based triggers for maximum relevance. For example, send a follow-up email with related products when a customer makes a purchase or views a specific product multiple times.
- No-reply email: When you send no-reply email addresses, also include a monitored email address so readers can contact you to discuss queries or doubts.
- Email subject lines: Create clear, concise, and engaging subject lines to improve open rates.
- Email CTAs: Make it easy for recipients to take the desired action with prominent and compelling calls to action.
- Queued emails: Learn about the causes of this issue and avoid it.
- Email campaign metrics: Monitor key performance indicators such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to refine your strategy.
- Email design: Create a visually appealing layout that aligns with your brand and highlights key information.
Campaign Refinery: Ethical, Effective Email Marketing
At Campaign Refinery, we are 100% in favor of clean email practices that focus on providing a superior email experience for recipients. Our platform is one of the best email marketing software solutions for small businesses and large alike.
After all, email marketing offers senders a golden opportunity to send marketing messages right to their readers’ inboxes; it’s a bad idea to tick them off. This is why we have the best email deliverability in the industry — we put the user first.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t take care of email marketers, too.
These are the tools and features that help you achieve top-tier inbox placement:
- Our automated list-cleaning tool removes all invalid emails, including spam traps, role emails, temporary emails, complainers, and similar IDs.
- All our clients have to go through a vetting process before they can send emails. This helps maintain the reputation of our shared IP pool.
- All email marketers want a robust and simple automation builder — so we built the best one on our platform.
- With our Gamification feature, which rewards your subscribers using a points-based system, you can see your open and click rates soar.
- We constantly monitor our server traffic and campaign metrics to ensure there are no spammy activities.
- Campaign Refinery pricing is transparent and budget-friendly.
- We will soon add Google Postmaster Tools to our analytics dashboard. You can then view accurate metrics from your Gmail users.
Email deliverability is our #1 focus; Campaign Refinery is hyper-focused on this one goal. If you want to unlock elite email performance, apply here to become a customer!