True or False: The Majority of Emails Are Spam Emails
There was a time when every email user had at least one email from a Nigerian prince in their inbox. And spam persists as an issue; the incessant inflow of malicious/irrelevant messages has email users wondering if it’s true or false: the majority of emails are spam emails.
Spam causes problems for both email users and email marketers. While users want to receive less spam, email senders need to jump through a lot more hoops to land in the inbox.
The spam menace has us asking questions:
- Why can’t mailbox providers resolve this issue?
- Are spam emails increasing in number?
- Are spam filters doing their job or not?
We answer these questions and also look at current spam trends below.
What is Spam?
Spam, also known as junk email, refers to unsolicited and often irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent over the internet. These messages are typically to a large number of email users for advertising, phishing, spreading malware, or other problematic activities.
The table highlights the common characteristics of junk emails.
| Typically, spam emails are: | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Sent in bulk | Sent in large quantities to email addresses that are bought/stolen. |
| Misleading | Contains deceptive information and attempts to trick users. |
| Unsolicited | Recipients did not sign up for these emails voluntarily. |
| Commercial in nature | The messages promote products, services, or websites. |
| Possibly malicious | Could contain malware/spamware in attachments or link out to sites that steal information. |
No doubt junk emails are annoying, but let’s learn more about why it’s an issue that needs urgent attention.
Problems Caused by Spam Emails
Junk emails cause a range of problems for individuals and organizations:
- They flood inboxes, making it hard for users to find important messages.
- Phishing can lead to identity theft or financial loss.
- There is also a risk of sensitive information leaking.
- At high volumes, they take up bandwidth and storage space.
- They cause a dip in productivity.
Want to know more about the damage these emails are causing? These hard numbers give you a clear idea.
Spam Statistics 2024: How Serious is the Spam Problem?
The statistics paint a grim picture of the issues caused by spam:
- Spam volume: In 2022, 49% of all emails sent were spam, according to Statista. That number dropped to 45.6% in 2023.
- Daily spam emails: 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent every day, as per Astra Security.
- Common spam strategies: Email Tool Tester says the three most common topics used by spammers are prizes and giveaways, job opportunities, and banking.
- Industries targeted: The top 3 industries most targeted by phishing scams are financial institutions(27.7%), SaaS (17.7%), and social media (10.4%), says Email Tool Tester.
- Gmail spam: Google protects Gmail users by blocking over 100 million spam emails per day.
- Phishing works well on young people: AAG says millennials/Gen-Z internet users are most likely to fall victim to phishing attacks.
- Top kinds of spam emails: The most common junk emails are related to advertising (36%). The second spot goes to adult content (31.7%), while finance emails take the third spot (26.5%), as per Spam Laws.
- Common internet-based threats: The three most common forms of attack used by spam emails are phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and ransomware: Proofpoint 2024 Cyber Threats Report.
- Carbon footprint: According to Carbon Literacy, spam emails have an environmental impact as well; they account for as much as 75 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
- Cost to revenue: Spam messages cost businesses upwards of $20.5 billion each year, says Dataprot.
- Efficiency of spam: Spammers have to send 12,500,000 emails to get 1 reply, as per TechRadar.
What kind of emails cause these issues? Spam emails come in many different forms, as you will see below.
Types of Spam Emails: Top 6 Offenders
Spam emails typically aim to:
- Steal personal information,
- Install malicious software,
- Trick users into sending money,
- Promote products or services illicitly,
- Capture login details.
Below, you will see the 6 types of emails spammers send to achieve these goals.
Advertising Spam
The most common type of spam — advertising spam — promotes products or services.
Advertising spam emails often advertise pharmaceuticals, weight loss programs, or dubious financial schemes. They flood inboxes with unwanted offers, trying to lure recipients into purchasing items or services from illegitimate sources.
Phishing Emails
Phishing emails are designed to trick recipients into divulging sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, or social security numbers.
These emails often appear to come from legitimate organizations like banks or online services, urging recipients to update their information or verify their accounts. The links in these emails usually lead to fake websites that mimic real ones to capture the user’s details.
Scam Emails
Scam emails involve fraudulent schemes intended to deceive recipients into sending money or sharing personal information.
Classic examples include the “lottery” scam, where the email promises a large sum of money in return for a small upfront fee. These emails often exploit the recipient’s greed or compassion to achieve their goal.
Malware Distribution
Some spam emails contain attachments or links that, when clicked or downloaded, install malicious software on the recipient’s phone or computer.
This malware can range from viruses and trojans to ransomware, locking the user’s data until a ransom is paid. Such emails often disguise themselves as legitimate messages to trick recipients into opening them.
Adult Content
These junk emails contain explicit material or links to adult websites. They often have suggestive subject lines intended to entice recipients into opening them.
Spoofing
Spoofing emails appear to come from a known contact or a trusted source.
By spoofing the email address or domain, they try to trick recipients into trusting the message. These emails may ask for money or sensitive information or send recipients to malicious websites.
We know spam is abundant; but where does most of it originate?
Where Do Spam Emails Come From?
Let’s put the spotlight on the top contributors of email spam globally:
| Country | Contribution to the total spam emails sent in 2023 |
|---|---|
| Russia 🇷🇺 | 31.5% |
| U.S. 🇺🇲 | 11.3% |
| China (Mainland) 🇨🇳 | 11% |
| Japan 🇯🇵 | 3.6% |
| Germany 🇩🇪 | 3.3% |
| Brazil 🇧🇷 | 2.8% |
| Netherlands 🇳🇱 | 2.5% |
| Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 | 2.5% |
| India 🇮🇳 | 2% |
| South Korea 🇰🇷 | 1.6% |
Are the Majority of Emails Spam?
Going by the available statistics on spam emails, the answer is no — the majority of emails are NOT spam.
But seeing how spam emails are almost 50% of the global email volume, there’s a strong chance some recipients are getting more junk emails than others.
There are ways people can navigate the issue, though.
How to Tackle the Spam Problem
Email users can navigate the risks presented by spam emails and reduce volume by following these 7 guidelines.
- Protect email addresses: Don’t share them everywhere. Think before posting an email online, in person, or on forms.
- Review privacy policies: Before signing up for something online, users must check the privacy policy to see how they handle your information.
- Uncheck pre-selected boxes: When signing up for something, people should be mindful of pre-selected boxes that sign them up for emails they might not want.
- Utilize spam filters and reporting: Most email services have built-in spam filters. Reporting junk emails helps train the filters and keep inboxes cleaner.
- Unsubscribe from unwanted lists: Email users should unsubscribe from emails they no longer want. For example, Gmail users can see an easy unsubscribe link thanks to the list-unsubscribe header.
- Use a separate email address: Creating a separate address for online registrations or low-priority use is a good strategy to avoid spam.
- Be mindful: Users should not click on links or attachments in suspicious emails.
Avoiding spam emails isn’t just your responsibility; it’s an issue the entire email industry is working on fixing. And mail providers are doing their best to shield you from spam, as the next section explains.
Why Aren’t Spam Filters Working?
The truth is, they are.
The spam messages you’re seeing are the rare ones that make it past the mailbox provider’s robust security watchdogs: spam filters.
Modern filters are incredibly powerful. Mailbox providers and network/email admins often use a combination of spam filters, fully customized and configured, to ensure the minimum number of spam emails reach your inbox.
| Types of spam filters | How they work |
|---|---|
| Content-based filters | Examines the content of emails, looking for keywords and phrases that are commonly associated with spam. |
| Machine learning filters | Utilizes machine learning algorithms to analyze email features and identify spam based on patterns and data. |
| Bayesian filters | Uses Bayesian probability to identify spam by analyzing the content/frequency of words. |
| Heuristic filters | Uses heuristics, which are rules of thumb based on experience, to zero in on spam. |
| Blacklists/Whitelists | Blocks emails from known spam sources (blacklist) or only allows emails from trusted sources (whitelist). |
| Challenge-response filters | Automatically sends a challenge email to the sender and only accepts the original email if the sender responds correctly. |
| Rule-based filters | Applies pre-defined rules such as specific words, phrases, or patterns. |
| Collaborative filters | Shares spam data on a network of servers to improve spam detection rates based on collective knowledge. |
Besides spam filters, mail platforms like Apple and Google also do their bit — Apple implemented Mail Privacy Protection, and Google and Yahoo announced the 2024 spam update for bulk email senders.
There are also regulations email senders must follow, like CAN-SPAM in the US and GDPR in Europe.
With these measures in place, it can be challenging for email marketers to get their messages through to email subscribers. Below, we explain how to maximize your chances of getting past spam filters.
Email Marketers: Here’s How to Avoid Looking Like a Spammer
Our top recommendation to avoid looking like a spam email sender is to implement authentication protocols.
We’re talking about:
Once you get these four methods in place on your email domain, follow the suggestions below to become a trusted sender.
Pro Guide: Avoid Being Marked as Spam
To ensure your emails make it past spam filters and reach the inbox, follow these 12 guidelines:
- Use double opt-in: Always ensure you have explicit permission from recipients before sending them emails. Implement a double opt-in process.
- The sender name matters: Make sure your sender name is clear and recognizable.
- Write good subject lines: Avoid using all caps, excessive punctuation, or misleading statements that could be flagged as spam.
- Use email personalization: Address recipients by their name and customize content based on their preferences/past interactions.
- Send relevant email content: Ensure your emails offer valuable content.
- Focus on mobile email marketing: A large portion of users check their emails on mobile devices, and poor formatting can lead to higher spam complaints.
- Avoid spam triggers: Steer clear of using words and phrases commonly associated with spam, such as “free,” “urgent,” “act now,” or “win.”
- Follow unsubscribe laws: Always provide a clear and easy way for recipients to unsubscribe from your emails; this is also a legal requirement.
- Maintain email list hygiene: Regularly clean your email list by removing inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses. This helps improve your sender reputation, which is like a credit score for your trustworthiness.
- Implement email security protocols: Besides email authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, also use SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer).
- Track engagement metrics: Keep an eye on your email metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates.
- Use a reputed ESP: Employ a reputable email service provider (ESP) that follows best practices for email deliverability, which gives your emails the highest chance of landing in the inbox.
The email landscape is rapidly changing. Email marketing trends come and go, but there is one strategy that consistently gets you results: sticking to best practices.
The Inbox Formula: Elite Practices for Elite Email Professionals
This isn’t a plug for an overpriced course.
The Inbox Formula is a guidebook written by our founder, Travis Ketchum, to share the learnings from his 10+ years in the email industry.
This book is 100% free and explores topics such as:
- Domain warmups,
- Email list management strategies,
- Protecting sender reputation,
- Setting up authentication,
- Navigating blacklists,
- Avoiding spam traps,
- And a whole lot more.
Email marketers, both new and experienced, can expect to learn new tricks from this short guidebook.
Campaign Refinery: 100% Against Spam, Always
All of us at Campaign Refinery believe that the user comes first.
We all send and receive emails — and we completely understand people’s loathing for spam emails. We think it’s an issue that needs to be resolved, and we’re happy to do our part as an email platform.
And our rules and principles have paid off; we are the #1 platform in terms of email deliverability rates.
This is how we make the magic happen:
- Authentication: All new customers must implement security protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
- Automated list-cleaner: This tool goes through your email list and removes invalid emails that could set off red flags from mail providers.
- Domain warmup: We recommend ways to correctly get email domains up and running to achieve the best sender reputation.
- Screening system for new signups: We have no free plan and we vet new signups to ensure they aren’t spammers.
- Server monitoring: We monitor email traffic on our servers for spam activities.
- Acceptable use policy: To protect our platform, we review accounts if open rates dip below 30% or bounce rates go over 5%.
- Quality senders only: We don’t allow CPA or similar affiliate types, network marketing sites, affiliate educational offers, insurance sales, or promotions.
Campaign Refinery is the perfect place to grow as a high-level email professional — apply to become a customer today!
