Emails landing in spam not promotions. What is going wrong?
curiouscathy · 2026-02-25 · 980 views
My cold emails are going straight to spam. Not even Promotions — actual spam folder. GlockApps shows 60% spam placement. SPF, DKIM, DMARC all passing. Domains are 3 months old and were warmed up for 3 weeks. What is going wrong?
After troubleshooting for 2 weeks, here is what I found was causing the problem:
- Tracking pixels. I had open tracking enabled in Instantly. The tracking domain was flagged by spam filters. Disabled tracking and spam placement dropped from 60% to 15%.
- Links in first email. I had a Calendly link in my first email. Removed it and moved it to the second follow-up. Another improvement.
- Email copy triggers. Words like "schedule a call" and "free" were hitting spam filters. Rewrote to use softer language like "would it make sense to chat" and "no cost."
- Sending volume spike. I had ramped from 5 to 20 emails per inbox per day in just 3 days. Pulled back to 10 per day and gradually ramped over 2 weeks.
After all these changes, spam placement dropped to 3% and inbox placement hit 89%. The lesson: spam placement is usually caused by multiple small issues stacking up, not one single thing. You need to audit everything systematically.
Comments (3)
bouncebetty · 2026-02-26
if most of your emails are hitting spam then something fundamental is broken. The tracking pixel and Calendly link in email 1 were likely the biggest culprits. Spam filters in 2026 are extremely aggressive about tracking domains and external links in initial outreach. Good troubleshooting process here — systematically eliminating each variable is the right approach.
techsales22 · 2026-02-27
tbh the sending volume ramp was probably the nail in the coffin. going from 5 to 20/day in 3 days is way too aggressive. google watches sending patterns like a hawk and sudden spikes are the fastest way to get flagged
outboundomar · 2026-02-28
I had the same issue last month. turned off tracking, removed all links from email 1, and rewrote my copy. went from 55% spam to 4% spam in about a week. the stacking effect is real — any one of these might be fine alone but together they destroy deliverability