Spam is everywhere, drowning out real, meaningful emails. To fight back, email honeypots act as traps to catch spammers. Smart, right?
But here’s the twist – what if these very traps end up hurting your email campaigns? What if spammers trigger them, putting your brand at risk?
Let’s check out the damages and the downsides of it in the article below.
How do honeypot emails get into your email list?
Honeypot emails can slip into your list in ways you might not even notice. Here’s how…
Using web scraping tools
Web scrapers use bots to crawl websites and extract data. This data is used for lead generation, email scraping, market research and other related tasks.
While scraping data from such huge resources in less time seems efficient, it can put you at risk of unintentionally acquiring honeypot emails.
As most of the emails acquired through scraping tools can be sought without consent, this practice could lead to a high chance of getting your emails spammed or blacklisted.
Competition
Often certain business rivals might intentionally add honeypot emails to your list. As you send emails to your entire list, an email also lands in the honeypot, thereby causing the damage that is feared by most brands.
This is usually done to harm your reputation and email deliverability.
Purchase email list
In the universal rule book, purchasing email lists has always been a terrible idea. This is because a purchased list rarely has the receivers’ consent to receive their promotional or marketing messages.
As this email list is random, the chances of the receivers being your target audience are pretty slim too. Needless to say, this directly puts you at risk of violating GDPR compliance policies.
As a domino effect, this will lead to low email deliverability, open rates, and click-through rates.
Valid email lists are not for sale, and hence it’s much more efficient and practical to acquire legitimate subscribers.
People who create and sell email lists tend to include emails that are harvested from across the web. This raises the possibility that some of them might be honeypots. If the list includes email honeypots, it is most likely to damage your sender’s reputation.
Misspelled addresses
Often people intentionally provide a misspelled email address when registering on a subscriber list. This is done to claim certain benefits.
These emails, when end up on email lists, and businesses repeatedly send messages to them risk being dubbed spammers.
Regardless of how email honeypots get into your list, it’s best to avoid them.
Wondering how?
Tips to avoid honeypot emails
Now that you know the risks, here are some smart ways to keep honeypot emails out of your list…
Avoid buying email lists
As mentioned above, buying email lists might come across as cheap, quick and effective, but the reality is far from that.
Rather, on the flip side, it is far more profitable and effective to build an organic email list through opt-ins such as a downloadable guide, template, or many value-driven ways. This ensures that you have obtained the consent of your subscribers, helping you gain high-quality prospects.
For better and more targeted emails you can segment your contacts, which will lead you to create content for personalized email campaigns and receive more user engagement.
BTW did you know? Buying email lists is banned in a few countries.
Apply a bot-proof double opt-in process or Captcha
CAPTCHA is a technology that enables you to repel bots from your subscriber forms.
And… Icegram Express has made it a no sweat task for many? If you haven’t enabled it yet. Here’s how to.
For a high-quality prospect database, you must employ an effective double opt-in process that establishes the fact that you have a legitimate email address rather than bots.
Compared to a single opt-in, where it is possible to immediately add a contact to your list, double opt-ins contain an extra step. This includes a confirmation link to confirm the subscription. A double opt-in requires the subscribers to receive a confirmation link after entering email addresses in your subscription form, they must click the link to complete the subscription.
This ensures that real people are signing up for their email lists, and it also helps when the email addresses are misspelled.
This includes an additional layer of security by removing the risk of incorrect email addresses and ensuring that you have engaged subscribers.
You can also add a reCAPTCHA on your website forms to prevent a spam bot from entering invalid email information. Double opt-in also ensures you comply with data protection laws when collecting email addresses and sending marketing communications.
Monitor email deliverability
Monitoring email deliverability is crucial to get the pulse of your campaign’s success. It helps you check the emails that were delivered, bounced, flagged as spam, hard bounced emails as well as if you are blacklisted.
Moreover, it allows you to put a finger at the reasons behind the causes and factors such as whether the emails sent to you have been fake or inactive addresses.
In such cases, it is apparent that you have been caught by a honeypot address.
Adhering to compliance or consent laws
Certain compliance laws might apply based on different locations; however, ensuring consent before sending emails is a universal ground for all of them.
Needless to say, if brands don’t have the receiver’s permission, brands must refrain from sending an email. Since honeypot emails don’t provide consent, following the compliance rules means that you won’t accidentally send emails to a honeypot email.
Maintain a clean email list
Follow the best email hygiene practices. This guarantees that your email list only includes valid and engaged emails.
This requires you to remove inactive subscribers every few weeks who haven’t engaged with your emails over the last three months. You can also trigger re-engagement campaigns for dormant subscribers and remove them if they continue to not respond.
List cleaning must be implemented based on the subscriber list. For those over 100,000, the list must be cleaned more frequently than six months.
If you are continually sending emails to an inactive account, it showcases that you must have acquired the address through shady tactics. You can also check for duplicate email addresses. Regular segmentation and updates based on user behavior and preferences to ensure relevance and user engagement is yet another aspect to note.
You can also maintain a clean list through automated clean-up tools. You must also focus on clearing out any hard bounces. Usually, most ESPs do that automatically.
Remember: It’s never too late to start if you haven’t been taking care yet.
Want to start re-engagement of email campaign?
What are the consequences of getting caught in a honeypot?
Email honeypots can do a lot more damage than what meets the eye. I am mentioning a few…
Getting added to spam lists
Sending messages to honeypot emails can lead the email service provider to tag your emails as spam and block your IP address from sending further emails.
As a result, the address can be added to the spam list, making further marketing communications difficult even if the business is legitimate.
Harms brand reputation
Brand reputation forms a major part of a business’s success. Once the business has its name associated with spam, the trust erodes and makes it hard for your customers to trust it, eventually leading to low sales.
Hence, the series of events turns out to be like a domino effect.
Not only is it vital to maintain your reputation for higher sales, but it’s also important for the domain you’re sending your emails from and the IP address of your email service provider.
Conclusion
Now, that you’ve got the hang of how email honeypot works, it’s time you plan how to keep your brand safe from it.
While it is a great technique to identify and block spammers, some legitimate businesses can themselves get caught in the trap if they cross paths with a honeypot email unintentionally.
Hence, to strike a balance, it is important to know how it works while also avoiding falling victim to it. Being safe from these emails begins with a tool that acts as a safety shield for your business.
Start today and keep your email sending secure with Icegram Express.
FAQ
Can email honeypots be integrated with AI-based spam filters?
Yes, AI-driven security solutions analyze data from honeypots to refine spam detection algorithms, improving their ability to identify and block evolving spam tactics.
Do email honeypots require constant maintenance?
Yes, to remain effective, honeypots must be regularly updated to avoid detection by advanced spammers and to prevent outdated traps from affecting genuine senders.
Do email honeypots increase false spam reports?
Yes, if security systems rely too heavily on honeypots, legitimate emails may be flagged as spam, affecting senders’ reputations and deliverability rates.
Do email honeypots slow down email security systems?
If not optimized, processing honeypot data can consume significant resources, potentially slowing down spam filters and delaying legitimate email delivery.