Still, it really pisses me off, that whenever a message is sent, only
1 (One) subscribers finds it necessary to file a complaint, causing my
Acceptable Complaint Rate to rise to .68%.
!@#$$%#%&

Is there anything I can do about that? Kick him/her out?

Thanks for any great advice.

It’s hard to say for sure without knowing more about your subscribers/traffic and what kind of subscriber expectations (not only about what content you’ll be sending, but about how often you’ll be doing so) are being set in your form and welcome message.

Take a look at our Knowledge Base entry on spam complaint rates (first brown box in the above post) and what you can do to minimize them, and see how you might apply the tips there to your list.

As for seeming to get more of them on messages sent via AWeber as opposed to other platforms, that’s likely a question of reporting — other platforms you may be using may not report complaints from as many ISPs as we do! Unless you’re doing something different with your AWeber-managed campaigns than you are with other ones, there shouldn’t be any statistically significant variation in the number/ratio of complaints you receive.

Most of my mailings are to provide free content for people who have double-opted into my list. Only once in a while do I send promotional emails. Yet it seems the more I try to give people free, as a gesture of goodwill, the more spam complaints that ensue. This only happens using aweber for some strange reason and I use other mailing services that rarely if ever show spam complaints.

Can anyone advise me how to prevent people hitting the Spam button purely for what looks like fun or downright awkwardness. Surely if they sign up for free reports and I sent those free reports, the last thing I should expect is a spam report.

Can anyone help please as I am going out of my mind with frustration?

Thanks so much.

As part of the process AWeber uses to receive and report spam complaints, we do also remove the complaining subscriber from your list. This should help to prevent additional issues with repeated complaints.

Occasional or incidental complaints from one subscriber like this should not cause any deliverability issues. But if you see an increasing number of complaints for any given list, you’ll want to take action such as what is described in the above article.

I don’t know the specifics of your campaign or subscribers, so I’m speaking in general terms, but here are a few things that could cause your readers to lodge spam complaints about that email:

* Where/how they originally signed up to your list
* How long it’s been since you last emailed them
* (For migrating lists) whether you let them know about the move and the confirm email in advance of moving them
* Wording in the subject/body of the confirm email
* Your "from" address and name - do subscribers recognize it?

Your complaint rate will change over time (for example, as you send more email today/tomorrow/etc without complaints, that number will fall); the key is to do what you can to keep it low over the life of your campaign.

I’ve sent you an email; if you’d like to talk about the specifics of your campaign and how you might minimize your complaint rate, just let me know.

sooooo, how the heck could this be a reflection upon me or my company??? the "spam complaints" were direclty a result of the "aweber" opt-in e-mail i had to send out to my imported leads…?…kind of frustrating to think about this issue…

That’s certainly an approach that you might take, though it’s not one I personally recommend.

After all, not only would you be blocking people at those domains who might lodge complaints, but also people who might be good, qualified, engaged subscribers. Why penalize them for preferring to use a webmail address?

There ways to try and minimize spam complaints that don’t involve preventing anyone with an address at a major ISP like AOL or Hotmail from signing up.

For example, you might try a permission reminder ("you’re receiving these tips because you signed up at http://www.example.com on such-and-such date") placed at the top and/or bottom of your messages.

Or you might look at your signup process and make sure people clearly understand what they’ll be getting - and how frequently they’ll hear from you.

Or you might grab a free copy of our email deliverability guide for more tips and ideas on getting your email to the inbox

I have not done this yet but I’m considering it. This week I’ve had two spam complaints relating to a list that has only been in existence for 3 days. I really don’t want to be writing to people who will sign up to my list one day and report me for spam the next.

I knew, as I decided to publish a newsletter, that some readers would press the spam key to unsubscribe rather than take the "right route."

But that’s okay, because the masses who enjoy reading my news and respond by purchasing products and services is worth the effort.

If you’re an avid marketer, there’s no way you’ll allow the actions of the few overrule positive feedback from the many.