How can I tell my average spam rate?

With the upcoming changes to Google and Yahoo's sender guidelines, spam rate is now more important than ever. Sender guidelines suggest to keep all sends below a spam rate below 0.1% and require that they stay below a 0.3%, which has always been a best practice and suggested by Critical Impact.

Spam Rate is calculated by dividing the number of unique spam complaints by the number of emails delivered.

How To View a Spam Rate for a Single Send

Keeping an eye on an individual send is easy in your email tracking report. To view an individual spam rate:

1. Navigate to Reports > Email Tracking Report
2. Locate the "Complaint Rate" column. This column tells you the percentage of subscribers who complained about spam sending out of the number of successfully delivered emails.

How to View an Average Spam Rate

Keep in mind that an average is based on the length of time you determine, so a short time with a very high spam complaint rate and a longer time-frame will have a higher chance to reduce those spikes. High percentage outliers are very important to your campaign, though, and should always be taken very seriously.

1. 1. Navigate to Reports > Email Tracking Report
   2. Click Export to reveal a drop-down menu. Select either
      
      • Export All: This will allow you to see all of the data for the life of your account. If you select this option, skip to step X
      • Export within Date Range: This will allow you to select a date range for your data's average.
   3. Select your export/date options from the new window:
      1. Export: If you entered any search criteria, you can choose to export only those results by selecting Export: search criteria. The default option is to export without search criteria
      2. For Time Period: This will allow you to select a default time period or a custom date range using the date picker. The date picker will be grayed out unless you select the "Custom Date Range" option from this drop-down.
   4. Click the "Export" button
   5. Once your export has completed a new window will appear with a link to download it. Click the link and access your data.
   6. Use Excel or another spreadsheet program to select your date range and use the Average function for the "Complaint Rate" column.