We just helped a MailChimp customer with a little bit of a deliverability problem. He’s been sending campaigns without incident for years now (since July of 2004). He’d send a few thousand emails to his list, and get a 3% bounce rate. Pretty normal for a well-maintained list.
Recently, he sent a campaign that was nothing but one big graphic, with a little line of unsubscribe text underneath it. That campaign got a 26% bounceback rate. Ouch.
The reason? AOL blocked his campaign.
Today, he switched to a more traditional newsletter layout (with a better balance of text and graphics) and got a 2.2% bounce rate this time around. Much better.
As more and more spammers try that “image only” tactic, spam filters will adapt and begin blocking legitimate marketers who send image-only campaigns. Be especially on the lookout when you’re sending event invitations, because it seems most marketers make those one big image, with no text to balance it out.
I need to notify users about new files available for download on my site, and include just one small image in the email, SpamAssassin keeps showing 2/5 spam score because of it. Adding junk text that will drive away attention from main thing is not a good solution
Right, this is where you have to earn some credibility with your list, and make recipients “train” their spam filters to accept your mail. Long term proposition, but sometimes the only answer.