Spam Traps

2 Types of Spam Traps

Internet Service Providers use SPAM traps to catch spammers. There are two types of SPAM traps:

• Recycled spam trap: Abandoned email addresses that haven’t been used for a long time. If you email these addresses, you are not following the best practices of email marketing.
• Pristine spam trap, “honey pots”: Email addresses are displayed on some websites, but they have never been used to subscribe to any email lists. If you email a honey pot email address, it clearly shows ISP’s that your list contains email addresses that did not specifically request to receive an email from you; therefore, your email is a SPAM.

To avoid SPAM traps, you must

1. Never rent, purchase a list, or collect email addresses from the internet.
2. Monitor subscribers’ activity and remove inactive subscribers.
3. Create interesting content for your subscribers in your emails
4. Use a bulk email-sending application and a good IP address
5. Make sure you authorize your email-sending application via SPF and DKIM settings
6. Verify your email list to remove any Invalid or Disposable emails

Can email verifiers remove SPAM traps?

NO! SPAM traps are one of the highest value assets of Internet Service Providers. Therefore, they will never publish, share, or leak lists of their SPAM traps. If they do, they will not use it for performance tracking anymore.

Be aware; it is false advertising if email verifier services offer you to remove SPAM traps from your email lists.

Email verifiers cannot remove spam traps. If SPAM traps were publicly available, they wouldn’t work anymore. Furthermore, no Internet Service Provider will ever share their SPAM traps with any email verifier because it is against their business principles.