Why are the emails that I send using Amazon SES getting marked as spam?

Last updated: 2022-09-30

An email that lands in a spam folder indicates that Amazon SES successfully delivered the email to the recipient's mail server. After the email is delivered, Amazon SES has no control over the email and can't guarantee inbox placement. Internet service providers (ISPs) use different mechanisms and algorithms to filter emails to place them in either the recipient's inbox folder or spam folder.

The following are steps that you can take to minimize the chances of your emails landing in a recipient's spam folder:

• Send high-quality email. Although you can't control the mechanisms that ISPs use to filter email, there are a number of ways that you can maximize your email deliverability. For more information, see Understanding email deliverability in Amazon SES.
• Authenticate your emails. When you authenticate your email, you verify that you're the owner of the account. To learn how you can authenticate your emails, see Email authentication methods.
• Monitor your Amazon SES sender reputation. Use the information from the reputation metrics page in the Amazon SES console to handle the bounces and complaints. Make sure that you maintain a bounce rate under 5 percent, and a complaint rate under 0.1 percent.
• If you use a dedicated IP address, then you can maintain your IP address reputation by isolating your sender reputation.

To learn more about best practices for sending emails with Amazon SES, see Tips and best practices.

If you followed all best practices and your emails still land in the spam folder, then contact the ISP for more information about their spam classification.