Marketing emails are great to receive in your inbox. These emails provide you discounts, tell you if you left something in your cart by mistake, provide relevant content and information you need, and so much more…and then there’s SPAM – the emails you don’t want, or didn’t sign up for in the first place.
SPAM can be time-consuming and data-consuming, but also a possible security risk to you and your company. Here are some quick and easy ways you can avoid getting SPAM in the first place!
11 Tips to Avoid SPAM
1. Don’t provide your email address in sweepstakes at your local shopping center. Alternatively, you could provide an email address (disposable or throw-away email address) that you know will get SPAM.
2. Avoid posting your email address in questionable public forums. Even legitimate forums may have a roamer looking for email addresses.
3. If you don’t want emails coming at you constantly from your local politicians, don’t provide an email address when you register to vote.
4. Don’t use your email address as a login to a website; if possible, use a non-descript username you can remember.
5. If you receive a legitimate marketing email, there should be an Unsubscribe button or link on the top of the email. Utilize this to remove yourself from their email list. This is required by law – just be careful doing this to companies that may not be legitimate (such as emails you know that you didn’t sign up for) as they will use this unsubscribe request to know they have a “live one” and will then sell your email address to others and illegally send you SPAM.
6. Certain email programs like Gmail will automatically filter SPAM messages into a SPAM folder. (If you find the emails legit, you may want to remove them from your SPAM list.)
7. Phone operating systems will also detect if an email is SPAM and will provide you an option to remove or unsubscribe at the top of that email.
8. Google your email address. You may find lists, directories, and other databases that contain your email address. Request this information be removed. There is usually an opt-out somewhere on these types of sites.
9. When asked for your email address while signing up for an account, there may be an opt-in checkmark under the email address asking if you would like offers. Make sure you keep that unchecked, or if it is pre-checked, make sure you uncheck it.
10. Never buy anything from a spammer. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
11. If you do get SPAM email from an illegitimate company or individual (you can usually tell on the “from” or even the subject), don’t even open it. Mark it as spam/junk and delete it; don’t forget to empty your trash or deleted items.
How RTI Can Help
As mentioned before, SPAM can get you or your company into lots of trouble if your email address gets into the wrong hands, especially if a phishing email or email containing a virus is sent to you. Proactive avoidance to these issues is one of the many reasons to have RTI and our team of IT professionals on your side. No company can prevent all SPAM or threats but having RTI on your side will give you peace of mind and help ensure you and your company can overcome these concerns if they should happen to you.
Date Posted: 5/6/21
Date Last Updated: 5/7/21
By: RTI Marketing Team