How To Escape The Spam And Promotions Folder In 2025

Hey there, Tarun from Milkshake🥤

Your emails aren’t underperforming, they’re just landing in the wrong folder.

If you’re emails are hitting Spam or the Promotions tab, you’re leaking revenue every time you hit "send."

Here’s the exact deliverability recovery process we use with 7-8 figure ecommerce brands to get their emails seen, clicked and making revenue again.

Let’s dive in 👇

Deliverability: Why It Matters?

You don’t get paid for emails sent. You get paid for emails seen.

Deliverability is the % of emails that land in the primary inbox, not Promotions, not Spam.

Here’s the ‘Airport Security Analogy’ we use with clients:

Your email is like a passenger at the airport.

Before it can get to the destination (inbox), it has to go through security checks.

If the passenger has:

• ❌ No ID = No SPF/DKIM

• ⚠️ Suspicious record = Poor sender reputation

• 💼 Shady bag = Spammy content

They get flagged and blocked from travelling (spam folder).

✅ Verified traveler = goes straight to the gate (inbox)

❌ Suspicious traveler = extra screening or denied boarding (spam/promotions)

If you end up as a suspicious traveler, here’s how you can get back on board (and back in the inbox) 👇

Step 1: Clean Your Bounces

Create a segment of anyone who has bounced more than 4 times in the last 90 days and then suppress them.

Bounces signal to Gmail and other ESPs that you’re careless or spammy.

Less bounces = better sender reputation.

Step 2: Check Your Unsubscribe Link

You need to make sure your Unsubscribe Link at the bottom of every email is easy to read.

This sounds counterintuitive but the reason is, if people can't unsubscribe easily, they'll just report you as spam - which is way worse for your sender reputation.

Ensure the unsubscribe link is:

• The same font size as the surrounding text

• Easy to find within the sentence

• Is easy to read and meets accessibility standards

Step 3: No Campaigns For First 2 Weeks

Don’t send any campaigns for the first 2 weeks and switch off all flows except for:

• Welcome Series

• Checkout Abandonment + Cart Abandonment

• Post-Purchase Flow - Only thank you/reviews (No cross-sell/upsell)

These are the highest engagement emails on your entire account, so for the first 2 weeks we only want these emails being sent.

Only continue to the next step if you hit these benchmarks during the first 2 weeks:

Step 4: Gradually Reactivate Flows

Activate next week's flow only if the previous flows had above average engagement metrics.

If the previous flows had below average engagement metrics, just wait till it reaches that stage and hold off activating any new sequences.

Follow this phased schedule:

Step 5: Restart Campaigns Slowly

Start by sending to 15 Days Engaged, then slowly increase the audience size for each
subsequent send if you hit the benchmarks.

• If your open rate is over 40%, expand your audience to the next engaged tier.

• If your open rate drops below 40%, stick with your current audience for the next campaign.

• If it still doesn’t recover, reduce your audience to the previous (more engaged) segment for the next campaign.

Use this Warming Plan as a guide.

Pro Tip 1:

Use Klaviyo’s gradual send feature to spread delivery over several hours. Helps avoid volume-triggered flags.

Bonus Tips:

• Send 2x/week consistently

• Keep emails visually engaging

• Avoid doubling send size too fast

• Review the Klaviyo deliverability tab monthly

Final Thoughts

To escape the Spam/Promo tab and rebuild inbox trust:

→ Clean your bounces
→ Fix your unsubscribe link
→ Pause & phase reactivation
→ Build warm segments
→ Scale slowly, with consistency

📈 Inbox = Revenue. Stay in it.

See you in the next one,

Tarun

PS: If you’re an ecommerce brand making over 50K/month and you want a free in-depth Email Marketing Audit, book a call with me personally here.