Spamtraps: The #1 Trap Threatening Your Email Deliverability

Out of the 300 billion emails sent globally every day, 80% to 90% are spam. To fight this phenomenon, email providers and other organizations have set up trap email addresses.

You might even have some in your database without knowing it. Yet, the presence of spamtraps is one of the most crucial factors for your email deliverability.

So what exactly is a spamtrap? Why does it impact your deliverability? And how can you avoid it?

Béranger Mercier, Deliverability Manager at ShopiMind, answers all your questions and shares his top expert tips.

What is a spamtrap and how do your emails get caught?

Literally translated, spamtrap means “spam trap.” In other words, it’s an address you definitely want to avoid!

They’re created or obtained by email service providers (Gmail, Outlook, Orange, etc.) or blacklist organizations (Spamhaus, SpamCop, etc.).

These organizations use spamtraps to fight against spammers and senders who don’t follow best practices in contact management.

Spamtrap addresses often look just like real email addresses, making them nearly impossible to spot in your database.

The 3 Types of Spamtrap Email Addresses

Recycled Addresses

These are old opt-in email addresses that were once valid and then abandoned by their users.

After a long period of inactivity, these addresses are deactivated by email providers and then recycled into spamtraps to catch senders still contacting old inactive addresses.

Invalid Addresses

These are addresses that have at least one typo in the domain after the “@”. For example, “gnail.com” instead of “gmail.com,” “htmail.fr” instead of “hotmail.fr,” or “yaho.cim” instead of “yahoo.com.”

These are usually due to typos that may or may not be intentional by users when signing up. Email providers and blacklist organizations use these to verify the quality of your email acquisition.

Pristine Spamtraps

These are email addresses created from scratch by email providers or blacklist organizations exclusively to serve as spamtraps.

They never belonged to a real user and are not meant to receive any legitimate emails.

They’re generally published on public websites but hidden, ready to be collected by spambots that crawl sites looking for email addresses.

How Do Spamtraps Hurt Your Deliverability?

If you regularly send emails to spamtrap addresses, more and more of your emails will end up in the “Spam” folder until you’re completely blocked. You’ll see your results drop quickly.

In fact, depending on which type of spamtraps you hit, your sending domain and IP can be blacklisted. Your reputation can then plummet with email providers and blacklist organizations.

Pristine spamtraps are extremely dangerous and can get you blacklisted after your very first send! No email provider wants the reputation of accepting emails from senders who bulk-harvest addresses without user consent.

Recycled and invalid spamtraps are somewhat less risky. The former check your database’s activity, the latter assess the quality of your acquisition.

How Can You Tell If Your Database Contains Spamtraps?

It’s difficult if not impossible, to identify a spamtrap address in a database. Especially with recycled ones that actually existed or pristine ones that closely mimic real addresses.

With invalid addresses, however, you can use a filter to separate safe domain names (like “gmail.com” or “orange.fr”) from potential spamtraps.

Manual review is still necessary to avoid removing prospective clients who use their business domain name (like “companyname.com” or “association-name.fr”).

This method is best avoided for B2B, where most prospects use a professional email address, and is more suited to moderate-flow B2C e-commerce.

How Can You Avoid Spamtraps?

There are several best practices you should follow to avoid hitting spamtraps when sending campaigns.

Never Purchase Contact Lists

When buying a list, you have no way of knowing if the emails were collected properly. So there’s a good chance that you’re purchasing spamtraps. Don’t take the risk.

Target Only Your Most Engaged Contacts

Inactive subscribers add zero value to your campaigns, and some of their addresses might end up recycled as spamtraps. We strongly recommend targeting only contacts who have interacted (opened or clicked) within the last 6 months if you’re regularly hitting spamtraps.

Validate Your New Email Addresses

Use an email validation tool on your sign-up page to catch typos and non-existent emails before they make it to your mailing list.

Use Secure Forms with Captcha

By protecting your sign-up form with a captcha, you gain better control over your subscriber lists. You’ll prevent sign-ups by bots and thereby avoid potential spamtrap addresses.

Implement Double Opt-in

Double opt-in requires your customer or new newsletter subscriber to confirm their email address by clicking a link sent automatically after they submit the registration form.

By using double opt-in, you can be confident that an email address belongs to a real person.

It’s one of the most effective ways to catch typos and fake email addresses that might be spamtraps. Plus, it guarantees a community willing to click several times to confirm their interest—which means they’re more engaged and valuable for your campaigns.

ShopiMind: Your Deliverability Partner

Since its founding, ShopiMind has always made these three goals a priority: deliverability, conversion, and loyalty. To reach the first goal and boost your deliverability (and therefore your KPIs), ShopiMind has implemented several advanced features.

Invalid Address List

For your security, our mail servers automatically filter and block most invalid addresses (gnail.com; htmail.fr, yaho.cim, etc.). Our reference list is updated regularly.

Quarantine

We also quarantine invalid addresses that trigger hardbounces to reduce the risk of recycled address spamtraps.

Keep in mind, however, that no tool—not even ShopiMind—can catch every pristine spamtrap! While ShopiMind uses comprehensive lists, these will never be fully exhaustive given how many new pristine addresses are created daily.

The best way to safeguard your database is to be careful when collecting email addresses, as these spamtraps pose the most significant risk to your deliverability.

Dedicated Experts

The ShopiMind Deliverability Team is highly skilled and puts its expertise to work for our clients above all.

They are also in constant communication with the technical team to set up optimized infrastructures—thanks to constant monitoring of ever-shifting email provider requirements.

Conclusion

Take care with how you collect email addresses and automate list cleaning.

A list of a few hundred engaged customers is far more valuable than a list of thousands with hidden spamtraps!

Finally, don’t confuse deliverability with engagement. For real ROI, you also need to manage your marketing pressure and email personalization, relying on smart segmentation. That’s how you build customer trust and boost retention.

The Author

Deliverability Manager at ShopiMind, Béranger has a background in web development. He started out as an email developer before quickly specializing in deliverability.

With over 8 years’ experience, he has honed his expertise and deepened his understanding of email marketing filtering rules.

His main roles are guiding clients on email marketing best practices and optimizing technical infrastructures to achieve the best possible deliverability.

Glossary

Email Service Provider: A type of email host that provides servers so users can send, receive, and store emails from other organizations or users.

Hardbounce : An email permanently bounced back to the sender, usually due to an invalid address.

IP: The identification number for any device connected to a network using the Internet protocol. Here, it refers to the IP address used to send your newsletters and email blasts.

Blacklist Organization (RBL/DNSBL) : Also known as RBL (Real-time Blackhole List) or DNSBL (DNS blacklist). It’s a list of IP addresses or domains flagged as risky mail servers.

Spambot: Automated software (or “bot”) designed to harvest email addresses and/or send unwanted spam emails.