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

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After Amazon SES successfully delivers the email to a mail server, an email might end up in a spam folder. SES can't control how a delivered email is processed and can't confirm placement into an inbox if the email is marked as spam. Internet service providers (ISPs) also use mechanisms and algorithms to filter emails to place them in either the recipient's inbox folder or spam folder.

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Follow these steps to minimize the chances that your emails land in a recipient's spam folder:

• Send high-quality email. Although you can't control the mechanisms that ISPs use to filter email, 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 own 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 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 isolate your sender reputation to maintain your IP address reputation.

To learn more about email best practices with Amazon SES, see Tips and best practices.

Note that third-party email security providers or vendors can modify email headers after you send them. If you followed all best practices and your emails are still filtered as spam, then contact the ISP for more information about their spam classification.

Related information

How email sending works in Amazon SES

Bounce and complaint rates