Email has become one of the most popular channels of marketing in the world. Advertisers are attracted to email marketing because it allows them to communicate directly with users and it is much cheaper and faster compared to direct mail advertising. In order to save money, more businesses are resorting to email marketing because it has the ability to acquire customers and maintain relationships with them.

One of the numerous advantages of email marketing is that within days of its establishment, results can be analyzed and necessary actions decided upon. The entire cycle of an email campaign is indeed much shorter than direct mail marketing campaigns.

Advertisers can utilize email strategies that are personalized and combine or align them with their traditional mail marketing plans in order for them to achieve campaign goals. Permission email marketing, or opt-in email marketing is a way of advertising where the recipient of an email containing an advertisement has given permission to receive it. It is an effective method, since in theory, the person who is about to receive the email is anticipating the advertisement, and therefore, he or she will not simply delete it and will take the time to read the ad.

There are several challenges faced by email marketing in the present. Many people are getting victimized by spamming. To offset this problem, the use of filtering and blocking software has proliferated immensely. In fact, most ISP's have implemented email security features that can greatly impact email marketing and its effectiveness.

The following suggestions should help advertisers avoid problems and maximize their campaigns:

1. Details should be provided for the lists When subscription links are accessed. For instance, when clicked links can lead into a page where users can see details on the kind of communication they will receive from advertisers. Instructions on what to do with the information should also be included.

2. Use double-opt in subscriptions Double opt-ins protect people who did not sign-up to a particular kind of subscription by alerting them if someone tries to send them unsolicited email.

3. Install security for mailing lists. At the minimum, lists should be password-protected. If possible, store lists somewhere that is not connected to the network. This will reduce the risk of getting hackers and viruses in the lists.

4. Avoid co-registrations. A lot of marketers are making use of co-registration to boost their lists, but what they do not know is that it is a very dangerous practice. Co-registrations offer users with forms from different web sites that offer to provide communications through email coming from various merchants that are related to different fields of interest. What users of this practice should know is that co-registering increases the chances of getting spam complaints from their customers.

5. Avoid using red flag words words like discount, free, special, bonus and other words that are often used by marketers for their emails. Email containing too many of these 'flag' words can quickly send an advertiser's message to spam folders. Advertisers can test if their email can get past the spam filters by creating an account in Yahoo, for instance, and then sending the email to an intended address, and check to see which folder the email winds up in.

While it requires a little more effort to implement these strategies, it is worth it in the end. With the proliferation of email filters and spam complaints, the advertiser needs to do everything they can to avoid having their email wind up in a SPAM filter, or worse receive a SPAM complaint.