Trump High spam rate

High spam rate hampers first Trump fundraising email

By LOUIS NELSON

Donald Trump’s campaign has bragged that the candidate’s first ever fundraising email was a record-setter in terms of money raised. But Trump’s email reached less than half of its intended recipients, and even fewer bothered to read the billionaire’s missive.

Data from email tracking firm Return Path shows 60 percent of Trump’s fundraising emails were kicked into recipients’ spam folders, according to a report from Ad Age. Only 12 percent of recipients opened the email and six percent deleted it without even opening it.

By comparison, Return Path’s data showed other emails from the Trump campaign are sent to spam folders at an eight percent rate, considered high relative to other email marketing.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Ad Age that the email generated $3.3 million in donations on Tuesday and an additional $3.4 million on Wednesday. In a separate email to supporters on Wednesday, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. said his father’s request had spurred a $2 million flood of donations in just 12 hours. Hicks did not immediately return POLITICO’s request for comment.

Return Path Senior Director of Research Tom Sather told Ad Age that the Trump fundraising email’s poor performance was likely a result of a change in domain. While previous emails had been sent from @DonaldTrump.com email addresses, the candidate’s fundraising push came from an @DonaldJTrump.com account. It’s that change in domain that likely sent the majority of the emails into spam folders, an easily-avoided mistake.

"These are things that professional email marketers prepare for," he said.