Introduction
Spam traps are email addresses that do not belong to real, active recipients. Mailbox providers and anti-spam organizations use them to identify senders with poor list hygiene or questionable data collection practices. Repeatedly sending to spam traps negatively affects sender reputation and email deliverability.
Understanding how spam traps enter mailing lists and how to prevent them is essential for maintaining long-term deliverability.
Overview: Types of Spam Traps
Spam traps typically fall into one of the following categories. Each type points to a different weakness in data collection or maintenance processes.
Pristine Spam Traps
Pristine spam traps are addresses that have never been used by a real person. They are created solely to detect unsolicited email sending or harvested data sources.
Recycled Spam Traps
Recycled spam traps are addresses that once belonged to real users but were later deactivated and repurposed. Sending to these addresses indicates that inactive or bounced contacts are not being properly removed from the list.
Typo Spam Traps
Typo spam traps are addresses created from common misspellings of popular domains (for example, gmial.com instead of gmail.com). They highlight missing or insufficient validation during data collection.
Note
Some addresses that appear to be typos may actually be pristine spam traps. There is no reliable way to distinguish between spam trap types at the individual address level. Deliverability tools can report overall trends but cannot identify specific trap addresses.
Best Practices to Avoid Spam Traps
The following best practices help prevent spam traps from entering your lists and reduce the risk of sending to existing ones:
Use double opt-in for new subscriptions
Require subscribers to confirm their email address before activation to ensure valid, permission-based signups.
Validate email addresses at the point of entry
Use real-time validation to detect typos and malformed addresses during signup.
Suppress hard bounces permanently
Remove addresses that generate hard bounces and do not reactivate them later.
Remove inactive recipients regularly
Spam traps do not engage with emails. Suppress recipients who have no opens or clicks over an extended period (e.g., 12 months). This process can be automated in Mapp Engage.
Avoid reusing old or external lists
Lists that have not been mailed for long periods or that originate from third parties are more likely to contain spam traps.
Focus on permission-based data
Prioritize verified signups and transparent consent practices rather than attempting to identify or manually clean suspected spam-trap addresses.
Data Validation Services
Data validation services can support ongoing list hygiene, but should not replace core best practices such as double opt-in and regular inactivity management.
Inline Validation
Real-time validation at signup helps prevent mistyped or invalid addresses from being entered into your database. Inline validation can be arranged through Mapp partners.
List-Cleansing Services
Periodic list-cleansing services analyze existing databases to identify invalid or risky addresses. These services are most effective when used as a supplement to continuous hygiene measures.
If you want to check whether spam traps have affected your sending reputation, Mapp can confirm this upon request via the support portal.
Consistent list hygiene does not eliminate spam traps immediately, but it significantly reduces deliverability risks over time.