What are common spam types (commercial, scams, affiliate)?
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Most people think spam is just annoying newsletter clutter. But spam has distinct flavors, and knowing the difference matters more than you might think. If your legitimate emails look anything like the patterns below, spam filters won't give you the benefit of the doubt.
Here's how the main types break down.
Commercial spam is the oldest and most common kind. Someone got your address somehow and is pushing a product or service you never asked about. Think unsolicited pills, supplements, crypto signals, loan offers, and knock-off watches. It's annoying rather than outright criminal, but it's still a consent violation. A lot of commercial spam comes through harvested email lists scraped from the web without any permission from the people on them.
Scam spam is the dangerous category. The goal isn't to sell you something real. It's to defraud you. Common formats right now include phishing emails impersonating your bank or a delivery carrier, advance fee fraud (the classic "unclaimed inheritance" play), fake job offers asking for a deposit upfront, and sextortion emails that claim to have compromising footage and demand payment in crypto. Romance scams have also grown significantly, often starting with a misdelivered email that's actually a calculated opener. Older adults, small business owners, and anyone who recently posted a job listing publicly tend to get targeted more heavily.
Affiliate spam is the sneakier one. The product being promoted might be completely real. An actual supplement, an actual software tool. But the person sending the email didn't have permission to contact you and is just chasing a commission. This type often slips through filters because the landing page is legitimate. The problem is the method, not the destination.
From a deliverability standpoint, all three types leave the same footprints: unsolicited contact, high complaint rates, and patterns that spam filters are trained to catch. If your email cadence, subject line phrasing, or sending behavior mirrors any of these categories even by accident, you'll pay for it in placement. Filters don't always know intent. They know signals.
If you're worried your emails are getting caught in the crossfire, our free subject line tester can flag trigger patterns before you send. Or just reach out through the SOS hotline if something feels off.
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