What actions count as negative signals (deletes, spam reports, ignores)?

Not every email you send gets a warm welcome. Some get deleted without a second glance. Some get reported. Some just sit there, unread, forever. And filters notice all of it.

Here's a breakdown of the negative signals that influence how filters treat your mail, roughly ordered by severity.

Spam reports are the most damaging thing a subscriber can do. When someone clicks "Report Spam" or "Mark as Junk," that signal goes directly into the mailbox provider's reputation system. Gmail and Outlook both aggregate these reports across all users sending from your domain. Even a small uptick matters. A spam complaint rate above 0.08% will start hurting your inbox placement with Gmail. Above 0.3% and you're in serious trouble.

Moving to spam from the inbox is just as bad as clicking the spam button. It tells the filter that it made a wrong call putting your email in the inbox. Enough of these corrections and the filter adjusts its model, often against you.

Deleting without opening is a softer signal, but it adds up. When someone consistently trashes your emails without reading them, filters read that as indifference at best and mild annoyance at worst. One delete is nothing. A pattern of deletes from many recipients across your list is a different story.

Never opening at all is the slow burn. A subscriber who has never clicked, never opened, and never moved your email anywhere is still sending a signal. Their inaction tells the filter your emails aren't worth the inbox. Over time, unengaged subscribers drag down your sender reputation simply by existing on your list.

It's worth noting that these signals work differently depending on the platform. At the mailbox level (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo), negative signals feed into your domain and IP reputation scores. Your ESP also tracks complaints and bounces, and may throttle or suspend your account if rates get too high. These are two separate systems, but both matter.

The practical takeaway is that most of these problems trace back to the same root cause. You're emailing people who didn't ask for it, stopped caring about it, or never got value from it in the first place. A solid sunset policy and regular list hygiene cuts your exposure to all of these signals at once.

Still if your complaint rate is already climbing, it's worth getting a second set of eyes on your setup. Our SOS hotline is free and we'll tell you honestly what's going on.