GetResponse and Aweber, popular autoresponder firms, allow users to scan their outgoing messages using Spam Assassin, the open source spam filter.
Here’s an article about using the program to clean up your own own outgoing emails or - at least - let you know what they’re looking for!
From ClickZ
We previously recommended running your e-mail marketing message through a content checker, whether a free or promotional service, third-party solution, or proprietary application provided in your e-mail service provider’s solution or in-house software, to spot and correct problems before you hit “send.”
These three strategies help you use the SpamAssassin tests to tune up your e-mail program the right way:
See your e-mail as SpamAssassin does. SpamAssassin breaks messages down into components instead of viewing it as all one piece: headers, subject and sender lines, body content, HTML code, pings on blacklists and whitelists, and so forth. You should adopt this manner of viewing e-mail and work to correct problems in each component, not just the components that affect you most, such as subject line or body content.
Test your templates. Your primary newsletter or promotional message may not be the only e-mail that gets tangled up in filters. Take all your e-mail templates: company newsletter, sales promotion, order or subscription confirmation, welcome message, complaint response, announcement, and so forth, and run them through the content checker with no body copy or coding beyond what the template requires. This solves two problems:
You can correct any problems in recurring code, content, and reputation areas that don’t get the same attention as your fresh copy. These include blacklisting, poorly constructed HTML code, and offending language in your footer area.
After this, you’ll run mostly fresh copy through the content checker. You can do this while you’re still in the production process instead of waiting for a complete message to be formatted. (This approach won’t help if you get added to a blacklist later, which is why you need to check your blacklist status periodically; see below.)
Use the checker with caution. Checkers provided as a free or promotional service on a company Web site may not be using the latest SpamAssassin version (3.1.0 in 2005), not configured to include the same tests an ISP corporate or individual mail server might use, or not assess the same point penalties. As a network administrator and ClickZ reader told us, he filters e-mail simply if it includes what he perceives as aggressive, spammy words such as “free.”
Bottom line: A zero or low score is reassuring, but it’s just a start. Review the content one more time. Check the IP address used to send your message against a blacklist clearinghouse like DNSstuff.com. Monitor your reply mailbox for any filter or block reports.
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