Gmail flagging emails as spam due to "via phplist.com"

We want to use phpList for our newsletter, and specifically were very pleased to find phpList.com services, so registered and paid for a Plus account. However, in testing our first newsletter, all emails sent to gmail addresses are classified as spam, and Gmail says: Why is this message in Spam? We’ve found that lots of messages from phplist.com are spam.

I contacted phpList.com for help; they replied: “So far you seem to have only sent 6 messages, this isn’t really enough of a test. Getting started with a new email marketing software always takes a bit of time to get right, spam filters like gmail are very adaptive and unique to each email: I would suggest you need to start mailing your full list to get a feel for it.”

Which wasn’t very satisfactory: Gmail flagged all five of five test emails as spam, and I’d rather not send out my entire list and find out that gmail flags 100% of those, or even 50% of those, as spam.

So I’m posting here because I was searching this forum for suggestions for other phpList-friendly web hosting, and phpList.com is a common suggestion. Does anyone have any suggestions, either for other hosting options or to reduce/eliminate this problem with emails sent via phpList.com?

thanks much!
Dave

Hi Dave, usually email hosts base their spam policies on the reputation of the IP address used and the content of the message.

On phpList.com we manage a large number of IPs and assign them based on performance of the account, grouping similar accounts together.

You’ll be contacted today about options for your existing service.