[weaponofchoice]

"It's the only link that appears at the bottom of my emails."

Personally, I've noticed an increasing affinity for the 'tag as spam' button.

It takes a certain amount of effort to scroll down, and find the unsubscribe (I'm not even sure if it's there), vs. having my inbox cleaned up by just clicking the darn 'tag as spam' button -- dead easy. Also, there's the uncertainty about how daunting the unsubscribe experience might be. These days, quite many startups get their users to go through tedious surveys before they can unsubscribe completely. This results in a sticky association that's hard to undo: 'unsubscribe' is a hassle.

Are there ways around this?

How about a large button above the fold that says 'Don't mail me.', 'Junk!' or similar. Something that indicates they'll have their intended results: less of this sorta mail, and a cleaner inbox. On the other hand, this might result in more unsubscribes.

[singer]

Adding a large button to the top would certainly make it easier for those people who open the emails and want to unsubscribe. And I wouldn't worry about the increase in unsubscribers. I'd rather help people unsubscribe than have them mark my emails as spam.

I'm assuming that the majority of people are not even opening the emails though. Hitting the spam button is just too easy. I think the system is broken.

[singer]

@Nitrogen, that sounds like a different issue. But, yes, it could be an issue if you're sending email with confusing subject lines.

The comments at the following link show what I'm referring to -- people taking the easy way out: http://ask-leo.com/why_shouldnt_i_use_the_report_spam_or_jun...

[nitrogen]

I'm assuming that the majority of people are not even opening the emails though.

It's probably partly our fault: we geeks have been telling our friends and family not to open suspicious or unsolicited e-mails for years.