Fun things to know about Gmail

Here are a few things to know when your sending messages to Gmail.

1. All text that looks like a URL will be hyper linked even if you didn't intend it to be as the Gmail interface will make it click able. This could lead to additional and unexpected click thoughts that are not actually tracked in your reporting systems.
2. Users can create tagged aliases for your messages by adding +text after their user alias; example: "contact+test @ gmail.com". This is especially useful when testing co-registration sites to see where the address is being used.
3. Under the settings > accounts tab you can add additional reply or sending addresses to your account, this matches nicely with #2.
4. Auto sort your mail by building Filters and using Labels; Matches: subject:([Email Karma]) Do this: Apply label "Email Karma" for later retrieval and sorting.
   

For more fun and interesting things to do with Gmail read the official blog here

The dangers of opt-out marketing

Looking to build your list and can't think of a better way then opt-out acquisition?

Beware there are several things you need to consider.

It's better to have smaller lists with an engaged audience then a large audience that is only going to report you as spam for being irrelevant to them beyond the purpose of the contest (Shotgun vs. Rifle approach). This has a big potential to harm future messaging campaigns to your users.

I have seen the results of some of these opt-out subscription practises, and it's not usually a pretty result. Opt-in marketing should be considered as the minimum best practise for all acquisition programs. ISPs are demanding this and many of the largest ESPs are also pushing this practise.

Be aware of any relevant privacy laws you'll be running up against:

• PIPEDA in Canada
  
• The FTC's call for "very clear, very conspicuous disclosures" when advertisers are collecting Personally Identifiable Information (yes email is PII)
• New Zealand's New anti-spam law

Remember to always email responsibly; It's not the size of your list, it's how you use it!

Reclaiming old or lapsed users

Two recent articles have been discussed regarding the reactivation of older address on your file. This is a common way to build or pad your list with subscribers that might have been left behind at some point.

• First off Bronto published this paper on "Re-mailing:Targeting Those That Don't Open".
• MailChimp also discusses the "Reviving an Old Email List".

This is a very common thought line for marketers, "What about the people I haven't mailed to in over X months", sometimes as far back as 5 years.

A few words of caution about these types of reactivation mailings.

1. Use a subject line and body that tells people "We haven't talked in a long time", don;t just add them to your regular mail stream
   
2. Make the first contact an Opt-in (very important!)
   
3. Make them an offer they can't refuse
4. Sunset non-responders and remove all Bounces permanently
5. Mail in batches, newest names on file first and work toward the oldest...
   
6. Evaluate performance and stop once the ROI is too small to continue or the bounces and invalids increase beyond acceptable limits.

Recovering existing customers is generally an easy group to target when you deal with extra care and considerations.

Page 9 of DMN.ca

Ok it's not Front page but it'll do.

I have a story published in DMN's September issue (pdf) on Page 9, about ThinData's "The Marketer’s Guide to Successful Email Delivery" (download) whitepaper.

If you have not read it yet, I'd recomend it - I might be a little impartial though, I wrote it.

Q&A | Are IP address portable?

Q: Hello EmailKarma,

Are IP address portable? If you are thinking of moving hosting facilities and have built your reputation on your IP address that is owned by a telecom company – how do you suggest handling this? If you can’t take your IP with you, how do you take your reputation with you? Any insight would be great.

Best,
Nancy

A: After doing some research and talking with some other delivery experts to get their opinions on this, here is what we are able to suggest.

IP addresses are only portable if you "own" them (were allocated them by ARIN or RIPE or whoever). To get IPs that you own and could move from one provider to another you would need to be using at least a /21 (approximately 2,000 IPs).

A few ISPs (Hotmail specifically) have said, that they are now able to transfer reputation between IPs if they are published in the same authentication records with the old ones and that you continue to send email from. After your reputation is established you remove the old from the record and keep the new ones in there while you use the new system or IPs.

There was also discussion about the benefits gained from the reputation of your Domain Key (or DKIM) selectors and mailing history, that allow you to move reputation based on these keys and the past performance associated to them. Basically if an authentication technique can be tied to a domain and the reputation is based on that domain, then reputation should be portable. The problem is that, most reputations systems are still evolving and many still focus on the IP address.

Early in September EmailKarma answered the question Whats the best way to build reputation on new IPs? Using these suggestions and migrating your mail from one Network paired with the information above will give you the best results for moving your reputation from one IP address to another.

Do you have a question for EmailKarma? Email them to contact or leave a comment.

Special Thanks to Steve, Dennis, and Jeff for their insight and opinions

Nearing 300 and some news

The Email Marketers Club has been experiencing explosive growth over the last couple of weeks jumping almost 100 members... Not a member yet drop by and request your invitation to join in the conversation.

A few other headlines of note:

Do you know how to land a customer? From Email to Conversion

Getting consumers to act on your messaging.

Goodmail Loses Another Top Executive - Direct

A second CEO to leave in last 4 months... what does this mean to Goodmail

Microsoft selects Datran Media for e-mail marketing services - DMN

The same Datran Media that defended itself against New Yorks Attorney General Eliot Spitzer by saying that "it had no way of knowing that the email addresses it bought were the product of any misdeeds"

Denise Cox discusses the pitfalls of Acronyms.

Don't lose your customers attention by shortening your copy by a few letters and hoping that your readers will understand who you are.

More on Proactive User Relationship Building

Following up on Fridays Proactive User Relationship Building, there are a few additional things that should also be done with these type of relationship building messages, especially when warning users about phishing attempts on your brand:

• Explain where your messages will be coming from; we only send promotional email from this address - newsletter@email.marketer.com and purchase notices from purchases@email.marketer.com
• Explain how your links should look like - http://links.email.marketer.com/URLEncoding... Ensure your using branded links and not a link to your providers link redirect site
  
• Explain your mailing frequency; We only send you messages on Monday afternoons and after you purchase something on http://shop.marketer.com
• Add a notice on your home page about these kinds of fraud attempts, ensure this notice is linked to on the checkout, shopping chart and privacy pages of the website (basically anywhere you ask for sensitive information).
• Explain what you have done to safe guard your email; We use the latest forms of email authentication and web encryption services to ensure our messages and networks are secure and protect your information
• Provide a resource for questions or an FAQ your subscribers can check and ask questions

Do you have any other ideas; share them with EmailKarma or leave a comment.

Q&A Follow-up on reputation building

EmailKarma received this comment today from Kelly over at Sitebrand regarding the post "Q&A | Whats the best way to build reputation on new IPs?"

Q: What is the effect of not ramping up an IP - say if you do not have the volume needed? Can it still be done on a smaller scale?

A: Hi Kelly,

Building reputation on smaller lists is sometimes a challenge due to their smaller volume or an infrequent mailing schedule. Not to say it wont happen, reputation can and will be built but for smaller operations, it may just take a little longer. The only true way to build reputation is to send email, other programs like Habeas' Safelist, or a well known ESP, will help you overcome many of these challenges or accelerate the reputation building process of a program.

What becomes more important for smaller lists is the quality and relevance of the messages that are being sent:

• Low number of inactive accounts
• Low number of spam complaints or spam traps
• Authentication and White listing
  
• Consistency of sending; meet your deadlines and send regularly

The effect on a reputation that is not built correctly or has turned in a negative way:

• Limits on number of message per connection/hour/day
• Junk/Spam folder delivery
• Grey listing or temporary rejections of IPs for predefined periods of time
  
• Mail blocking or blacklisting

Do you have a question for EmailKarma? Email them to contact or leave a comment.

Proactive User Relationship Building

As phishing becomes more of a challenge, thanks to services like Phishtank, criminals are looking for alternate targets, outside of your Paypal/eBay or bank account information. I would expect to see more notices and information like this...

Yesterday the Futureshop sent this notice to their email subscribers. This is a grate example of building a relationship with relevant and punctual information to help protect and build trust with your organization.

I would only recomend the following to complete the loop; 1 - add a notice on your home page about these kinds of fraud attempts, 2 - ensure this notice is linked to on the checkout, shopping chart and privacy pages of the website (basically anywhere you ask for sensitive information).

It's not ok! Will the Real Spam Please Stand Up?

Mark over at 'No man is an iland' ran this story this morning, mentioning several delivery experts that made comments on a blog post by Kevin Stirtz, on September 13th, about sending unsolicited communications to recipients.

These posting and other comments left on this post prompted the following update from Kevin.

Keven also took the time to respond individually to each of these original posts and give further clarification to his methods... You can see these response by following the links above.

ESPs everywhere

Over at the Email Marketers club we started a list of commercial Email Service Providers (login required) from around the world. Who knew there were so many?

So far the list contains well over 100 ESPs from; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the USA.

The list is growing everyday.

Drop by request an invitation and join the conversation.

Q&A: CAN-SPAM and the email "From"

Q: Dear EmailKarma,

Is it always necessary to say the offer is an advertisement in the subject line or are you still compliant if you say “special offer from an advertiser” in the body of the email? Is it necessary to state it in both body and subject line?

Currently all our special offers have a generic ‘from’ address or "advertiser@newsletterdomain.com". I’m wondering what the best way is to display a ‘from’ address when you are a newsletter sending a special offer from an advertiser. Would we still be CAN-SPAM compliant if we use the advertiser’s name such as: CorpBrand@newsletterdomain.com, or adv.CorpBrand@newsletterdomain.com?

Thanks,
FromQ

A: Hello FromQ,

Please do not take this as legal advice only EmailKarma's interpretation. For legal interpretation of your specific case, EmailKarma recommends you engage your companies legal council for a full review of the messages your sending

A couple different questions here today.

First: Identifying messages as advertisements.

CAN-SPAM reads that a "clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation" is required only if the sender is lacking the affirmative concent of the individual that they are sending email to. Sec 5(a)(5)(A) (i) and 5(a)(5)(B)(A)(i). There is no guidance on the location of this notice only that it must be "Clear and Conspicuous" - Recommendation: Top/centre of the message body.

Second: The From Address.

Being as clear as possible with your from address is key to getting your message delivered. The ESPC released the following information showing how powerful your from address is when delivering to consumers:

80 percent decide whether to click on the “Report Spam” or “Junk” button without opening the actual message;

• 73% base the decision on “FROM”
• 69% base the decision on “SUBJECT”

Using easily recognizable from name will help with recognition and will generally help by lifting interaction with your messages, and reduce complaints from unrecognized messaging. Generally I recomend using your brand, where the consumer opted in (whenever possible) on the left side of the email and the left most part of your subject line.

Like this:

• From: CorpBrand@newsletterdomain.com
• Subject: CorpBrand newsletter

Hope this helps.

Do you have a question for EmailKarma? Email them to contact or leave a comment.

Where did it go?

Has your email to Hotmail gone missing like this?

Here are some of the reasons why your mail to Hotmail might end up being blocked, bulked or discarded:

• Lack of or failure of SID/SPF records
• IP address reputation
• Content filters (MSFT Smartscreen)
  
• Brightmail

Here are some suggestions on fixing these issues:

• Fix your authentication records
  
• Try testing your delivery again; often now you'll get to the bulk folder which is an upgrade.
• If our still failing this test neutral content and from line from that same IP. That often points you to IP reputation as opposed to content.
• Lastly follow these instructions on how to fix your IP reputation

If this still fails you review your reputation and keep your lists clean.

Are you sending too much email?

CBSSports thought that they were and initiated a major list cleaning, by asking their subscribers how much email they wanted to receive.

In April, CBSSports began re-opting subscribers who had been inactive for six to nine months. The process was finished in August. Each inactive subscriber received two messages: a notice and a final reminder.

This is an example of a company seeing the value of email and at the same time realizing the potentially overwhelming volume that they might send to their subscribers.

For more list cleaning ideas see Keeping your lists clean.

Source: Magilla Marketing

Monitoring Your Reputation

Many questions are currently being asked about monitoring your email reputation and how to go about this.

Here is a short list of way you can keep track on your own:

• Feedback loops - A service offered by a number of ISPs to notify a sender when users are reporting mail as spam or junk. Most ESPs have these already in place for their clients. Each ISP has threshold that they watch for in regards to excessive complaints from their users. Among the ISPs offering feedback loops are; AOL, Hotmail, Outblaze, Road Runner, United Online, USA.net and Yahoo!
• Microsoft’s Smart Network Data Services - This service provides a summary of how each of your IP addresses looks to Hotmail. Providing details on; number of message attempted, number of message accepted for delivery, Filter Status, and spam traps/complaints.
• Filtering companies offering reputation sites; Ironport’s Senderbase, Ciphertrust’s Trusted Source service.
• Companies like Habeas, Lyris, Pivotal Veracity and Return Path offer services that rate reputation with a score and a services that measure how spam-like your messages looks to receivers.
• Legal compliance monitoring from Lashback helps track Third party affiliates and your own marketing messages for several different legal or contractual violations.
  

Many ESPs have partnered with one or more of these companies to monitor your mail streams. But if your not using an ESP or wish to monitor these on your own, these tools are available for your use and some are free to use.

The hard part is understanding how to understand all of the data your being shown and taking the proper actions to build or fix your reputation.

Q&A | Whats the best way to build reputation on new IPs?

I saw this question posted to the Email Marketer's Club today and I could not help myself, I just had to answer it here.

Q: Whats the best way to build reputation on new IPs?

A: The best way to build reputation, or to repair a reputation, on an IP address is to send small amounts of email to the ISP your working to build reputation at. These numbers have varied across the ISPs but you can be safe by starting with a few thousand message a day (<5,ooo) after a couple of days or a week you should double this and then double again after another week. To build a proper reputation on an IP address between 50 and 100 thousand messages need to be sent and monitored by an ISP, approximately 3 business weeks mailing daily

ISPs measure the following;

1. Number of unknown users attempted
2. Number of spam/junk reports from recipients
3. Number of spam trap or long inactive (12+ months disabled) accounts that are being attempted
4. Number of concurrent connections attempted from one mail server.

Key items to note:

• Send relevant and permission based emails
• Send only to live addresses, remove invalid account immediately
• Monitor ISP feedback loops for high levels of user complaints
• Frequent mailings (daily) in smaller batches than less frequent and larger campaigns
• Authenticate your messages with SPF/Sender ID and DK(IM)

Do you have a question for EmailKarma? Email them to contact or leave a comment.

OMMA Finalist Announced

On September 5th the OMMA Award finalist were announced. The OMMA Awards honour the brand marketers, agencies and content providers who continue to push the potential of online advertising creative. These Awards celebrate the year's most innovative and brilliant creative work in 20 categories ranging from; Video, Gaming, Banner and Email programs.

I'm proud to see that ThinData is on the list of finalist under the Category "Email Campaign".

NZ: Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act

Today the New Zealand 'Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act' goes into effect.

Read this short checklist from Scoop:

Step 1- CONSENT - You need the consent of the email recipient in order to send them email messages:

• Express - Direct indication that it is okay to send messages
• Inferred - The person you wish to contact has not directly instructed you to send them a message, but it is still clear that there is a reasonable expectation that messages will be sent (i.e. purchase orders)
  
• Deemed - Someone conspicuously publishes their work related electronic address or mobile number (i.e. on a website, brochure or magazine). Unless otherwise indicted by the publisher
  

Step 2 - IDENTIFY - Commercial emails must always clearly identify the business responsible for sending the message and how they can be contacted.

STEP 3 - UNSUBSCRIBE - Commercial emails must contain a functioning unsubscribe facility.

Are you ready?

Archived Web Browsers

Here is a big tip for web developers and anyone else that is involved with email rendering and testing.

Imagine testing with legacy versions of IE (4, 5, 6) for rendering with your email or your landing pages, having to reconfigure your system each time to have the proper browser installed (because you can only have one installed at a time). Well say good by to virtual machines, or managing separate systems to view all of these different versions. The people at this site looked at the code behind the browsers and made them work independently from the Operating System. Without reinstalling your systems core browser you can run IE7 and IE 6 and IE 5 all at the same time!

You can find all the old school IE’s at http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone or download a number of other browsers at http://browsers.evolt.org/