Most popular articles of 2007

As the year draws close to the end I'd like to share the top five articles of 2007;

1. Whats the best way to build reputation on new IPs? - September 7
2. When you move from one ESP to another... - November 28
3. Bounce handling - August 3
4. Monitoring Your Reputation - September 10
5. Are IP address portable? September 20

For the remainder of the year postings will be infrequent, but I expect to be back full force and publishing again in early January.

Thank you all for reading, have a safe and happy holiday.

In ad serving news...

Today Google announced that they have been given the go ahead from the FTC surrounding the purchase of DoubleClick.

Google Points to six main factors in this decision:

• Transaction was cleared with no conditions
• Google and DoubleClick are not competitors
• Third party ad serving markets are highly competitive
• Privacy not a part of the merger review
• Data combination wouldn't pose problems
• Advertisers and publishers aren't concerned

Read the full review if these items on the Official Google Blog. The last hurdle in this process is the go ahead from the European Commission, expected in the Spring on 2008.

BeRelevant interviews MarketingSherpa

Tamara over at BeRelevant interviews Stefan Tournquist from Marketing Sherpa on their latest metrics report that were recently published.

Listen to the interview here.

Several relevant Items are discussed; mailing frequency, removing inactive users and what are the largest concerns by marketers that responded to Sherpa's surveys.

Wisdom of 2007

Marketing Sherpa has released their annual Wisdom guide, the 5th to be exact, and its full of great tidbits on how to improve your campaigns and email programs. These are real examples of people making changes to their email campaigns and the differences that they saw.

Expect to read thing like;

• Donations are up by 50%, with very little effort
• Auto responders work, they gave us a 20% conversion increase
• and, Our Conversion was increased by 40%

Learn the lessons of Email Marketers, Bloggers and Podcasters, Search experts and Social Networkers.

Click here to get the 2007 Wisdom Report from MarketingSherpa. (pdf)

Symantec's 12 Days of Christmas Spam

Just in time for the holidays - some very common spam items put to song.



YouTube Link

SenderScore Blacklist Follow-up

Today I received a messages from George Bilbrey, VP and General Manager, for Return Path someone I have known personally for quite some time and who's opinion I respect. George has sent me some additional information and a number of points for clarification regarding the posting: SenderScore Whitelist or Blacklist? yesterday.

Here is what he has to say:

• The blacklist is based on more than the summary Sender Score on average, IPs on the blacklist have a score much, much less than 70.
• There is not a direct relationship between the blacklist and Sender Score Certified.
• You can’t buy yourself off the blacklist with Sender Score Certified and it is not possible to be on both the blacklist and qualify for SSC.
• We don’t pitch any of our services to folks who have contacted us because they have been blocked.

George also mentions that the data are used by both, the blacklist and SenderScore Certified, are pretty much the same (some additional data is supplied for the Sender Score Certified clients).

Please share your experiences, if you have any, with these services and the processes you encountered by leaving a comment or emailing to contact.

SenderScore Whitelist or Blacklist?

Well now its BOTH!

Reports are starting to appear about the new service being offered , as part of the SenderScore service package, to ISPs courtesy of Return Path... the SenderScore Blocklist.

Laura is reporting that Comcast is using this list to block email, along with the Cloudmark services. Talks also mention that Earthlink, and Charter have signed onto this service, along with many of their client hosted domains.

The list is monitoring the following items from their ISP partners:

• Complaint Rate
• Unsubscribe Issues
• Excessive Blacklisting
• Unknown Users
• Spam Trap Hits

Thus provided the providing the keys to which an ISPs can then filter or reject email, with the data supplied by the likes of; Hotmail, Earthlink and other choice partners.

So "What's the catch here?" you ask... Return Path also sells the answer - a Whitelisting service, known as SenderScore Certified, along with a whole suite of Delivery Assurance services. Hummmm...

Return Path product teams have yet to respond with any additonal product info after being asked earlier this week. If it is made available I'll make sure to share it here.

THINDATA | New Year’s Email Resolutions

My article in the ThinData Email Strategies is up...

Every January, there are a handful of familiar New Year's resolutions that you'll hear around the water cooler – ones that we can all relate to. Similarly, marketers are reflecting on the previous 12 months' programs to identify ways of improving performance for the year ahead.

Read the full article here and plan your resolutions wisely.

December's M20...

...or is that M40 now?

Peter Kim's M20 list for December has been published, and reads like a Who's Who of Marketing Blogs.

Maybe we'll make the list in 2008 ;)

Habeas Launches ReputationWiki.org

Habeas Launches ReputationWiki.org to Serve as Industry’s Leading Collaboration and Education Resource

Thought Leaders to Address Topics Related to Reputation, Compliance, Deliverability and Policy through First-of-its-Kind Global Community

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Habeas, Inc. (http://www.habeas.com/), the world leader in email reputation services, today announced the launch of ReputationWiki.org which will serve as a focal point to define and advance the growing field of reputation management.

ReputationWiki.org is intended to be a primary resource on topics pertinent to the ever-growing online ecosystem, including reputation, compliance, deliverability and policy. Through industry support of this collaborative initiative, marketing, sales and brand professionals can expand their knowledge, contribute to relevant topics and interact with their peers on issues that are important to them.

Read the full press release here.

Yahoo! and JetBlue - email SMS and IM

Yahoo! and Jet Blue partner to offer email, SMS and IM during your travels.

Service to offer some very cool features are available:

• WiFi-enabled laptops will find baisc email and messenger functionality is available
• Access to your Y! Address Book, text messages, and Yahoo! - Windows Live Messenger
• Updated status links to a map that lets friends on the ground track your flight
• and if you have a WiFi-enabled BlackBerry's will be able to assess the Y! services as well (without the celular feature active during flight).

Currently access to the BetaBlue service is on a limited (if your lucky type) access, watch for the Y! logo to know you have access to these services.

Happy flying...

Q&A | Email Authentication

Q: Dear EmailKarma,

Where can I find the most updated information on how to properly set up SPF records, Domain Keys, and DKIM? Also, would you know what the exact difference is between Domain Keys and DKIM?

A: The best locations for SPF and Sender ID information are straight from the respective project web sites.

• OpenSPF
• Sender ID

When prepairing to launch authentication for these two services it best to;

• Have your mailserver list ready and researched, and use the record wizard (SPF, SID)
• Roll out with a "~all" flag to test your configuration
• Move to a "-all" flag once your testing is completed
• Publish these records for all of your domains, don't forget your corporate domain.

As for the difference between Domain Keys and DKIM the project site dkim.org provides a great FAQ answering this question.

OneDegree | Optimizing Your Email List For Better Campaign Results

My Second article is up on OneDegree today and answers these questions:

• “How do we know that we have a good list?”
• “How do we maintain our list?”
• “How can we repair our list?”

Read Optimizing Your Email List For Better Campaign Results

AOTA | Email Authentication Survey

The Authentication& Online Trust Alliance (AOTA http://www.aotalliance.org/), is publishing an industry wide survey of solutions, services and products which support email authentication. The goal is to demonstrate leadership and commitment to this best practice as well as to serve as a directory for business and technical decision makers. We need your input by Dec 30th to be included in the report. The objective is to reinforce the importance of adopting email authentication technologies to enhance deliverability and consumer trust; and to emphasize the need for interactive marketers and brands to protect their properties from phishing attacks.

To be included in this directory, you will need to supply the following:

1. Company name
2. Product or service name (as applicable)
3. Web site (with link to any page reference to email authentication)
4. Support of the above mentioned solutions available as of January 1, 2008 (outbound as well as inbound)
   a. DK
   b. DKIM
   c. SIDF/SPF (Mail From vs. PRA)
   d. TLS

While the above data will be made public via the AOTA site, specific contact info will not be shared. A press released is planned to announce the publication of this directory along with other recommended best practices to improve and enhance the trust ecosystem.

If you would like to be included in the directory, submit the above data staff-at-aotalliance.org. The deadline to submit material is December 30th.

Please contribute to this if you can.

When ‘Best’ Practices Become ISP Law

Today MediaPost ran this article, When ‘Best’ Practices Become ISP Law, commenting on many of the best practices and requirements that are published by ISPs and their required sending practices for mailers. As with most best practices they gradually become common practices, and then requirements.

The list includes the following items (all of which we have touched on in the past):

1. Use double opt-in subscription
2. Don't pre-check the subscription box
3. Authentication
4. Purchasing lists
5. List hygiene

A handy list of ISP Postmaster and security pages are also included, we recomend you review these on your own and ensure your program conforms to each of the respective requirements.

Gmail and coloured Labels

Gmail adds coloured labels to the latest product update.

This is a great feature if your looking to organize your inbox and pick out those high priority notices and separate them from your average piece of bacn.

Effectivly using labels is easy to do and allows you to easily find messages on your favorite topics with ease. Easily identify your favorite blog (EmailKarma) by colour, look for keywords in your email ("Free Shipping") and flag them for quick and easy access, or just have a seperate place that acts as a folder for each of your friends and family members ("Mom" and "Dad").

How to use labels and update your existing archive:

1. Select the "Create a Filter" link - right side of the search box.
2. Enter a keyword to search for in one of the boxes provided
3. Use the "Test Search" button to see if you get the expected results, if not refine your search with additional options; To, Subject, Has the words, Doesn't have, and Has Attachment
4. When your satisfied select "Next Step >>"
5. Select the "Apply the label" option and select from an existing label or create a New label for this search.
6. Select the option to apply this to all found options "Also apply filter to # conversations below"
7. Then use the "Create filter" button to start the label process.
8. The last step is to assign a colour to your new label - from the inbox view your labels are visible on the left have side under your contact window. Beside each label you will see a grey box, selecting this will show you a colour chart where you can pick a new colour for each label.

Have a good organization tip for your inbox? Email them to contact or leave a comment.

* Image courtesy of official Gmail Blog.