Changes at Excite, Iwon and MyWay

Today I receive a notice from the email administrator from Excite.com... Below is a summary of this update:

We are in the process of outsourcing our webmail to a company by the name of BlueTie. I don’t know how many of you have heard of them, so I have included the following links:

• http://bluetie.com/aboutus/index.php
• http://bluetie.com/aboutus/pressroom/pr2008-04-16-01.php
  

BlueTie will host our mail servers and the web pages. They will not handle our abuse or customer service. This will be maintained by us. They will be handling our spam filtering and white/black list. I do know, however, they do not have a feedback loop program. I have recommended that they do so and that it be in ARF format.

Therefore, as of the cut-over date, anyone who currently is whitelisted with us will no longer have this benefit. In addition, all feedback loops will cease. We expect email to start moving over within the next few days and it will take about a month to move everything.

What is the impact of this?

1. The current whitelisting and Feedback loops managed by Excite will cease to function over the next few weeks.
2. Monitoring delivery to the Excite, Iwon and MyWay domains will be critical to understand; rate limits, bounces and system delivery requirements.
3. Delivery issues should be addresses to BlueTie, while spam and abuse issues (only when your receiving email not sending it) should continue to goto excite.com to handel.
   

I will continue to post updates and progressing notes as I recieve them.

Evaluating ESPs

More and more I'm reading questions about finding and evaluating a new ESP, so I've reviewed a number of the answers and these links will be helpful in getting you through the process

* Competitive Analysis, Evaluating ESPs
* Switching Email Vendors
* Switching Email Vendors & Messing with Deliverability

If your looking for a new ESP you can find a very comprehensive list over at the Email Marketers Club Wiki; http://wiki.emailmarketersclub.com

Don't let this happen to you.

I received a "forward to a friend" message today from where the website used my wife's Hotmail address as the from as the sender, instead of their own domain. Can you tell what is wrong with this picture?

A little background. I use Thunderbird with the Sender Verification Extension (SVE) for some of my email. This extension allows mail sent to me to review and verifies the messages I receive with the following techniques; Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys (DK) to verify the sending domain, and SURBL, Spamhaus, DNSWL, and SenderScoreCertified for reputation information on the domain.

What is happening here?
Hotmail has stated that hotmail.com email will only originate from their system networks via their published SPF records. SVE is noting that this message has failed the SPF tests as it was sent from a mail server outside published hotmail network, in this case about.com's email network. This may cause a number of different issues, such as; bulk mail delivery, blocking of messages or spam reports by the intended recipient.

How do you rectify this?
Use your own static from address and have the proper authentication records configured and use the forwarders name in the subject of the message (ex: #FirstName# #LastName#, wants to tell you about...). Or for a more advanced configuration use a Resent-From address that allows you to configure authentication records for your mailing domain and have a visible from of the forwarded. Talk to your mail administrator to identify your best options and how to proceed.

Have any other tips; share them at contact or leave a comment.

Best Day of the week...

Reciently it was announced that Wednesday afternoon is the best day/time of the week to send email to subscribers... Guess what happened lots of marketers looked at this and said "I should mail Wednesday Afternoons". Moving forward your going to find that Wednesday afternoons are probably not so effective and another report will be published saying that some other day of the week will become the best day to mail.

The real trick here is that each email program is unique and the subscribers will all behave defirently. Take the time to find your subscribers sweet spot and you'll not regret it.

Here's how (assuming 1 M-F mailing per week):

• Segment your lists into a five groups send each segment the same offer but on different days of the week. This might need to be modified based on your mailing schedule or program needs.
• Alternate sending to these segments in the morning one week and the afternoon the next.
• Repeat this test for five cycles to give a good view of each segments performance on each day of the week:

M	T	W	T	F
1	2	3	4	5
2	3	4	5	1
3	4	5	1	2
4	5	1	2	3
5	1	2	3	4

• Review metrics from all mailings to determin the best day of the week to send "your" messages.
• For additional testing or targeting find the best day of the week to mail and segment into time alotments (00:00 - 6:00, 6:00 - 12:00, 12:00 - 18:00, 18:00 - 00:00).

Singeling out any specific day will potentially have negative long term effects on your email program. I guess you could say "The best day to mail is any day that ends in Y".

Share your results email them to contact or leave a comment.

Q&A | The possibality of collateral damage

Is there a possibality of collateral damage if the ESP I mail with has other clients with bad email reputaitons?

Will there be an impact on delivery if a sender with a bad reputation is on the same network as my server with a good reputation?

It is a possibility that your neighbour could cause you some pains along the way
if they are not tended to by your ESP. In many cases it depends on who is doing
the blocking and the number of bad actors on the same network.

The good news - for most ISPs they will notice the difference and act only on bad IPs. That is where your revers DNS is important - to show the distinct nature/sender on each IP.

Does this mean then that a unique sending IP address given to me by my ESP is not necessarily as "safe" as we might otherwise think?

Yes this is true, but new systems are being developed by the leading ISPs and
ESPs to help distinguish one sending entity from another. Systems like Domain
Keys (or Domain Keys Identified Mail) are able to distinguish the "sender"
reputation and begin the movement from IP reputation to a domain based
reputation system.

The possibility of collateral damage bounces is greatly reduced on an isolated IP address, especially when compared to that of a shared IP address.

How do escalating blocking systems work?

Systems like UCE Protect are a good example of an escalating block pattern.

Level 1 - Contains single IP addresses

Level 2 - Lists larger netblocks based on the number of listings in Level 1 (4 or more IPs in level 1 in the same network) with increasing size based on the total number of IPs listed.

Level 3 - Lists Networks with a lot of level 1 or 2 listings, possible listing an ASN (Multiple networks) of an ISP/ESP. (more then 100 IPs listed in Level 1)

For more on this discussion and others like this please join us on the Email Marketers Club.

Return Path | How to Impress the ISPs

JD Falk, Return Path's new Director of Product Management, Receiver Products, and fellow CAUCE Board Member, give some insight into getting your email delivered and the common themes and tactics that are commonly tried to get mail delivered.

• Tactics that may improve your social reputation with the ISP staff, but won't have any effect on whether your mail gets into the inbox
• Tactics that annoy the ISP staff, but still won't affect your deliverability in any way
• Tactics that will hurt your reputation with the ISP staff, and will also hurt your deliverability
• Tactics that will actually improve your deliverability, yet have no bearing on what the ISP staff thinks about you

The key note as JD says: "If your email subscribers are thrilled with what you are sending, you'll get through – no meat baskets required. And if too many of your subscribers call you a spammer, then all the free beer in the world won't help you."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Subscription Management

Earlier this week Ken Magill talked about B2C Direct Marketers finally seeing the benefit of opt-in marketing vs. opt-out. Ken talks about the shift from 23% of Direct Marketer sending opt-out in 2006 to only 14% in 2007. These numbers are even more impresive in the B2B world, a wopping 3.1% of these DM'ers are sending opt-out comunications, down from 16.7% last year.

Why the big drop? Mailing B2B is more complex then B2C, corporate filters are tuned to the needs of a business (thousands of people) and not to the consensus of a large ISPs user base (millions of people). B2C also tend to have additional rules or restrictions on their users and the acceptable use of company resources.

Inversley several people have been part of a discussion around password protected unsubscribes. Are these really necessary? Their doesn't seem to be a clear answer to this question. There may be some cases where you would want to have these options secure behind a login but I can see why can't a user simply say - don't send me any more email about this item without using a password? Forgotten passwords or frustrations waiting to receive these passwords will lead to more complaints, which in time may lead to blocking or filtering.

Send us an email with your thoughts or comments.

Too much of a good thing?

StuffMagazine must really love this subject line, "Ivanka Trump is hands down the world’s hottest boss. Plus: The sexiest belly buttons.", as they have used it in their last three mailings to subscribers:


I wonder how response rates are for messages like this, with the same subject line and virtually the same creative in each of these messages.

Does anyone have a similar story where the same subject line is used over and over?

Q&A: with Email Karma

Q: EmailKarma,

I'm helping some folks who are launching a alternative lifestyles website (not porn) and I wanted to let them know what they're potentially up against regarding email delivery. Would the word "lesbian" trigger blocking or triggers with major ISPs?

A: Generally the use of individual keywords will not cause your message to be delivered to the junk folder or just end up missing, it really takes a number of these types of words to have an impact. Spamassassin doesn't even have the word lesbian in their current SARE adult spam rules. Also working with an eRSP and an ESP will help get past some of these hurdles and achieve a higher level of delivery as these services will already be participating in ISP Whitelists and Feed Back loops.

The Keys to email delivery are rapidly becoming; Authentication, Reputation and Accreditation. Building and maintain a clean list will also be a big factor in a successful campaign.

Got a question for EmailKarma? Email them to contact or leave a comment.

E-mail crowned king of marketing media

Many times you hear people talking about the "death of email" and how social networking and Web 2.0 sites and tools are going to make email a thing of the past. With news like this it proves that email will still be kicking around for a long time.

Source: IT Business Canada: E-mail crowned king of marketing media
8/10/2007 6:00:00 AM by Neil Sutton

Image rich emails

Back in May the Email Experience Council wrote about Image suppression in the web clients for AOL.com and AIM.com and how you should expect to see a drop in open rates because of this.

Almost every web mail provider suppresses images for users by default now, and some email clients have been for years, and marketers need to understand how this will effect their communications to their clients. Your team should be coding each and every email with the idea that your images will not display. Use some of the tips provided in "Now you see them, now you don't" to help with image planning in email.

MarketingSherpa recently promoted a case study focusing on this exact issue. This study provided four key guide lines for using images in email resulted in a 41% increase in clickthroughs.

Email Marketing Reports also has a great resource for image related suppression.

Look to the tools provided by email Reputation Service Providers (eRSPs); Habeas, Return Path and Pivotal Veracity for content rendering test tools.

Placing Email Delivery Into Perspective

Today I was featured in ThinData's Email Strategies monthly newsletter, where I talk about "Four Critical Email Marketing Imperatives".

Here is the introduction to the article:

Last month ThinData published The Marketer's Guide to Successful Email Delivery; a white paper that helps marketers increase the number of email messages reaching their target audiences. Because The Marketer's Guide establishes best practices and includes an action checklist it is a strong support tool for marketers addressing email delivery challenges head on.

But where does The Marketer's Guide - and the delivery issues it addresses - fit in relation to other critical email marketing processes? Here we identify four key imperatives common to all complete email campaigns. We also highlight some recommended actions. Read the full article

Past strategies newsletters are also available here.

Switching Email Vendors

Carolyn Gardner over at Sitebrand posted a note today about the issues experienced when switching Email Service Providers and it's effect on your delivery. She points out that "with an increased rate of deliverability, you may also see an increase in the number of spam or abuse complaints".

This is very true and having worked with several different marketers in the past that have done just this here are some ideas to help with the pains you may experience;

• New IPs = New Reputation
• This is not always a good thing, having no IP reputation is in many cases just as bad as a poor IP reputation. To minimize the impact of this; keep the same mailing address, start with a ramp up program for your emails with your new provider, and consider some of the ideas discussed here for "keeping your list clean"
  
• New ESP = New Bounce Processing
  
• You may see your bounce rates changing as each ESP interprets inbound bounce messages received from an ISP differently. There are organizations working to correct this behaviour across the industry on both the sending and receiving sides.
  
• Different ESP reputation and contacts:
  
• Many of the large ESPs employ people to manage relationships with ISPs, Blocklists and mailers to ensure the continuing flow of email traffic from their mailing partners to the consumer.
• Different Reputation partners
• Many ESPs have partnered with one specific reputation provider, each of these providers has a different reach. Most ESPs will work with all reputations providers on request.
• Different campaign metrics:
• A click is a click right? Sure it should be, but some ESPs a click is also an open, find out how your new provider does this to help with your ongoing program metrics and measurements. Join EMACs to be part of the discussion around standardized reporting.

Switch providers recently and want to share some suggestions or pain points, Share them with us by email at contact or leave a comment.