And we're back... Blog updates

After a nice short Stay-cation (stay at home vacation), to celebrate my 3rd wedding anniversary, I'm back and ready to go.

To get started back up here are two new blogs for you to monitor;
1 - SenderScore Certified System Status blog, brought to you by Return Path
2 - The BusinessCast Podcast, a weekly educational podcast - for SMBs - that I have been featured on twice now, once for Email Marketing and once for blogging for business.

Tamara from BeRelevant! also shares with us her Email Marketing Blog links there are some really good finds here.

Also if your on Facebook, Drop by the new EmailKarma.net Blog Network or our Fan Page. Better yet - drop by both. ;)

Also be sure to check out the new look of Facebook.

AOL Announces new Support Tools

Today on the AOL Postmaster Blog they announced a new set of "Web Support Tools" these are currently in Beta, so don't expect everything to be perfect while using them, but I expect few issues as these are well tested before getting to Beta.

From AOL:

The AOL Postmaster Team is pleased to announce the beta of our new web support tool for delivery issues. Please feel free to test it out and give us your thoughts and feedback. We hope it will provide a way for mailers to get help and resolution more quickly than ever before!

It must be stressed, though, that this is just a beta, and problems could arise.

Give these tools a try and post some feed back to AOL or leave me a comment and I'll pass them along to the right people @ AOL.

The tools look like they are split into the three most common support requests made to AOL (at least from my experience):

* FBL Modification/Deletion Request Tool -- FeedBack Loop tools
* RTR/RLY/DNS Block Removal Request Tool -- General Configuration Type issues
* HVU Inquiry/Removal Tool -- Spam Blocking issues

For a full list of errors returned during email delivery by AOL, check out their "Error Messages" list.

Yahoo! announces Yahoo.in

Received word today from Yahoo!'s Postmaster team that a new localized domain, for India, will be coming online.

New mail users in India will now be designated with an @yahoo.in email address. Users who have mail accounts with Yahoo! India prior to this transition will continue to use their accounts ending in @yahoo.co.in.

This coming shortly after the announcement for Ymail and Rocketmail. As with all Yahoo domains this should continue to be managed by the mail team located in California and under the same anti-spam, rate limits and white listing services.

Still no updates from Yahoo on the pending changes to their Feedback loops - new applications are still on hold.

Should I certify my emails?

A great post by Mark today over at Email Marketing Reports, and I'm not just saying that because I was quoted in it. Mark answers several key questions around certified (or accredited) email messages and programs including;

• What is my current deliverability?
• How does improved deliverability help?
• Does certification make sense?
• Who are the prime candidates for certification?

Mark mentioned there may be more articles related to this topic so keep an eye out for these, I'll add them to my del.icio.us feed (ensure you get this feed via RSS or email subscription - to the right).

One Degree | Ensuring Your Email Complies with Relevant Laws

My latest OneDegree article is now available:

Ensuring Your Email Complies with Relevant Laws
OneDegree Today at 8:14 AM

By Matthew Vernhout

Your email campaigns are growing and you're having great success!

But did you realize that as your email marketing programs grow in complexity and reach, you need to follow the regulations mandated by the jurisdictions in which your clients and their mail servers are located? This is news to many marketers who are not used to following rules that fall outside of their immediate regional or national borders.

Full Article can be read here here.

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.

Yahoo! Announces Global Availability of Two New E-mail Domains

World's largest e-mail service gives people the chance to get the e-mail address they've always wanted with the launch of ymail.com and rocketmail.com

Sunnyvale, Calif. – June 19, 2008 – Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) today announced the global availability of two new e-mail domains that will give users the chance to register for the e-mail address or Yahoo! ID they have always wanted. People can finally say goodbye to CutiePie4Ever80 or mattclark1977@yahoo.com and get a new Yahoo! e-mail address at ymail.com and rocketmail.com.

Yahoo! Mail is the number one Web mail service in the world with more than 260 million users worldwide¹. As a result of its global popularity, many desirable e-mail addresses have already been taken for the yahoo.com domain, as well as for localized versions of the namespace in countries around the world. With the two new e-mail domain choices, Yahoo! will make millions of new e-mail addresses available to the online community.

Yahoo! recently commissioned a survey conducted by Harris Interactive^® to determine what online adults look for when choosing an e-mail address and found some noteworthy results:

• The majority of online adults (59 percent) consider the most important attribute of an e-mail address to be that it is easy to remember.

• When asked if they could choose any e-mail address for personal use, seven in ten online adults (70 percent) would opt to have some portion of their name included – 31 percent would want their last name included, 27 percent would choose their first name, while 28 percent would prefer to have their nickname as part of their e-mail address.

• Of online adults who indicated that they are not currently using their first choice e-mail address, over half (54 percent) agree that they want their e-mail address to reflect who they are, and about half (48 percent) would be at least somewhat likely to change addresses should their preferred choice become available.

"We recognize that people want an e-mail address that reflects who they are,whether they are signing up for an e-mail address for the first time, or simply updating their e-mail pseudonym to reflect the stage they are at in life," said John Kremer, vice president, Yahoo! Mail."We are thrilled to be able to offer new Yahoo! e-mail domain choices to Internet users, along with the same great Web mail experience that hundreds of millions of people have already come to expect."

E-mail addresses at the new domains will have the same great Yahoo! Mail features as addresses at the yahoo.com domain, including:

• Unlimited storage – Yahoo! Mail provides all users with free unlimited e-mail storage²

• Integrated Instant Messaging and Text Messaging – Users can connect in real-time to their contacts with Yahoo! Messenger or Windows Live® Messenger and send text messages to friends on the go, right from their Yahoo! Mail inbox

• Protection from spam and viruses – All of the same great protection that is built into Yahoo! Mail will apply to these new domains. Yahoo! uses advanced technologies and data from numerous sources to dramatically reduce the delivery of spam and phishing e-mails

• Country-specific e-mail account – When signing up for an e-mail account, users have the option of choosing localized country versions from each of the Yahoo! domains: yahoo.com, ymail.com and rocketmail.com

As always, a Yahoo! ID will work for everything across the Yahoo! Network, from checking e-mail to checking out Messenger, Flickr, Groups, Sports, Finance and more.

In many markets, Yahoo! will also help users transfer their e-mail and contacts to their new address and notify friends of their new e-mail address.

In addition, Yahoo! has reserved a number of desirable e-mail addresses – all related to charitable organizations – using the new domains and will put these e-mail addresses up for charity auction beginning on Thursday, June 19, 2008. Yahoo! is working with auction partners eBay Giving Works and Auction Cause. The proceeds from the auction will benefit the following organizations: The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Ocean Conservancy, Point Foundation, Right To Playand World Wildlife Fund. To participate in the online auction, please visit http://www.ebay.com/ymail.

Users can learn more about and register for a new e-mail at ymail.com and rocketmail.com at http://mail.yahoo.com.

About Yahoo! Mail

Launched in October1997, Yahoo! Mail is the world's largest, most popular free e-mail service. Yahoo! Mail helps people stay in touch at home, at work, or while traveling for business or pleasure, and is available in 22 languages. Yahoo! Mail is fully integrated with Yahoo!'s many other popular services to make it easy to access all the Internet services people need. Yahoo! Mail has recently received the Best of Web award from PC World, and was awarded Editors' Choice by both PC Magazine and CNET.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one ofthe most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company's blog,Yodel Anecdotal.

About the Survey

This Yahoo! study was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive between June 2and June 4, 2008 among 2,035 adults ages 18+. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the online U.S. adult population on the basisof Internet usage (hours per week) and connection type. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Yahoo! and Yodel Anecdotal are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

© 2008 Yahoo! Inc., All rights reserved.

1) According to comScore MediaMetrix, April 2008

2) More information about unlimited storage in e-mail can be found here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html

Contact:

Kelley Podboy, Yahoo! Inc.: 408-349-3149, podboyk@yahoo-inc.com

Liz Clinkenbeard, OutCast Communications: 415-345-4715, liz@outcastpr.com

I'm Certified

I just received word that I have officially passed and am now certified as a CIPP/C (Certified Information Privacy Professional - Canada).

About the CIPP/C:

The CIPP/C is a standalone credential that recognizes the privacy issues that continue to evolve across the Canadian private sector. The program is targeted to the specific needs of Canadian privacy professionals as well as anyone who manages information that is subject to Canadian jurisdiction.

Certification and Training managed by: The IAPP

Marketers Are Missing Out On the 1-to-1 Marketing Advantages

Study Finds Top-Brand Marketers Are Missing Out On the 1-to-1 Marketing Advantages Offered By E-mail Marketing

Eighty Five Percent of Marketers’ Initial E-mails Lacked Personalization
According To Return Path’s New Subscriber Experiences Study

New York, New York and Denver, CO – For Immediate Release:

Eighty five percent of companies failed to personalize the first e-mail message sent to new subscribers, Return Path discovered with its new Return Path Subscriber Experiences study. This lack of customization, combined with other missed opportunities, leaves marketers unable to leverage the true power of email marketing.

Return Path, the leading e-mail performance management company, conducted the study by subscribing and studying the e-mail programs of 61 companies from the retail, consumer goods, travel, and media/entertainment industries.

The problem is not lack of data. Marketers are collecting information at sign-up that could be used to personalize their initial and subsequent e-mails. In fact, seventy percent of the companies studied collected additional information beyond a subscribers’ e-mail at sign up. Yet, 75% of the companies that collected that additional information did not use it to personalize their e-mails.

“As marketers continue expanding their use of e-mail, they need to keep in mind the unique capabilities that e-mail offers. If you’re collecting information in addition to an e-mail address when a person signs up, you should be using that information to create a personalized message. Personalization keeps subscribers involved with your brand and more inclined to purchase,” said Bonnie Malone Fry, Director of Strategic Services.

In another surprising discovery, Return Path found that many e-mail marketers are not acknowledging a new e-mail subscriber with a welcome message. Sixty percent of the companies studied never sent a welcome message to new subscribers – missing out on an ideal opportunity to establish great rapport with new subscribers.

“Instead of putting out a welcome mat, marketers’ are telling their subscribers to go away,” said Fry. “This is not how you build a good relationship, either with customers or prospective customers.”

Marketers are also struggling with the immediacy of e-mail. In the age of instant messaging, Twitter, and constant updates from social networks, Return Path discovered that the companies studied sent their first regular e-mail an average of nine days after a subscriber joined. In addition, 65 percent of those first regular e-mail messages did not contain any special offer for the new subscriber.

“Combined with a lack of welcome message, this lag in sending email has implications for sender reputation and deliverability, too,” said Fry. “Many people sign up for email, but quickly forget about the company if they don’t get email quickly. When marketers finally do send something the risk is high that recipients will complain because they don’t remember they opted in for the message.”

While many marketers need to examine their e-mail campaigns for personalization and quick engagement, the Return Path Subscriber Experiences study did find that companies across the board are intent on capturing customers’ e-mails for future e-mail marketing. Seventy seven percent of the companies studied made it easy to find their e-mail registration box on their home page.

“The great news is that many companies are focused on growing their lists and ceding valuable website real estate to a subscribe function,” said Fry. “Now they just need to close the loop by making the actual inbox experience really great for subscribers.”
Return Path has recorded a webcast with Bonnie Malone Fry reviewing the study findings. Download that webcast here. Downloading the webcast will also trigger an email message with a link to the study.

About Return Path
Founded in 1999, Return Path is an e-mail performance management company dedicated to helping its clients build better relationships with their customers, generate higher response rates, and achieve significant returns on their investments from their e-mail programs. More than 1,500 companies currently use Return Path’s services to generate superior results from their e-mail programs, taking advantage of Return Path’s pioneering innovations in deliverability, e-mail list quality solutions, customer acquisition, online market research, and best practices strategy. For more information, please visit www.returnpath.net.

DMA investigation of the EEC is in

As mentioned in the previous Direct Mag article the DMA planed on investigating Earth Day mailings sent to the the EEC's member base (For those that didn't get the letter, Laura posted the full text here), and implement some changes to the way the EEC operates. I've noticed some odd things contained within the letter:

1. Quote: "We have also determined that the list was not directly provided to VIV magazine, but to VIV’s hired electronic fulfillment company. Because the current eec co-chair, Jeanniey Mullen is employed by VIV"
   * [From: Viv Magazine Digital - support@notification.zinio.net] - Zinio is where Jeanniey works not Viv - Zinio was the fulfillment company.
   
2. Quote: "We also understand that some people received two notification emails instead of the intended one."
   * I got THREE messages - view the messages here: EEC: Good Intentions Gone Bad

Too bad these discrepancies are here, I would have been happy with the answer otherwise :(

Habeas Study Confirms Strong, Ongoing Demand for Email

Yesterday Habeas and Ipsos, announced the finding of their 2008 email study which finds that there is still a very strong preference for email and the expectation that this will continue to be the case for several more years.

Some very interesting findings include that the majority of people trust companies that use opt-in email, have the ability to customize communications and can reliably get messages delivered. While having a strong privacy practice gets you bonus points, many people still believe that two-thirds of companies are still sharing their data with third parties.

Report Highlights include:

Email's Vitality

• 67% of respondents prefer email over other online vehicles
• Consumer opinion of the future importance of email registered far above future expectations for other online channels.
  

Consumer Concerns Regarding Online Threats Increasing

• 96% expressed concern about being victimized by email fraud, up from the 62 percent finding in the 2007 report.
• 43% of respondents voiced concern over mobile spam and virus threats.
  

Online Reputation Management Best Practices to Build Trust

• 88% of respondents said they would like organizations to give them more choices over the content and frequency of the emails they receive.
• 80% of participants favour doing business with organizations that use opt-in permission to send them email.
• 75% of participants prefer engaging with organizations that exhibit strong privacy practices.
  

Online Business Practices to Avoid

• 25% of respondents lose faith in an organization that is unable to deliver email reliably.
• Daily email messages ranked with pop-up advertisements as the most damaging online tactics to a company's online reputation.
• 80% of respondents are not comfortable with businesses sharing their email address.
• 80% feel that a business' reputation is negatively affected if it shares customer email addresses with third parties.
• Internet users believe that about two thirds of companies are likely to share their email addresses with third parties.

BusinessCast.ca | Email Marketing For Entrepreneurs

Last Friday I had the Pleasure of sitting with Robbert Gold (of bennettgold.ca) and Andrew Brown (of writeonthemoney.com) at the BusinessCast to discuss Email Marketing For Entrepreneurs as part of their ongoing Podcast series for Small and Medium size businesses.

Message from BusinessCast:

Here it is - the episode you've been waiting for!

This week on the BusinessCast we present the step-by-step to email marketing success featuring another BusinessCast Guest Guru! Great show!

Easy Archives: All shows right here, right now: BusinessCast.ca/archives.

Our Boring Commercial: Subscribe easily and for free in the iTunes Directory.

I'd encourage you to listen to this podcast regardless of the size of your business as it's always full of great information. Direct link to show.

I'm looking for feedback - be kind this was my first podcast ;) and hopefully not my last.

In the news...

Important news for Email Marketer's this week:

• FTC clarifies rules in CAN-SPAM
• Canadian Senate introduces Anti-spam Act (pfd)
• EEC reveals their success with non-profit program - The Women's Bean Project
• New blog from the UK DMA email marketing council launched
• Marketing Profs - Dueling Blacklists: Bloggers v. PR Firms - Beware the un-targeted PR pitch, you might get blacklisted
  

EEC: Good Intentions Gone Bad

Before you read remember this - I like the EEC, I like the things they do, and I like the people involved with running the organization. But this story goes to show even leaders make mistakes from time to time.

It started with an article from the EEC explaining their Earth day exercise, and what their intent was when they were sending these electronic Magazine messages to their members. Ken Magill, then followed up with a post stating that the EEC had spammed its members. Truly a case of "Good Intentions Gone Bad".

Here is my take on how it should have gone down...

• It should have been branded EEC, with the Magazine Content in the body of the message.
• The messages should have been sent "From" for the EEC, not the Zinio system
• There should not have been three copies, with two different content pieces, if this was a one off mailing.
• Messages should have been Gender neutral, or better targeted... Women's Magazines are just not my favorite reading choices. ;)
• If these are for Earth day and on behalf of the EEC - you should mention that in the content of the message somewhere (see below).
• While the intentions were good the execution get an "F" - as leaders these things should be checked and double checked before letting the message out the door.

Over at BeRelevant!, Tamara had this to say.

View the messages here:

1. First message - lacking Personalization (Dear Reader)
2. Second Message - Same as first (personalized this time), sent 3 hrs after first.
3. Third Message - New content

Alltop.com

Today, Emailkarma.net was added to the Marketing.alltop.com list.

What is Alltop you ask? The about pages describe it as:

You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points — they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In this way, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation.”

Check out other topics on Alltop like; Career, Beauty, Movies, Gaming, Twitterati

CMA | E-mail marketing not sophisticated despite popularity

Source: The CMA Weekly Watching Brief

A report released on Tuesday by Alterian finds that nearly two-thirds of marketers are only operating at a basic-to-immediate e-mail marketing level.

• More specifically, 32% were found to be operating at an advanced user level, putting them in a position to expand e-mail beyond traditional marketing use and fully leverage the channel as a strategic business application.
• Most participants (59%), fell into the intermediate user category; although their e-mail marketing programs are more advanced than most, these marketers can make many improvements to increase ROI and improve the customer experience.
• Four percent have not surpassed the basic user level, where they have just begun experiencing the power of e-mail marketing.

On a side note - Dave Fowler (a good friend) joins Alterian as Vice President of Deliverability and Privacy. Congrats Dave!

Habeas responds to rumors of sale

Last night Des Cahill, Habeas' CEO, posted this article to the company blog; Exciting Times for Habeas. Des' comments are likely the result of an Article in Direct Mag regarding the possible sale of Habeas, although this is not directly mentioned in the posting.

Des writes that Habeas is working with an investment banker to evaluate the their options around different option for finance in order to deal with the continued growth of the business. Business that is up 50% year over year and getting ready for a record year, exceeding the 2008 Q1 goals and looking for a positive.

Habeas has partnered with William Blair to review and analyze the best course of action for the future of the company. This is an organization that has worked with the like of Constant Contact (during their recent IPO) as well Exact Target and Convio during the S-1 filing process.

* Disclaimer - I am a Habeas customer

Revised: MAAWG Best Practices for Volume Senders

Announced today the MAAWG Senders Best Practices Document (Version 2.0 - pfd) has been officially released.

Updates to the documentation include:

• New guidelines for legitimate email avoid being mistaken for image-based junk mail
• List permission and opt-in recommendations have been amended to reflect current best practices
• User-unsubscribe processes have been clarified
• along with a number of other updates to the document

This is a great document to read as a marketer, and should set the bar for your marketing programs.

ISP Update | Comcast FBL out of beta

Received word today that the Comcast Feed Back loop is now out of BETA testing and is ready for a larger audience to participate.

Details: The Comcast Feedback Loop which is managed by ReturnPath has officially come out of beta. If you have already signed up for this service as part of their beta group there is nothing you need to do as your "subscription" will continue as normal.

What you will need to apply:

• Your Contact Information (first/last name, Email and Company)
• Feedback Loop Information (i.e. your mailing domain with a functional abuse@ or postmaster@ email address)
• A Feedback Loop Email - This is where Feedback Loop emails will go.
• A list of your IP Addresses: List the IP addresses (one per line) or you may also enter CIDR ranges of /24 or higher.

Please be patient as the expected number of applicants may be significant and the resources for application review may be a bit stretched to get thought the initial push, you will have to give them a bit of a break as they will get to your application as soon as they can.

To apply for this service.

Is Yahoo Mail still broken?

Recently Marketing Sherpa posted an article about ongoing issues with Yahoo! mail delivery and I left the following comment:

Many of the Yahoo issues have been resolved and its been said that any remaining issues are likely the result of filter adjustments and fringe cases where reputation was already near the edge of rate limiting, or filtering. Using the postmaster help pages is the recommended course of action for senders that continue to experience issues. Yahoo has been very open with their communications to ESPs, posting their the Y! mail blogs and the updated Postmaster pages... ...The real key to uninterrupted email delivery is to have a clean, consent based, highly relevant mail stream.

Working everyday with a number of very large email clients being on top of best practices, delivery requirements and changes to ISP policies is critical. If your still experiencing issues likely there are too many; bounces, complaints or your still sending mail is a manor that Y! doesn't like - too fast, too many users per connection/message, too many spam traps or dead addresses (hard bounces) being mailed to over and over.

Also Y!'s mail blog mentioned today that they are still behind in dealing tickets and that they are still working to address the issue.

A comment left for Yahoo related to these two articles echo's the same thing that I'm saying here - "I’m not experiencing Yahoo problems myself. This recent campaign sent to my list had no Yahoo issues whatsoever".