When emailing, it's all about your reputation

One of the most common questions we get in regards to bulk emailing, is why didn't a particular user get the email or why it went into his/her SPAM folder.  This blog post concentrates on sender reputation, which is one of many factors in that discussion.  Reputation has become such a factor for determining the quality of a message, that for large internet and email service providers, the number one reason for an email not having been received by a recipient can be credited to the sender's reputation.  Below are some tips, some will help provide a positive reputation, while others will simply help you to avoid the many pitfalls of negative reputation.

Do not buy lists, unless you are completely confident that every email address on the list would welcome your emails.  Think about this for a minute: the seller of the list will most likely tell you whatever it is s/he thinks you want to hear in order to buy the list, maybe they will even tell you it is an opt-in list.  But really, who knowingly and willingly puts their email address on a list that will be sold to who-knows-who?

Use opt-in lists.  Whether having a specific signup form, or having users click a box on a checkout form, always use opt-in.  While you might get a larger list by having users that forget to uncheck the 'add me to your mailing list' checkbox (an opt-out strategy), you can be sure that opt-in users are both interested in your emails, and will be somewhat expecting them.  With companies like AOL considering a complaint level of 0.1% (1 out of every 1,000) enough to prevent any of your future mail from reaching their customers, you can no longer afford to send do the wrong people.

Be regular.  If you have been sending emails every month for the last 12 months, don't start sending every week.  If this is something that you would like to work towards, start sending every 3 weeks, then after a couple months, every other week.  Even if a user starts to get fed up with your emails, they are less likely to flag it as spam, and more likely to just unsubscribe.

Let users unsubscribe (and make sure they remain unsubscribed)!  If necessary, consider putting the formalities at the top of an email.  If a user unsubscribed from your mailing list, this will not hurt your reputation with their provider.  Because for every one user that flags your message as spam, or clicks the conveniently located 'complaint' button in their email provider's interface, let us hope at least 999 other users with the same provider didn't.

Always use a business email address with a public WHOIS record.  Due to the nature of spammers, not many things will lend less credit than sending bulk email / marketing material from a Gmail / Yahoo / AOL / etc address.

Use a unique IP address.  When an email is sent, it's not like a traditional letter.  Without explaining headers and packets, consider a traditional letter with an attached list containing the name of every person that touches it during the delivery process, starting with you.

            Your name.

            Your mailman's name.

            The sorter at your local post office's name.

            (Lots of other names here)

            Name of the recipient's mailman.

            Recipient's name.

(The above outline assumes the recipient gets the message.)  Now let us imagine that the recipient's mailman has permission to discard or return the letter, without even notifying the recipient, if he doesn't like one of the many names on the attached list.  Since most of the names after yours are going to be respectable government employees, which carry some credibility, it is very important that you protect your name, and keeping it as creditable as possible.  Now just replace the whole name convention with an IP address (a number specific to a computer - and generally location).  Since viruses and spammers attempt to exploit any IP address on a daily basis, it is important to protect your network, and going the extra mile to not allow yourself to become blacklisted.  Simple things such as keeping virus scanner definitions up to date and making sure firewalls are configured correctly will greatly reduce your risk of being exploited.  Everyone of our email marketing customers get a unique IP address assigned to them when sending email via the emarketing system.

Have a professional landing page on your website, linked from your email, which includes a privacy policy and shows that you are conforming to best practices.  Allow users to sign up on this page, and also make it clear who you are and the purpose of your emails.  Make this page not only accessible from your emails, but also from your website.  With the rate of ecommerce and online leads, it is important that your first impression be a lasting one.  And when creating this presence, keep in mind that if you are battling for email deliverability, you can expect that the parties who are responsible for influencing your reputation will come across this page. 

Break large lists down to smaller ones.  If unsure of your reputation, providers will often let in a certain quota of emails and monitor how their users react to your message.  While the quota can differ from month to month, Yahoo at 2,000 and AOL at 4,000, the monitoring is generally the same.  If they notice users marking the messages as spam, or complaining, they are most likely to deny future messages.  If Yahoo were to place 1,000 messages in users spam folders, and 1,000 in users' inboxes, and notice users taking the time to move the message from spam to inbox, then this will greatly increase your reputation score.  Once your list has been broken down, have the first list you send to be a list of your time proven recipients.  These recipients are likely to provide good trends for the systems to base future decisions off of.

Finally, once you have a few months of regular sending history, apply for whitelists for any provider you notice, or predict trouble sending with.  Make sure you have all your ducks in a row before applying, this includes not being listed on any blacklists, enabling SPF if your DNS supports it, and having monitored any complaints and purged your list of any problematic recipient.  A simple search will provide any information required for applying to whitelists, but we have included a link to AOL's below:

AOL Whitelist Information: http://postmaster.aol.com/whitelist/

Posted October 9, 2008 | Read all posts by Allan Bruford