IP reputation and the bulk folder
I’ve spent much of today talking to various people about IP reputation and bulk foldering. It’s an interesting topic, and one that has changed quite a bit in the past few months. Here are a few of the...
View ArticleAbout that Junk Folder
I use a pretty standard mail filtering setup – a fairly vanilla SpamAssassin setup on the front end, combined with naive bayesian content filters in my mail client. So I don’t reject any mail, it just...
View ArticleDKIM deployment challenges
Cloudmark has an interesting blog post pointing out some of the challenges of signing mail with DKIM in a large company with a diverse mail system.
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Gathering data at subscription time
I recently received a survey from my Congressional Representative. She wanted to know what I wanted her to focus on in the coming year. I decided to go ahead and answer the survey, as I have some...
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The 500 mile email
This is a great story from Trey Harris about a real email delivery issue from the mid 1990s. Here’s a problem that sounded impossible… I almost regret posting the story to a wide audience, because it...
View ArticleDelivery reflects recipient desires
Ken has an article today about how Pro Flowers managed to get their mail out of the bulk folder at Gmail by asking their recipients for help. This year, ProFlowers apparently took into account Gmail’s...
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Reputation is more complex than a single number
I checked our SenderScore earlier this month, as quite a few people mentioned that they’d seen SenderScore changes – likely due to changed algorithms and new data sources. It sure looks like something...
View ArticleBroken record…
The Return Path In the Know blog listed 4 reasons mailing those old addresses is a bad idea. Ashley, the author, is completely right and I endorse everything she said. (Although I’d really like to hear...
View ArticleYou can’t technical yourself out of delivery problems
In many cases these days, many more cases than a lot of senders want to admit, delivery problems at the big ISPs are a result of sending mail recipients just don’t care about. The reason your mail is...
View ArticleQ3 Email intelligence report from Return Path
Return Path released their 3rd quarter email intelligence report this week. And the numbers aren’t looking that great for marketers. Complaints are a major problem for commercial mailers. In the data...
View ArticleAOL Updates Spam Filtering
Over on the AOL Postmaster blog, Lili Crowley announced yesterday that AOL has made changes to their spam filtering system. Specifically, more senders may be subject to blocking with CON:B1 errors....
View ArticleAuto-opt-in?
Bronto’s Chris Kolbenschlag frames the discussion well: He purchased from an online retailer, they assumed he wanted to receive followup emails, and thus, those emails did eventually commence. This is...
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Uploading your address book to social media
I am one of the moderators of a discussion list working on a document about getting off blocklists. If anyone not on the list attempts to post to the list I get a moderation request. One came through...
View ArticleThoughts on “ISP relations”
I’ve been thinking a lot about the field of ISP relations and what it means and what it actually is. A few years ago the answer was pretty simple. ISP relations is about knowing the right people at...
View ArticleWhat goes into successful email campaigns?
Campaign Monitor analyzed over 2.2 million campaigns and came up with some rules of thumb for effective email marketing.
View ArticleIs volume a problem?
Volume in an of itself is not a problem. Companies sending mail people want can send multiple emails a day to every user. The volume isn’t a problem because the mail is wanted. Many senders are...
View ArticleMore from Gmail
Campaign Monitor has an interview with Gmail looking at how to get mail to the Gmail inbox. It’s a great article and I think everyone should go read it. One of the most important things it talks about...
View ArticleSpam is not a moral judgement
Mention an email is spam to some senders and watch them dance around trying to explain all the ways they aren’t spammers. At some point, calling an email spam seems to have gone from a statement of...
View ArticleWhat We Do
Occasionally when we meet longtime readers of the blog at conferences and industry events, they are surprised to learn that we are not just bloggers. We actually spend most of our time consulting with...
View ArticleYes, Virginia, there is list churn
Yesterday I talked about how data collection, management, and maintenance play a crucial role in deliverability. I mentioned, briefly, the idea that bad data can accumulate on a list that isn’t well...
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