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Word to the Wise
We make email better.
We make email better.
Word to the Wise helps email marketers create more effective email messages, programs and infrastructures. We advise you how to skilfully navigate the constant business, technology, and policy challenges so your messages reach your customers.
We can help you with your email strategy, deliverability challenges and many other email issues.
What others say
Recent Articles
Deliverability rules
- laura
- Aug 18, 2025
Hot Take:
Anyone who has to know exactly what the rules are for inbox delivery is trying to figure out how close they can get to violating the rules without negative consequences. Senders that comply with the spirit of the rules don’t care what the specifics of the rules are.
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Message-ID Syntax
- steve
- Aug 12, 2025
Our friends in the Email Geeks slack have recently started seeing sporadic rejections due to invalid Message-ID headers.
Read MoreDon't make your DNS TTLs too short
- steve
- Jul 21, 2025
DNS is a complex, distributed database built on top of an unreliable network that spans the world.
Read MoreGmail says your unsubscribe "Needs work"
- steve
- Jul 11, 2025

Needs work?
We’ve written about RFC 8058 “one-click” unsubscribe and how it’s part of the requirements for bulk senders wanting to deliver mail to the major consumer mailbox providers.
Read MoreAbout that cold email
- laura
- Jun 23, 2025
Over the years I’ve made the decision to stop working with certain types of senders. Most recently it’s been the decision to not work with companies sending cold email. I even wrote a blog post back in 2018 about my frustration with clients who were upset their cold email was going to the spam folder. That was the beginning of the end for cold emailers as clients. I did continue to try and work with those senders, but they were incredibly frustrating engagements. I’d offer all my best practices, even try and work out how they could continue to use their purchased lists. They simply didn’t listen, they just didn’t want to hear that deliverability isn’t just about numbers and they couldn’t metric their way into the inbox. What they really wanted was me to tell them the One Weird Trick that would get their mail into the inbox.
Read MoreYou can't DKIM sign a cabbage
- steve
- Jun 18, 2025

The DKIM specification and implementations of DKIM signing and validation code make some unstated assumptions about the environment they’re running in.
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