How reputation and content interact

Recently, one of my clients had a new employee make a mistake and ended up sending newsletters to people in their database that had not subscribed to those particular newsletters. This resulted in their recipients getting 3 extra emails from them. These things happen, people fat-finger database queries or aren’t as careful with segmentation as they should be.
My clients were predictably unhappy about sending mail their users hadn’t signed up for and asked me what to do to fix their reputation. I advised they not do anything other than make sure they don’t do that again. The first send after their screw-up had their standard 100% inbox delivery. The second send had a significant problem with bulk foldering at Hotmail and Yahoo. The third send had their standard 100% inbox delivery.
So what happened on the second send? It appears that on that send they had a link or other content that “filled the bucket.” Generally, their IP reputation is high enough that content isn’t sufficient to send their mail into the bulk folder. However, their reputation dipped based on the mistake last week, and thus the marginal content caused the bulk foldering.
Overall, these are senders with a good reputation. Their screw up wasn’t enough to damage their delivery itself, but may have contributed to all their mail going into the bulk folder the other day. I expect that their reputation will rebound quickly and they will be able to send the same content they did and see it in the inbox.

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Winning friends and removing blocks

I do a lot of negotiating with blocklists and ISPs on behalf of my clients and recently was dealing with two incidents. What made this so interesting to me was how differently the clients approached the negotiations.
In one case, a client had a spammer slip onto their system. As a result the client was added to the SBL. The client disconnected the customer, got their IP delisted from the SBL and all was good until the spammer managed to sweet talk the new abuse rep into turning his account back on. Predictably, he started spamming again and the SBL relisted the IP.
My client contacted me and asked me to intercede with Spamhaus. I received a detailed analysis of what happened, how it happened and how they were addressing the issue to prevent it happening in the future. I relayed the info to Spamhaus, the block was lifted and things are all back to normal.
Contrast that with another client dealing with widespread blocking due to a reputation problem. Their approach was to ask the blocking entity which clients they needed to disconnect in order to fix the problem. When the blocking entity responded, the customer disconnected the clients and considered the issue closed. They didn’t look at the underlying issues that caused the reputation problems, nor did they look at how they could prevent this in the future. They didn’t evaluate the customers they disconnected to identify where their processes failed.
The first client took responsibility for their problems, looked at the issues and resolved things without relying on Spamhaus to tell them how to fix things. Even though they had a problem, and is statistically going to have the occasional problem in the future, this interaction was very positive for them. Their reputation with the Spamhaus volunteers is improved because of their actions.
The second client didn’t do any of that. And the people they were dealing with at the blocking entity know it. Their reputation with the people behind the blocking entity was not improved by their actions.
These two clients are quite representative of what I’ve seen over the years. Some senders see blocking as a sign that somehow, somewhere there is a flaw in their process and a sign they need to figure out how to fix it. Others see blocking as an inconvenience. Their only involvement is finding out the minimum they need to do to get unblocked, doing it and then returning to business as usual. Unsurprisingly, the first type of client has a much better delivery rate than the second.

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Marketing to businesses

“If you do stupid things, you’re going to get blocked,” says Jigsaw CEO Jim Fowler in an interview with Ken Magill earlier this week.
Jigsaw is a company that rewards members to input their valuable business contacts. Once the addresses are input into Jigsaw, they are sold to anyone who wants them. Jigsaw gets the money, the people providing information get… something, the people who provided business cards to Jigsaw members get spammed and the people who downloaded the lists get to deal with a delivery mess. Sounds like a lose for everyone but Jigsaw.
Except that now Jigsaw is listed on the SBL for spam support services. Well, that’s going to cause some business challenges, particularly given how many companies use the SBL as part of their filtering scheme.
It’s hard to think of a situation where I would appreciate someone I gave a business card to providing my information to a site that then turns around and lets anyone download it to send email to. I know, I know, there are a million companies out there I’ve never heard of that have The Product that will Solve All my Problems. But, really, I don’t want them in my work mailbox. The address I give out on my business cards is, for, y’know, people to contact me about what I’m selling or to contact me about things they’ve already purchased from me. That address is not for people to market to. I have other addresses for vendors, and even potential vendors, to contact me.
Jigsaw clearly facilitates spam to businesses by collecting email addresses and then selling them on. This is a drain on small businesses who now have inboxes full of valuable offers to wade through. Perhaps their stint on the SBL will make them reconsider their spam support services.
HT: Al

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Spam that's not spam

Steve and I were talking this evening and I mentioned to him that I got “a lot of spam that wasn’t really spam. Know what I mean?”
He did. But if I tell that to you, what does it mean to you?
More on this in a couple days, but I’m onsite at a client’s for the next few days so it may take me a plane ride home to put all the thoughts down.

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