Lessons from the good, the typical and the ugly

What can smart ESPs learn from my recent series The good, The typical and The ugly?

  1. Not every company that labels themselves legitimate email marketers actually implements good practices. Every example of an ugly ESP calls themselves legitimate marketers. In fact a fair number of spammers, those using botnets and breaking the law also describe themselves as legitimate email marketers. Al Ralsky, Chris Rizler, and Robert Soloway all presented themselves as legitimate. Legitimate email marketing is not something to claim, it’s something to do.
  2. Even typical ESPs do things that are not always good practices. These practices include allowing customers to spam, helping customers evade blocks and overtaxing ISP support desks.
  3. Good ESPs are outnumbered by typical ESPs and typical ESPs are outnumbered by ugly ESPs. The volume of mail sent by the good is vastly smaller than the volume of mail sent by anyone else. As I quipped a few days ago: 95% of email marketing gives the rest a bad name.

The typical and the ugly are going to see inbox placement become more of a challenge. Good delivery will become more and more reliant on sending mail recipients actually want, not just mail they don’t object to.

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Typical ESPs

Yesterday, I gave examples of good ESPs and the benefits that their customers receive from their high standards and standards enforcement. Today I’ll be talking about typical ESPs and the things they say and do.
A few caveats before I get started. Most of these quotes are composite quotes. I am not quoting one particular person or ESP, rather, the statement is representative of a common view point. None of these quotes is a one off, all of these quotes have been said by more than one person. These where chosen as a representation of some of the attitudes and policies that leads ISPs and filtering companies to throw up their hands at the ESPs.

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The good, the typical and the ugly

In the theme of the ongoing discussions about ESPs and their role in the email ecosystem, I thought I’d present some examples of how different ESPs work.
The good ESPs are those that set and enforce higher standards than the ISPs. They invest money and time in both proactive and reactive policy enforcement. On Monday I’ll talk about these standards, and the benefits of implementing these policies.
The typical ESPs are those that have standards equivalent to those of the ISPs. They suspend or disconnect customers when the customers generate problems at the ISPs. They have some proactive policy enforcement, but most of their enforcement is reactive. On Tuesday I’ll talk about these standards and how they’re perceived by the ISPs and spam filtering companies.
The ugly ESPs are those that have low standards and few enforcement policies. They let customers send mail without permission. Some of the ugly ESPs even abuse other ESPs to send some of their mail, thus sharing their bad reputations across the industry. On Wednesday I’ll look at some of their practices and discuss how they affect other players in the industry.

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How to fix delivery

For all of you that are asking “What do the ISPs want from us” Annalivia has posted a list of specifics that you can do to improve delivery.

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