A number of Goodmail customers are scrambling to identify alternatives now that Goodmail is shutting down. There are two companies in the field offering similar services.
Return Path offers Return Path Certified. A number of large ISPs accept Return Path certification, including Yahoo, Hotmail and Comcast. IP addresses that are certified are not guaranteed to reach the inbox, but there are some delivery benefits to being certified. For instance, Hotmail lifts hourly delivery limits for certified IPs. Return Path closely monitors certified IPs and will remove certification from IP addresses that do not meet their standards. They are offering an expedited application process and managed transition to former Goodmail customers.
SuretyMail offers accreditation to senders. SpamAssassin does use SuretyMail as a factor in their scores. Mail from accredited IPs receives lower SpamAssassin scores. I don’t have much direct experience with SuretyMail, so I can’t talk too knowledgeably about their processes. A former customer has written, however, about their experience with SuretyMail. They are offering a half off application fee for former Goodmail customers.
The other option for senders is to find a good delivery consultant. As I said yesterday, a large number of senders are not certified or accredited and experience 95+% inbox delivery rates. Many of my customers, for instance, see 100% inbox without certification. There are certain market segments where certification makes a difference. But for senders who are sending mail that users actually want to receive and are engaged with, certification isn’t always necessary.
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Laura,
As an FYI, I’m pretty sure Surety Mail ceased operations sometime last year and there was an announcement on this. Feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken. 🙂
lol, if that’s the case why were they still charing me last month ? 🙂
Also, why are they promoting their service to former goodmail customers?
Have to agree with the points today and yesterday that certification is not always necessary: The things which are tested as part of a certification (infrastructure, data structure, email types and relevancy) are the same as the tests for reputation/deliverabilty.
Generally, if you pass the certification tests, you pass the inbox tests.
Certification can help some senders in some circumstances, just make sure you understand the problem before you go reaching for a solution.
i think itracmedia.com uses return path, and they offer way more sophistication
The closing last year which affected Surety Mail was the shutdown of Campaign monitor. Surety Mail was reselling Campaign monitor to its customers and had to stop offering that service. I have not heard anything about Surety Mail ceasing operations, and if you check the link in my post, they are offering a special for Goodmail customers.
Yeah, Surety Mail is still out there. When I asked about it on Twitter I got a couple of replies from folks who are still using it. We actually stopped using it ourselves; couldn’t find the value proposition.
Organizations that have transaction mail in a separate mail stream might also want to look at the Spamhaus whitelist which is in a no-charge sunrise. It just handles transactions and individual mail from staff.
See http://www.spamhauswhitelist.com/
SpamAssassin checks Return Path Certified, too.
@John Levine do you know anyone with a whitelist account willing to send me an invite? 🙂
Can anyone suggest a good delivery consultant?
Thanks!
I do delivery consulting, Tanya. You can contact me by emailing laura at wordtothewise. Or you can use the contact link on the side of the page.