Lost in all of the DOS attack news this week is that the first installment of Spamhaus answering questions from marketers in Ken Magill’s newsletter.
It’s well worth a read for anyone who is interested in hearing directly from Spamhaus.
One quote stood out for me, and it really sums up how I try to work with clients and their email programs.
Playing evasion games to avoid traps is nearly infinitely more difficult and troublesome than simply practicing good acquisition and hygiene.
This, to me, is the crux of what I do as a delivery expert. I tell clients how to get into the inbox by sending mail their recipients want. I’m not so dogmatic to think there is one way to do this. There are lots of ways to send good mail, have good hygiene and acquire good addresses. What works for one market may or may not work for another. The real trick is understanding the why of the rule, not just the rule.
IOW, delivery is all about the spirit rather than the rule of law.
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“(…) simply practicing good acquisition and hygiene ” is not so “simple”. In fact it’s not cost effective, and in many cases marketers would make a lot less money: If we had to enforce double opt-in everywhere, for example — we would have to say goodbye to a lot of prospects who bring in a large portion of money that is made in email marketing. “Good acquisition” is not good in terms of monetary results; I would rephrase the statement this way: “Spamhaus want to make it so that playing evasion becomes more difficult and onerous than applying their stringent acquisition standards and radical hygiene requirements”
I love the fact old Stevie is actually talking to the public but I found a lot of his answers..well not answers at all. However, with that said is there really any good answers? When it comes down to it you simply don’t send to people that don’t want your mail. You don’t play games of trying to stay under the radar of Spamhaus or any other anti-spam organization or filter just to send to people that don’t want it. Clients that follow these easy rules win. Of course there is that gray side of things but its only when you mix a little black hat actions in your white hat delivery plan!
“Unsolicited” and “unwanted” are not always the same thing, of course. Marketers who have the decency and ethics not to send email to people who did not ask to receive it probably do loose a few sales. They also don’t get blocked by Spamhaus, Spamcop, SURBL, and other blocklists, or at the router by frusted system administrators whose users complain about the barrage of digital cr*p in their mailboxes. :/
For the record, Mr. Dupin de Saint Cyr, if you actually do not restrict yourself to sending email only to those who requested it (not “want” — *requested*), please do not send email to any email address on my mailserver. You can look up the MX records for ergosphere.net to find out what those are.