“Sending an email is one of the worst things you can do to a person. You are stealing a little part of their life away. 99.99% of all emails are incredibly annoying and a huge imposition. If your job is to write emails, you should always be fighting to send fewer things and make sure each email you send is so incredible that it’s a rare treat to hear from you.”
Cards Against Humanity at MailChimp
I haven’t been able to track down any information about what happened, but it seems MINI USA had a major oops in their email marketing recently. So much so that they’re sending out apologies by snail mail. Pictures of the apology package appeared on Reddit earlier this week, and include a chocolate rose, some duct tape and a SPAM can stress reliever.
It’s a great example of a win-back campaign that really focuses on the recipients rather than the sender.
A number of people have asked me recently if I know anything about appliances clicking all the links in emails. Some of those people have asked specifically about Barracuda, some have just asked if I knew of any filters that clicked links.
The answer is, yes, there are cases where spam filters have followed all the links in an email. One of the filters that I know has done this in the past is Barracuda. Based on discussions with the different people who are reporting this behavior, it does seem that this is happening more often. One person did mention that they were primarily seeing this with mail where the click domains were different from the From: domains.
I’m still working on getting more information from folks, and will update if I hear anything more. I’m also working on some advice for folks who get caught in this.
If you have experience with Barracuda (or other spam filters) clicking all the links in an email, drop me an email (contact)
I woke up this morning to an exploding twitter and FB feeds with lots of friends cheering the defeat of DOMA and Prop 8. Apparently some companies are getting into the act as well.
(Behind a cut because some of this may be slightly NSFW in some places)
