Improving Gmail Delivery

Lately I’m hearing a lot of people talk about delivery problems at Gmail. I’ve written quite a bit about Gmail (Another way Gmail is different, Gmail filtering in a nutshell, Poor delivery at Gmail but no where else, Insight into Gmail filtering) over the last year and a half or so. But those articles all focus on different parts of Gmail delivery and it’s probably time for a summary type post.

Gmail is different

There are two major reasons that Gmail filtering is different from the other webmail providers: when it was launched and who it was launched by.
Gmail entered the mail market late in the internet era when compared to other free email providers. AOL offered internet email in 1992; Yahoo Mail opened in 1994; Hotmail debuted in 1996. When these systems were in development, spam wasn’t an issue.
Spam filtering was added later, as the problem grew. Gmail didn’t launch until 2004, nearly a decade after their current competitors. Spam was already a problem by 2004, so Gmail was able to build filters in from the beginning.
The other real difference is Google’s experience and expertise in search. They built their business on being able to take lots and lots of data, categorize it and make it instantly searchable. This actually translates well to spam filtering, in that they take lots of data, categorize it and put it in appropriate mailboxes.
Those aren’t the only reasons Gmail is different. Another factor is Gmail’s attitude towards senders. The prime example is their FBL. Unlike most ISPs, Gmail doesn’t provide the full message back in its FBL. Instead, they give a count of complaints. They’re not going to help senders remove folks who complain. The flip side of this is they are leading the way in providing easier ways to unsubscribe.
The different history, expertise, and attitude of Google are the core of why Gmail delivery is so unlike others.

Metrics look great

The standard diagnostic for problem is to investigate the metrics, identify areas where they show limits and work to improve them. Along the way, email delivery improves. At Gmail, however, there’s often nothing obviously wrong with the metrics. The problem is the metrics we’re using are measuring symptoms not identifying underlying issues. Think of all the metrics we use as a fever. Just because a fever is gone (or you don’t have one) doesn’t mean you’re not sick.
Metrics are proxy measurements. The best metrics in the world aren’t going to help your delivery at Gmail if the recipients don’t want your mail.
The Recipient Has To Want Your Mail.

Why is Gmail so hard?

Because Gmail is smarter than we are.
Because Gmail looked at the things other companies did and learned what worked to decrease spam and what worked to decrease signs of spam (those are different things).
Because Gmail has years and years of experience in dealing with people who game SEO listings.
Because Gmail puts the user experience ahead of the sender experience.

Spam-infused Mai-Tai
Who didn't invent email, part 2

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July 2017: The month in email

August is here, and as usual, we’re discussing spam, permissions, bots, filters, delivery challenges, and best practices.

One of the things we see over and over again, both with marketers and with companies that send us email, is that permission is rarely binary — companies want a fair amount of wiggle room, or “implied permission” to send. There are plenty of examples of how companies try to dance around clear permissions, such as this opt form from a company we used to do business with. But there are lots of questions here: can you legitimately mail to addresses you haven’t interacted with in 5 years? 10 years? What’s the best way to re-engage, if at all?
We frequently get questions about how to address deliverability challenges, and I wrote up a post about some of the steps we take as we help our clients with this. These are short-term fixes; for long-term success, the most effective strategy is sending email that people want and expect. Engagement is always at the core of a sustainable email program.
We’ve also discussed the rise of B2B spam, and the ways in which marketing technologies contribute to the problem. B2B marketers struggle to use social and email channels appropriately to reach customers and prospects, but still need to be thoughtful about how they do it. I also wrote about some of the ways that marketing automation plugins facilitate spam and how companies should step up to address the problem. Here’s an example of what happens when the automation plugins go awry.
I wrote a few posts about domain management and the implications for security and fraud. The first was about how cousin domain names can set users up for phishing and fraud, and the second was a useful checklist for looking at your company’s domain management. We also looked at abuse across online communities, which is an increasing problem and one we’re very committed to fighting.
I also highlighted a few best practices this month: guidelines for choosing a new ESP and active buttons in the subject line for Gmail.
And finally, we celebrated the 80th birthday of the original SPAM. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know why unwanted email is called SPAM, but just in case, here’s a refresher….

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The cycle goes on

Monday I published a blog post about the ongoing B2B spam and how annoying it is. I get so many of these they’re becoming an actual problem. 3, 4, 5 a day. And then there’s the ongoing “drip” messages at 4, 6, 8, 12 days. It is getting out of control. It’s spam. It’s annoying. And most of it’s breaking the law.
But, I can also use it as blog (and twitter!) fodder.

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From the archives: Taking Permission

From February 2010, Taking Permission.

Permission is always a hot topic in email marketing. Permission is key! the experts tell us. Get permission to send email! the ISPs tell us.
Marketers have responded by setting up processes to “get” permission from recipients before adding them to mailing lists. They point to their privacy polices and signup forms and say “Look! the recipient gave us permission.”
In many cases, though, the permission isn’t given to the sender, permission is taken from the recipient.
Yes, permission is being TAKEN by the sender. At the point of address collection many senders set the default to be the recipient gets mail. These processes take any notion of giving permission out of the equation. The recipient doesn’t have to give permission, permission is assumed.
This isn’t real permission. No process that requires the user to take action to stop themselves from being opted in is real permission. A default state of yes takes the actual opt-in step away from the recipient.
Permission just isn’t about saying “well, we told the user if they gave us an email address we’d send them mail and they gave us an email address anyway.” Permission is about giving the recipients a choice in what they want to receive. All too often senders take permission from recipients instead of asking for permission to be given.
Since that post was originally written, some things have changed.
CASL has come into effect. CASL prevents marketers from taking permission as egregiously as what prompted this post. Under CASL, pre-checked opt-in boxes do not count as explicit permission. The law does have a category of implicit permission, which consists of an active consumer / vendor relationship. This implicit permission is limited in scope and senders have to stop mailing 2 years after the last activity.
The other change is in Gmail filters. Whatever they’re doing these days seems to really pick out mail that doesn’t have great permission. Business models that would work a few years ago are now struggling to get to the inbox at Gmail. Many of these are non-relationship emails – one off confirmations, tickets, receipts. There isn’t much of a relationship between the sender and the recipient, so the filters are biased against the mail.
Permission is still key, but these days I’m not sure even informed permission is enough.

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