Yesterday I talked about all the reasons that using affiliate email can hurt overall delivery. In some cases, though, marketing departments and the savvy email marketer don’t have a choice in the matter. Someone in management makes a decision and employees are expected to implement it. If you’re stuck in a place where you have to hire an affiliate, how can you protect the opt-in...
Most retailers have realized that sending unsolicited email is bad for their overall deliverability. Still, the idea they can send mail to people who never heard of them is seductive. Enter affiliate email. That magical place where companies hire an agency, or a contractor, or some other third party to send email advertising their new product. Their mail and company reputation is protected...
A bunch of folks reported problems with Microsoft’s SNDS page earlier today. This afternoon, our friendly Microsoft rep told the mailop mailing list that it should be fixed. If you see problems again, you can report it to mailop or your ESP and the message will get shared to the folks who can fix it. The other big thing that happened today was Gmail rolled out their new inbox layout...
All to often we think of filters as a linear scale. There’s blocking on one end, and there’s an inbox on the other. Every email falls somewhere on that line. Makes sense, right? Bad mail is blocked, good mail goes to the inbox. The bulk folder exists for mail that’s not bad enough to block, but isn’t good enough to go to the inbox. Once we get to that model, we can think...
Brick and mortar stores have tried to use feedback as a means of driving customer engagement for a while. Anyone who’s shopped at a big chain here in the US knows what I mean. You buy a pack of gum and end up with a 2 foot long receipt. At the bottom of the receipt there is a URL and bar code. The cashier circles the bar code and cheerfully tells you to go online and tell corporate about...
In the early years of the spam problem, a common piece of advice was to never unsubscribe. At the time, this made a lot of sense. Multiple anti-spammers documented spammers harvesting addresses from unsubscribe forms. This activity tapered off around 2000 or so, although the myth persisted for much longer. These days, there isn’t much harm in unsubscribing. I even spent a full month...
People throughout the industry are reporting phishing notices in a lot of mail going through Microsoft properties this morning. I even got one in an email from one of my clients earlier today Multiple people have talked to employees inside Microsoft, and I suspect their customers have been blowing up support about this. I know they’re aware, I suspect they’re frantically working on a...
A lot of email providers are rolling out changes to their systems. Some of these changes are so they will comply with GDPR. But, in other cases, the changes appear coincidental with GDPR coming into effect. It seems, finally, some attention is being paid to the mail client. Over the last few years the webmail providers have tried to upgrade their interface. Many of the upgrades are about...
A number of companies in the email industry have been working on a way to better identify authenticated emails to users. One proposal is Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). A couple weeks ago, Agari announced a pilot program with some brands and a number of major consumer mail providers. These logos should be available in the Yahoo interface now and will be rolling out at other...
One thing I really like about going to conferences is they’re often one of the few times I get to sit and think about the bigger email picture. Hearing other people talk about their marketing experiences, their email experiences, and their blocking experiences usually triggers big picture style thoughts. Earlier this week I was at Activate18, hosted by Iterable. The sessions I attended were...
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