Recent Posts

Facts about engagement

It is reality that ISPs look at the population of recipients that a mail stream is going to.
It is reality that they evaluate the activity of that population.
It is reality that ISPs treat senders that are sending to a significant number of email addresses that have not been logged into or accessed recently negatively.
If you’re having delivery problems, looking at the recipients and their activity is part of troubleshooting the issue and identifying a path back to the inbox.
You can use web and purchase data as a measurement of engagement IF you have, at some point, directly linked the email address and the user.
If you don’t have something that demonstrates a direct link between the person and the address, then it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not that email address belongs to who you think it belongs to.
Happy Friday everyone. It’s been a week.

CASL is more privacy law than anti-spam law

Michael Geist, a law professor in Canada, writes about the new CASL law, why it’s necessary and why it’s more about privacy and consumer protection than just about spam.

Don't wait to address delivery problems

One of the worst ways to deal with blocking issues is to ignore them and hope your mail magically moves from the bulk folder back into the inbox. While this does happen as ISPs and filter companies update their filters, it’s not that common and it’s usually the result of a sender actually cleaning up their sending processes and improving the quality of the mail they send.
Do not ignore blocks. What I generally tell people is that it takes at least as long to repair a bad reputation as it took to get that bad reputation in the first place. If you wait months before actually addressing delivery problems, you’re not going to make a change and have the filters react in hours.
This doesn’t mean that every block is a business crisis. Blocks happen and they do go up and down based on thresholds and automatic monitoring scripts and content. But if a block happens consistently for 4 or 5 days in a row it is time to look at what you’re doing. Don’t just focus on the sidelines and little stuff, either. Look at your marketing program and the mail you’re sending.

The DMA: Email marketing or spam?

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a webinar from the DMA. As is my normal process I used a tagged address. I don’t remember any notification that I would be signing up for mail, and I generally do look for those kinds of things. I also know a lot of webinars are used to drive sales processes and I prefer not to waste sales time if I’m not actually looking to purchase.
In recent weeks I have gotten an ongoing stream of marketing messages from the DMA. I’ve tried to opt-out, but the DMA don’t actually want me to opt-out. Each marketing message is a different type of message from a different list. Each list must be opted out of individually.
First it was Conferences, then it was Education, then it was Awards, then Events. I’m trying to figure out what’s next and how many more times the DMA is going to get to spam me before I just turn that address into a spam trap.
And before you tell me that I can’t make an address a spam trap, think about that a little bit. I never opted this mail in to receive anything but the webinar confirmation. I’ve dutifully opted out each and every time the DMA has mailed me. I’ve even tried to opt-out of all mail. Unfortunately, the DMA has placed the “opt-out of all mail” behind a registration wall, one I cannot get to as I do not have (or want) a DMA account.
DMASignOn
The DMA is sending me mail I did not request and do not want. They have made it impossible for me to determine how much mail I will get. They have made it difficult for me to opt-out of all their mail.
This is an example of bad email marketing. I’m sure that the DMA will tell me this is all permission based email. I disagree. This is an example of the DMA taking permission. This is not an example of a sender asking for permission. I didn’t give permission to be added to all these DMA lists, and I have no way to actually revoke the permission that they took from me.
I signed up for a second webinar with this email address, one related to CASL. The irony is that the DMA’s behavior here is a violation of a number of points of CASL. First, there was no clear opt-in notice on the website. Second, CASL requires parity between opt-in and opt-out. If I opt-in once then I should be able to opt-out once. CASL puts an end to this opt-in once, opt-out dozens of times process.
I wish I could say I was disappointed in the DMA. But I’m barely surprised. Their track record is poor and they have typically fallen on the side of “I have consent until you force me to acknowledge that I don’t.” In this case, the DMA is demonstrating that quite clearly. They will keep spamming and spamming and spamming. I have no doubt were I to actually register an account, they would continue to spam me with “account notifications” that I was unable to opt-out of because they are transactional, membership messages.

Happy 4th of July

We’re off to eat hot dogs and ice cream and watch fireworks with KarlTheFog.
Have you met KarlTheFog? We visited him earlier this month and I took some pictures.

Have fun storming the CASL!

I’ve given Humble Bundle my (tagged) email address a bunch of times – as part of purchases, as my username on their website, to download games and books I’ve bought.
And, naturally, they’ve sent me newsletters announcing when they have new sales. Did I check a checkbox or uncheck a checkbox? I don’t remember, and don’t really care. It’s a company I have a real relationship with and have purchased from, they’re sending content I want to see, and I trust them not to misuse my address and to honour an unsubscription request.
So … probably opt-in, and I’m fairly sure they’ve confirmed that it’s my email address. But did they explicitly tell me they’d use my email address for a newsletter? I and my email archive don’t remember that far back, and it’s quite possible that Humble Bundle’s current staff and records don’t either.
In todays newsletter, right above their talking about their summer sales, they had this:

They’re confirming that I want to keep getting newsletters, and stressing why I want to keep getting them. Their database probably dates back to the iron age, or at least 2010, and my clicking on the big, friendly green button both lets them know that I’m an engaged subscriber and lets them record in their database that “Yes! This subscriber has explicitly said they want our newsletters!”.
Gradually adding that information to their subscriber database will let them better make decisions in the future about what content to send, how often, whether to try and reengage with a subset of their subscribers.
Oh, and there’s CASL, of course.
If you or your recipients have a Canadian presence you have a little less than eighteen months to make sure you have documented, explicit consent from any recipients for whom you only have implicit (e.g. business relationship) consent or for whom you’ve lost the original records.

June 2014: The month in email

Each month, we like to focus on a core email feature or function and present an overview for people looking to learn more. This month, we addressed authentication with SPF.
We also talked about feedback mechanisms, and the importance for senders to participate in FBL processes.
In our ongoing discussions about spam filters, we took a look at the state of our own inboxes and lamented the challenge spam we get from Spamarrest. We also pointed out a post from Cloudmark where they reiterate much of what we’ve been saying about filters: there’s no secret sauce, just a continuing series of efforts to make sure recipients get only the mail they want and expect to receive. We also looked at a grey area in the realm of wanted and expected mail: role accounts (such as “marketing@companyname.com”) and how ESPs handle them.
As always, getting into the Gmail inbox is a big priority for our clients and other senders. We talked a bit about this here, and a bit more about the ever-changing world of filters here.
On the subject of list management, we wrote about the state of affiliate mailers and the heightened delivery challenges they face getting in the inbox. We got our usual quota of spam, and a call from a marketer who had purchased our names on a list. You can imagine how effective that was for them.
And in a not-at-all-surprising development, spammers have started to employ DMARC workarounds. We highlighted some of the Yahoo-specific issues in a post that raises more questions.
We also saw some things we quite liked in June. In the Best Practices Hall of Fame, we gave props to this privacy policy change notification and to our bank’s ATM receipts.
We also reviewed some interesting new and updated technology in the commercial MTA space, and were happy to share those findings.

Happy Canada Day, CASL now in effect

It’s Canada Day, and this year it has special connotations for email senders who are in Canada or sending to Canadian residents.
CASL is now in effect. For in depth guidance, go visit Matt Vernhout’s excellent series on CASL. But for those of you who just want the Cliff notes here’s the high points
If you are in Canada or you are sending to residents in Canada:

Incorrect rejection messages

At least one ESP and Spamhaus are currently investigating bounce messages at a couple ISPs incorrectly pointing to Spamhaus as the reason for the block. The bounce messages are taking the form:

Spam disclaimer of the day

Things are extremely busy here so blogging is not getting quite the attention it should. I hope to return to more extensive posts soon. Meanwhile, you’ll have to put up with short posts.
Today is a disclaimer I received in a spam. This is one of my addresses that has, somehow, ended up on UK-specific lists.