Recent Posts

Welcome 2019

• laura
• Jan 2, 2019

• Industry

It’s the beginning of a new year and everyone is breaking out posts either reviewing the previous year or making predictions for the next year. I’ve done both over the years.

Temporary fixes

• laura
• Dec 28, 2018

• Industry

If your mail goes back to spam within a month of “fixing” a delivery problem, then you never really fixed the problem. You just evaded filters for a short time. The filters caught up and the problem is definitely your mail.

Gmail tab weirdness

• laura
• Dec 7, 2018

• Industry

Lots of reports today about mail being delivered to unusual tabs today. Mail that normally goes to promotions is in updates, updates are in the inbox, things like that.

Whois silliness from Tucows

• laura
• Dec 5, 2018

• Uncategorized

In the wake of GDPR, public whois records are 100% redacted. There is lots of work going on to attempt to provide the data without violating privacy laws, but no one is there yet.

Never 100% inbox

• laura
• Dec 3, 2018

• Industry

No matter how great an email program deliverability is, no one can guarantee that 100% of the email sent will reach the recipient’s inbox. Why? Recipients can make decisions about where mail goes in their own inbox. Every mail client has a way for users to control where mail is delivered.

Thinking about the concept of best practices

• laura
• Nov 29, 2018

• Best Practices

In 2010 Chad White declared best practices dead.

Frankly, the term has always been too “big tent” to be truly useful. When “don’t buy email lists” and “use buttons for primary calls-to-action” are both best practices, it’s no wonder there’s confusion. What we need is new language that differentiates those practices that are a litmus test for legitimate email marketers vs. spammers, from practices that are simply wise.

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How much is too much?

• laura
• Nov 27, 2018

• Industry

Anecdotally I’m hearing a few different things about recent mail sends.

Successful sends on Black Friday

• laura
• Nov 26, 2018

• Industry

Last year a number of ISPs mentioned the Black Friday email volume was congesting their systems and causing delays. While anecdotally it seems that volume is up over last year I also haven’t heard any ISPs talking about congestion. Likewise, most of the delivery folks I’ve spoken too today and over the weekend are saying there were no major problems.

Ready. Set…

• laura
• Nov 21, 2018

• Industry

Send Actual SMTP

• laura
• Nov 19, 2018

• Best Practices

It’s rare I find mail that violates the SMTP spec (rfc5321 and rfc5322). I’ve even considered removing “send mail from a correctly configured mail server” from my standard Best Practices litany.