It seems the last few Friday’s I’ve been lax on posting. Some of that is just by Friday I’m frantically trying to complete all my client deliverables before the weekend. The rest of it is by Friday I’m just tired. Today had the added complication of watching the Trumpcare debate and following how (and how soon) it would affect my company if it passed. That’s been a...
Security, safety and the cavalry
In some ways it’s been really hard to focus on email for the last few months. There are so many more important issues in the world. Terrorism, Brexit, the US elections compromised by a foreign government, nuclear threats from multiple countries, the repeal of ACA, mass deportations and ICE raids here in the US. I find myself thinking about what to blog. Then I glance at the news and wonder...
It's not fair
In the delivery space, stuff comes in cycles. We’re currently in a cycle where people are unhappy with spam filters. There are two reasons they’re unhappy: false positives and false negatives. False positives are emails that the user doesn’t think is spam but goes into the bulk folder anyway. Fales negatives are emails that the user does thing is spam but is delivered to the...
Spam complaints… ish
I know a lot of folks working at ESPs. For those I know well, I will usually send in reports. Sometimes they’re not spam reports per se. Often it’s just “hey, this sender shouldn’t have my address, might want to poke them.” Sometimes it’s even more specific. A few years ago I spoke at a user conference for an ESP. I stayed at the hotel for one night, and the...
Relaying Denied
I’ve got multiple clients right now looking for insights about bounce handling. This means I’m doing a lot of thought work about bounces and what they mean and how they match up and how different ISPs manage delivery and how different ESPs manage delivery and how it all fits together. One thing I’ve been trying to do is contextualize bounces based on what the reason is. Despite...
11 Innovators in the Email Game
Today AWeber published a link to 11 innovators in email marketing. I’m honored to be one of them. I don’t really think of myself as a marketer, I’m a delivery person. My job, really, is to help clients devise email strategies (and overall digital marketing strategies) that result in inbox delivery. When I started, there were some significant divides between email marketing and...
Indictments in Yahoo data breach
Today the US government unsealed an indictment against 2 Russian agents and 2 hackers for breaking into Yahoo’s servers and stealing personal information. The information gathered during the hack was used to target government officials, security employees and private individuals. Email is so central to our online identity. Compromise an email account and you can get access to social media...
Engagement, Engagement, Engagement
I saw a headline today: New Research from Return Path Shows Strong Correlation Between Subscriber Engagement and Spam Placement I have to admit, my first reaction was “Uh, Yeah.” But then I realized that there are some email marketers who do not believe engagement is important for email deliverability. This is exactly the report they need to read. It lays out the factors that ISPs...
More CASL enforcement
Last week the CRTC published a CASL enforcement action wherein they fined an individual $15,000 for 10 violations of the act. The Commission imposes an administrative monetary penalty of $15,000 on William Rapanos for 10 violations of section 6 of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. Specifically, Mr. Rapanos sent commercial electronic messages (i) that did not identify the sender, (ii) that did not...
Blackboxes and unknown effects
In my previous career I studied the effect of alcohol on developing embryos. It’s a bit weird I ended up in that field because embryological development always seemed to complex to me. And it was and is complicated. In a lot of ways, though, it was good training for deliverability. We dealt with a lot of processes that seem, on the surface, straightforward. Fertilization happens, then you...