Blog

February 15, 2017

Are seed lists still relevant?

By laura

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15February

Those of you who have seen some of my talks have seen this model of email delivery before. The concept is that there are a host of factors that contribute to the reputation of a particular email, but that at many ISPs the email reputation is only one factor in email delivery. Recipient preferences drive whether an email ends up in the bulk folder or the inbox. The individual recipient preferences...

February 13, 2017

Truth, myths and realities

By laura

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13February

For a long time it was a known fact that certain ISPs recycled abandoned addresses into spamtraps. There were long discussions by senders about this process and how it happened. Then at a conference a few years ago representatives of ISPs got up and announced that they do not recycle addresses. This led to quite a bit of consternation about how deliverability folks were making things up and were...

February 10, 2017

Subscription transparency

By laura

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10February

I regularly tell clients to be transparent with their sends. With email, permission is better than forgiveness. A surprise change in mail frequency or type leads to complaints. Complaints lead to bulk foldering. Once mail is in the bulk folder, it’s hard to get out of there, particularly at some webmail providers. The permission is better than forgiveness is hard for a lot of senders to...

February 9, 2017

Gmail filtering in a nutshell

By laura

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09February

Gmail’s approach to filtering; as described by one of the old timers. This person was dealing with network abuse back when I was still slinging DNA around as my job and just reading headers as a hobby. Gmail uses a 10+ year old neural network that analyzes thousands of factors, related to email, IP, and web, integrated with all Google products, and with 99.9%+ accuracy for identifying...

February 8, 2017

Fun with opinions

By laura

4 Min read

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08February

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a couple people get on mailing lists and make pronouncements about email. It’s great to have opinions and it’s great to share them. But they’re always a little bit right… and a little bit wrong. SPF is dead! This came from the new ESP of an experienced mailer. They were recommending not publishing SPF records because it was “an...

February 6, 2017

January 2017: The Month in Email

By laura

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06February

Between client work and our national political climate, it’s been a very busy month around here and blogging has been light. Things show no sign of slowing down in February, so we’d love to hear from you with questions and suggestions of what you’d most like to see us focus on in our limited blogging time this month. We got a great question about how senders can access their Google Postmaster...

January 30, 2017

Blogging

By laura

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30January

It’s been a wild week here in the US. I have to admit, the current political climate is affecting my ability to blog about email. I’ve always said email is not life or death. And how can I focus on the minutia of deliverability when things are in such turmoil and uncertainty? There are many things I want to write about, including some resources for those of us who are struggling with...

January 25, 2017

Email trends for 2017

By laura

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25January

Freshmail has published a list of email marketing trends for 2017 from some of their favorite experts. I am honored to be included.
Go check it out!

January 24, 2017

What about the spamtraps?

By laura

5 Min read

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24January

I’ve been slammed the last few days and blogging is that thing that is falling by the wayside most. I don’t expect this to change much in the very short term. But, I do have over 1200 blog posts, some of which are still relevant. So I’ll be pulling some older posts out and sharing them here while I’m slammed and don’t have a lot of time left over to generate new...

January 19, 2017

Conferences and Events?

By laura

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19January

What are readers favorite conferences and events around email and marketing? I’m starting to plan out my schedule for this year. I did a lot of talks at familiar places last year, and I’m looking to find some new places.
Tell me your favorite conferences in the comments.