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Machine learning resources

Thanks to everyone who joined the deliverability discussion on Friday. I realised after I scheduled that it was Good Friday and that may have limited some folks’ ability to join. This call we talked about Machine Learning and how it is applied to spam filters. Before the call I put together some resources in a Google Doc and some participants added links and more information afterwards...

Spamhaus DBL errors

Sometime in the last few days, Spamhaus seems to have started issuing a block message if someone queries the DBL with an IP address. folks started seeing an uptick in error messages that mention Spamhaus saying: 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [x.x.x.x] blocked using dbl.spamhaus.org; No IP queries, see (in reply to RCPT TO command)) Crowdsourcing information from the emailgeeks slack...

Whose side are you on?

A few weeks ago I was on an industry call. We were discussing some changes coming down the pike at the ISPs and filter providers. These changes are going to cause some headache at ESPs and other places that do email but don’t provide mailboxes. During the call I ended up explaining why what the ISPs were doing made sense and how it fit in with their mission and customer needs. At one point...

Let’s do it again

Given the success of our initial call, let’s try it again. This time Friday April 10, 5pm Ireland time, 12 noon Eastern and 9am Pacific. Same as before, send me an email to laura-ddiscuss@ the obvious domain and I’ll send you an invite. I’m trying to move the days around to catch folks who couldn’t make Wednesday. Potential topics: How do you learn the technical aspects of...

Misinformation on filters

I’ve seen reports that someone is asserting that utm=COVID19 in URLs results in all mail going to bulk at multiple ISPs. This is the type of thing that someone says is true and dozens of folks believe it and thus a “deliverability phact” is born. For a plethora of reasons, this doesn’t pass the sniff test. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. It’s...

Discussion Session

More than 30 people joined our delivery discussion from last Wednesday evening (Irish time). Thanks to all who joined and participated. I had a number of different topic suggestions, but the thing on everyone’s mind was the current pandemic and how much email many of our customers, clients, and companies are sending. We had what I think was a productive discussion sharing information and...

Deliverability discussion

Lots of folks are socialising distantly these days, so I thought I’d try a scheduled deliverability discussion over video. Given the time difference, I’ll log on in the evening Irish time which makes this daytime for most of the US folks. The first call will be Wednesday, March 25, 2020 at 5pm Ireland time. That’s 1pm Eastern and 10am Pacific. If you’re interested in...

Moment of Zen

Things are very unsettled right now. Completely and totally unsettled. Even for those of us who are well geared up for and used to working from home are struggling in our current situation. We went for a walk down the canal on Tuesday, and it was very quiet, with almost no traffic on the street. There were various couples and families walking, but most were doing a good job at social distancing...

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

It’s a near silent St. Paddy’s day here in Ireland. We took a walk along the canal and took in the silence. On the way back, our neighbour’s kids had decorated their front window and I had to take a picture.

Things are weird. Be kind to yourself and to others. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Don’t send that email to your entire database.

Advice on coronavirus emails

Gartner has some really good recommendations for companies considering mailing about the coronavirus pandemic. Launch your COVID-19-themed marketing email campaign only if you can answer yes to four questions: Am I telling customers something different from other brands versus saying the same thing as everyone else? Am I telling customers something they don’t already expect of my company or brand...

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