Word to the Wise

We make email better.

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We make email better.

Word to the Wise helps email marketers create more effective email messages, programs and infrastructures. We advise you how to skillfully navigate the constant business, technology, and policy challenges so your messages reach your customers.

We can help you with your email strategy, deliverability challenges and many other email issues.

Latest stories

About that DMARC "exploit"

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A security researcher has identified a rendering flaw that allows for “perfect” phishing emails. From his website: Mailsploit is a collection of bugs in email clients that allow effective sender spoofing and code injection attacks. The spoofing is not detected by Mail Transfer Agents (MTA) aka email servers, therefore circumventing spoofing protection mechanisms such as DMARC...

Deliverability is critical for marketing

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It is increasingly clear that successful email marketing programs measure and emphasize deliverability. No longer is deliverability the crisis management team called when everything breaks. They’re part and parcel of an effective email marketing team. Today I watched a bit of the EIS livestream where acquisition marketers were discussing their processes. Everyone of them talked about things...

Microsoft MXs changed over

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Today on MailOp it was announced that the migration of Microsoft freemail domains to the office 365 backend. Over the next week the mx*.hotmail.com mail servers will stop working. Check your settings, folks, and make sure you’re correctly querying DNS before sending.

Vodafone New Zealand: sorta shutting down

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Vodafone NZ is shutting down mail handling for the following domains as of today, Nov 30, 2017. clear.net.nz es.co.nz ihug.co.nz paradise.net.nz pcconnect.co.nz quik.co.nz vodafone.co.nz vodafone.net.nz wave.co.nz According to their website, this is primarily  due to an elderly platform that’s not meeting the needs of their users, including long mail delays and too much spam. The FAQ they...

Not fooling anyone…

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A question came up on the Women of Email Facebook page about sending cold B2B emails. This is one of those areas I have strong opinions about, mostly because I am so tired of getting deceptive and unending messages from folks. Realistically, cold emailing isn’t going to stop just because recipients hate receiving it. We haven’t wiped out spam in 20+ years, we’re not going to...

It's not a technical problem

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You can’t technical your way out of the bulk folder. I wrote that a year and a half ago, and it’s even more true today. Filters at the big webmail providers continue to evolve to meet new threats and new spamming techniques. Sending technically perfect mail won’t get your mail into the inbox. Recipients have to want the mail and interact with the mail for good delivery.
 

Cyber Monday volumes

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Wow! Congrats to all the senders out there for sending So Much Volume that mail servers are full. I’ve even seen reports that STARTTLS connections are taking multiple seconds to establish at Gmail. The volume of mail that it takes to make Google slow down is impressive. Of course, Gmail isn’t the only system exhibiting slow downs.  Other major consumer webmail providers are also...

Busiest email time of the year

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Everyone ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns? I know many retailers are already mailing, my inbox is exploding with offers. For me, this is often a quiet time of the year. As a strategist, most of my worked happened months ago. Now, it’s time for execution. I wish everyone a successful week of mailing. May your deliverability be high. May your subject lines be correct. May...

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