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.
ARC – Authenticated Received Chain – is a way for email forwarders to mitigate the problems caused by users sending mail from domains with DMARC p=reject. It allows a forwarder to record the DKIM authentication as they receive a mail, then “tunnel” that authentication on to the final recipient. If the final recipient trusts the forwarder, then they can also trust the...
I got my first email address in the very late 80s. I was an intern at a government agency. I learned a lot there: how to sequence DNA, how to handle radioactive material, how to handle human pathogens, and how to send email. I got my first non-work non-school address in the mid-90s. One of the first things I did was join some mailing lists. One of them was a list for folks who had pet rabbits. I...
On a lark (and to do my best to stay as informed as possible via primary sources) I decided to sign up for the official mailing lists of the Trump, Clinton, and Sanders campaigns. Both Trump and Clinton were happy to take my email address and add it to their distribution lists, no confirmation required. Not terribly surprising, since they need to make it as easy as possible to get their messages...
Had a wonderful time at the Email Innovations conference last week. Got a chance to see some familiar faces and meet a lot of new ones.
There is so much new and interesting and exciting stuff going on in the world of email. I think we’re hitting another period for real growth and innovation that’s going to change what we see in our inboxes and how we use email.
Dear Laura, We are having a bit of an internal struggle on our end as we launch our new quarterly account summaries. What are your views on including an unsubscribe link in these emails? My personal opinion is that we should. Although the summaries can be classified as “transactional”, they are not tied to a specific recent transaction a customer made and can be viewed as a general...
Over at Meh Glenn Fleishman has put together a fascinating two-parter on the history of using ALL CAPS for emphasis. And SHOUTING.
CAPITAL CRIMES, PART 1 : SHOUT, SHOUT, LET IT ALL OUT
CAPITAL CRIMES, Part 2: Usenet has no CHILL
Google is disabling support for email sent using version 3 of SSL or using the RC4 cypher. They’re both very old – SSLv3 was obsoleted by TLS1.0 in 1999, and RC4 is nearly thirty years old and while it’s aged better than some cyphers there are multiple attacks against it and it’s been replaced with more recent cyphers almost everywhere. Google has more to say about it on...
After a great experience in Atlanta last week, with the Salesforce and Mailchimp folks, I’m heading off again today. This time it’s Las Vegas for the Email Innovations conference hosted by the Only Influencers group. My talk is coming together nicely. It’s been a bit of a challenge to try and give enough detail to make sense while not overwhelming with technobabble. There were...
Comcast announced this morning that they’re having problems receiving mail and their customers are seeing significant delays. We are currently experience an issue which is causing a significant delay in receiving email. This is not a good thing and we are very aware of the problem and are working hard to restore it. Technical description for those who are interested: A problem on a couple...
This morning I got spam from someone selling email addresses. The mail starts: Hi Laura, I am aware of your expertise in the field of marketing and how well you execute your campaigns. We specialize in customized email list services and provide global data. […] “You are receiving this email as you have shown interest in data related solutions. Occasionally you will receive brief messages...
RSS - Posts