We sent out some W-9s this week. For non-Americans and those lucky enough not to have to deal with IRS paperwork those are tax forms. They’re simple single page forms with the company name, address and tax ID numbers on them. Because this is the 21st Century we don’t fill them in with typewriters and snail mail them out, we fill in a form online at the IRS website which gives us PDFs...
Affiliate marketing overview
Most retailers have realized that sending unsolicited email is bad for their overall deliverability. Still, the idea they can send mail to people who never heard of them is seductive. Enter affiliate email. That magical place where companies hire an agency, or a contractor, or some other third party to send email advertising their new product. Their mail and company reputation is protected...
SNDS issues and new Gmail
A bunch of folks reported problems with Microsoft’s SNDS page earlier today. This afternoon, our friendly Microsoft rep told the mailop mailing list that it should be fixed. If you see problems again, you can report it to mailop or your ESP and the message will get shared to the folks who can fix it. The other big thing that happened today was Gmail rolled out their new inbox layout...
What kind of mail do filters target?
All to often we think of filters as a linear scale. There’s blocking on one end, and there’s an inbox on the other. Every email falls somewhere on that line. Makes sense, right? Bad mail is blocked, good mail goes to the inbox. The bulk folder exists for mail that’s not bad enough to block, but isn’t good enough to go to the inbox. Once we get to that model, we can think...
Change is coming…
A lot of email providers are rolling out changes to their systems. Some of these changes are so they will comply with GDPR. But, in other cases, the changes appear coincidental with GDPR coming into effect. It seems, finally, some attention is being paid to the mail client. Over the last few years the webmail providers have tried to upgrade their interface. Many of the upgrades are about...
How long does it take to change reputation at Gmail?
Today I was chatting with a potential client who is in the middle of a frustrating warmup at Gmail. They’re doing absolutely the right things, it’s just taking longer than anyone wants. That’s kinda how it is with Gmail, while their algorithm can adapt quickly to changes. Sometimes, like when you’re warming up or trying to change a bad reputation, it can take 3 – 4...
Google makes connections
One of the client projects I’m working on includes doing a lot of research on MXs, including some classification work. Part of the work involves identifying the company running the MX. Many of the times this is obvious; mail.protection.outlook.com is office365, for instance. There are other cases where the connection between the MX and the host company is not as obvious. That’s where...
Gmail survey rough analysis
I closed the Google Postmaster Tools (GPT) survey earlier today. I received 160 responses, mostly from the link published here on the blog and in the M3AAWG Senders group. I’ll be putting a full analysis together over the next couple weeks, but thought I’d give everyone a quick preview / data dump based on the analysis and graphs SurveyMonkey makes available in their analysis. Of 160...
Google Postmaster Tools: Last Chance!
I’ll be closing down the Google Postmaster Tools survey Oct 31. If you’ve not had a chance to answer the questions yet, you have through tomorrow.
This data will be shared here. The ulterior motive is to convince Google to make an API available soon due to popular demand.
Tell us about how you use Gmail Postmaster Tools
One of the things I hear frequently is that folks really want access to Google Postmaster Tools through an API. I’ve also heard some suggestions that we should start a petition. I thought a better idea was to put together a survey showing how people are using GPT and how high the demand is for an API. They’re a data company, let’s give them data. I’ve put together a survey...