Gmail is a challenge for even the best senders these days. With the recent Gmail changes there isn’t any clear fix to getting open rates or inbox delivery back up. Some of it depends on what is causing Gmail to filter the mail. Changing subject lines, from name, from address may get mail back to the inbox in the short term, but it only works until the filters catch up. What I am seeing...
Affiliate mailers struggling
What are affiliate mailers? Affiliate mailers collect email addresses and then rent access to those addresses out to 3rd parties. There are a wide range of vendors that fall into the affiliate category. Some vendors compile lists through co-registration, others compile lists themselves through website opt-ins and some affiliate vendors fulfill mailing requests by hiring affiliates. There are, of...
May 2014: The month in email
It’s been a busy and exciting month for us here. Laura finished a multi-year project with M3AAWG, the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (look for the results to be published later this year) and continued working with clients on interesting delivery challenges and program opportunities. Steve focused on development on the next version release of Abacus, our flagship abuse...
Using Google to taunt coworkers
Happy Friday, all. This has been a rough week for so many people, I thought we needed a little humor.
From Tim Norton (@norton_tim) on Twitter.
Thoughts on Gmail and the inbox
Over the last few months more and more marketers are finding their primary delivery challenge is the Gmail inbox. I’ve been thinking about why Gmail might be such a challenge for marketers. Certainly I have gotten a lot of calls from people struggling to figure out how to get into the Gmail inbox. I’ve also seen aggressive domain based filtering from Gmail, where any mention of a...
More from Gmail
Campaign Monitor has an interview with Gmail looking at how to get mail to the Gmail inbox. It’s a great article and I think everyone should go read it. One of the most important things it talks about is how complex filters are. On Gmail’s end, Sri revealed that there are literally hundreds of signals to decide whether an email should go to the Inbox or the Spam folder. The importance...
Is gmail next?
I’m hearing hints that there are some malware or phishing links being sent out to gmail address books, “from” those gmail addresses. If that is what’s happening then it’s much the same thing as has been happening at Yahoo for a while, and AOL more recently, and that triggered their deployment of DMARC p=reject records. It’s going to be interesting to see what...
Sendgrid's open letter to Gmail
Paul Kincaid-Smith wrote an open letter to Gmail about their experiences with the Gmail FBL and how the data from Gmail helped Sendgrid find problem customers.
I know a lot of folks are frustrated with Gmail not returning more than statistics, but there is a place for this type of feedback within a comprehensive compliance desk.
Gmail promotions tab improves for marketers
The official Gmail blog announced today that they’re testing a new way of displaying emails in the Promotions tab. This display method will show users a featured image instead of the normal subject line. Email marketers that want to take advantage of this should visit the Gmail developers pages for information on how to set a featured image for Gmail. More innovation from Gmail in the...
Gmail FBL update
Last week Gmail started contacting ESPs that signed up for their new FBL with more information on how to set up mailings to receive FBL emails. One of the struggles some ESPs are having is the requirement for DKIM signing. Many of the bigger ESPs have clients that sign with their own domains. Gmail is telling these ESPs to insert a second DKIM signature to join the FBL. There are a couple reasons...