Ask Laura
Do spamtraps exist?
One of the folks on the Email Geeks slack asked me a question last week that I thought was really insightful and has a somewhat nuanced answer.
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Why so many IP addresses?
Hi Laura,
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Merry Xmas and wishing you a Happy New Year!
I recently looked at a popular ESP’s IPv4 space and I was astounded. How does an ESP get an IP allocation of 20,480 IPs? ARIN guidelines do not allow “MX/Mailing” IPs to count towards a valid justification especially in the case when each and every IP is being used for this purpose. That’s 80 /24’s…and at a time when we are out of IPv4 space….Would love to see a blog post with your insight about this issue….
Got questions?
With my travel / vacation in October, blogging has been light the last few weeks, including a brief hiatus of our Ask Laura series. I’m working hard for the next few editions of Ask Laura and will get those posts out soon.
We’ve been getting questions from readers for a while, but I want to encourage folks to contact us with more. What are your questions about email? Got a problem you’ve been looking for specific answers about, but can’t find any answer that seems to apply? Use our contact address to send it to me.
Upcoming articles include questions about using IP pools and answers to some questions about opt-out processes.
Looking forward to getting back into the swing of Ask Laura, so keep those questions coming.
Ask Laura: What about Transactional Opt-Outs?
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 reminder to shop again. As I gathered data to present my case, I reviewed several different account summaries and I found it split close to 50/50. Do you have any data or thoughts to support one way or another?
Thanks,
Summary Judgement
Ask Laura: Can you help me understand no auth / no entry?
Dear Laura,
I’m a little confused by the term “no auth / no entry”. Gmail and other major receivers seem to be moving towards requiring authentication before they’ll even consider delivery.
Does this just mean SPF and DKIM, or does this mean the much more stringent DMARC, as well?
Thanks,
No Shirt, No Shoes, No What Now?
Ask Laura
An Advice Column on Email Delivery
When we work with brands and senders to improve email delivery, there are many questions that come up again and again. For 2016, we thought it might be interesting to answer some of those questions here on the blog so others can benefit from the information.
Confused about delivery in general? Trying to keep up on changing policies and terminology? Need some Email 101 basics? This is the place to ask. We can’t answer specific questions about your server configuration or look at your message structure for the column (please get in touch if you’d like our help with more technical or forensic investigations!), but we’d love to answer your questions about how email works, trends in the industry, or the joys and challenges of cohabiting with felines.
Your pal,
Laura
Dear Laura,
I’m having a hard time explaining to our marketing team why we shouldn’t send email to addresses on our lists with very low read rates, that are dormant but not bouncing, or that spend less than 2 seconds reading our mail. I’m also struggling to convince them that it’s not a good idea to dramatically increase email volume during the holidays (i.e. going from one send/day to 2-3 sends/day).
We already segment based on recency, engagement, and purchase behavior, and we also have some triggered messaging based on user behavior.
Can you help me find a way to help explain why sometimes less is more?
Thanks,
The Floodgates Are Open
Dear Floodgates,
ISPs ask two fundamental questions about email when it comes in:
- Is it safe?
- Is it wanted?
If the answer to both those questions is yes, the mail is delivered to the inbox.
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