Email Marketing Insight

AllTel Emails Change Domain

2009-05-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

All emails @alltel.net are now @windstream.net. This is a temporary solution as the users will be given a chance to change their email addresses. Please update your databases accordingly.

Are you tracking your deliverability results?

2008-10-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

We all know deliverability is 90% of the game in Email Marketing. Well how do you track deliverability? How can we measure how much mail is actually going through?

The best approach to deliverability tracking is to use multiple points of reference. The first point of reference is your delivery logs. You should scan these in real time to see what domains you are bouncing mail from. When your mail is blocked to an ISP, you should stop mailing to that ISP immediately. This technique will preserve your IP space. You should also contact the ISP administrators and work to resolve your block. In the Permicity Campaign Manager (PCM), you can view real time logs in the Dashboard. You should also gather statistics from your logs. What are your Top Bounce Domains? What domains are you sending mail from that is always getting through? You can find this information in the Analysis->MTA section of PCM. This information will give you the "big picture" of how effective your email delivery is. It also gives you data points to pursue to improve your deliverability.

The second point of reference is using seed emails. You can periodically send email to a list of emails you own at your target domain to see what gets through. You should tune how often you deliver to the seeds since this process itself can get your email blocked. You can email to seeds by specifying what the seeds are in a text file on the PCM system and then tuning how often you want to mail to them from the Outbound MTA->Injector page. You can use a program such a Delivery Monitor to automate the checking of the various email accounts. You can also use some custom code like LWP if you have specialized needs for checking how email is being delivered. Sending seeds during every campaign is a surefire way to see how much mail is being delivered.

These third point of reference is to use ISP benchmarks on your email delivery. ISPs such as Hotmail (SNDS) provide this information free of charge and it provides valuable insight into yoru email delivery. They give you detailed statistics per IP informing you of how mail was delivered (blocked, bounced, or put into the bulk folder).

We recommend using the three different points of reference in conjunction to give you 100% visibility into your email delivery. Good luck and Happy mailing!

Permicity Campaign Manager Version 3 Released!

2008-09-16T11:25:00.001-07:00

We are excited to announce the release of Version 3 of Permicity Campaign Manager. The latest version has several enchancements and optimizations to improve your mailing experience.

The biggest change is the addition of module support. Now you can add custom components based on your needs. We currently provide two modules, Bulk Add Module and a Database Module. The Bulk Add Module will let you add multiple configurations to your system in a single screen. You can add multiple domains and ips by simply providing a list of the items.

The Database Module allows you to customize the database to add custom fields. You can use these custom fields in the campaigns you send out to improve deliverability. The Database Module also lets you back up the database to your PC.

Some other changes in Version 3 are:

Updated analysis screens with better graphs and more data.
Simplified campaign creation process.
Improved help bubbles throughout the application.
Enhanced performance when deploying campaigns.
Reduced administration needed due to more automation.
Ability to customize homepage and unsubscribe page.

Deliverability Links

2008-08-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some useful links for deliverability:

General Information

1. Delivery Monitor
Track your deliverability with Delivery Monitor
http://deliverymonitor.com?535

2. Senderbase
You can research your IP Addresses and Domains at Senderbase
http://senderbase.org

3. SpamCop
You can sign up to receive SpamCop reports for your IP Addresses
http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=ispsignupform

4. Blacklists
You can check if your IP Addresses or Domains are listed on Blacklists by checking the following sites
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/index.lasso
http://www.mail-abuse.com/cgi-bin/lookup

5. Domain Keys
You can test if your domain keys are working here
http://domainkeys.sourceforge.net/policycheck.html

6. DNS
You can troubleshoot your DNS issues, such as reverse DNS, MX records here
http://dnsstuff.com

Hotmail and MSN

1. Postmaster Information
https://postmaster.live.com/

2. Smart Network Data Services (SNDS)
A useful tool provided by Microsoft to monitor and troubleshoot delivery issues.
You can sign up here https://postmaster.live.com/snds/

3. Feedback Loop
You can sign up for Microsoft's feedback loop called the Junk Mail Reporting Program (JMRP)
http://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsjmrpp

4. SenderID Framework
You can setup SenderID to prove that you are who you say you are to help delivery
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/senderid/default.mspx

5. Certify your email
You can certify your email with Return Path to ensure delivery
http://www.senderscorecertified.com/

6. Microsoft Support
You can try contacting their support for futher information
http://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsmsbl

Yahoo and SBC Global

1. Yahoo Policy
Ensure you are compliant with Yahoo policies
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/abuse/postmaster-01.html

2. Block Code
Identify the block code you are receiving
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/abuse/abuse-57.html

3. Yahoo Postmaster
You can contact the Yahoo Postmaster by following the link for "Contact Customer Care"
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/abuse/abuse-62.html

America Online (AOL)

1. AOL Postmaster
You can access the AOL Postmaster site for more information
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/

2. Feedback Loop and Whitelist
You can sign up for the AOL Feedback Loop and Whitelist program here
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/whitelist/whitelist_guides.html

3. Certified Email
You can sign up with Goodmail Systems for certification for AOL
http://www.goodmailsystems.com/index.php

Other ISPs

1. RoadRunner
You can view RoadRunner policies and contact their Postmaster here
http://security.rr.com/amIBlockedByRR.htm
http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm

2. Verizon
You can apply for the Verizon whitelist here
http://www2.verizon.net/micro/whitelist/request_form.asp?id=isp

3. Netzero and Juno
You can apply for the United Online whitelist here
http://www.unitedonline.net/postmaster/whitelisted.html

Do the CAN-SPAM law changes affect you?

2008-06-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Government updated the CAN-SPAM laws to reflect the following changes:

1. You can now use a P.O. Box as a physical mailing address. This helps reduce costs for a lot of email marketers who now do not have to rent a physical office space to remain CAN-SPAM compliant.

2. Email marketers must have a simple opt-out mechanism, requiring either a reply to a campaign or a web based unsubscribe where only their email address is required. Users have expressed their frustration with being required to "opt-in" to opt-out of a mailing. We recommend using a process where either the user replies to an email or they click on a link for an unsubscribe.

3. Change of definition of a "person" to be "an individual, group, unincorporated association, limited or general partnership, corporation or other business entity". This eliminates some of the legal wrangling available to email marketers to send their mail without adhering to CAN-SPAM laws. As some organizations put the burden of their operations on a single non-existent person to avoid following CAN-SPAM laws.

4. Now multiple senders, a message with parts from several senders, can identify a single entity as the designated sender. This provision now creates the possibility of sending multiple offers in a single email. It also helps limit liability of advertisers who offers are present in newsletters or similar types of content.

Permicity Campaign Manager 2.4 Released!

2008-04-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce the major release 2.4 of Permicity Campaign Manager Software. Version 2.4 comes with several enhancements to improve your email marketing experience:

Automated support for ARF Feedback Loops
SQL filter to select users based on criteria you specify
Segmentation of lists via web based interface
Merging of lists via web based interface
Ability to browse a list
Improved speed in campaign delivery, yes it got even faster!

Contact Us to find our more!

Are you losing clicks because of your redirect links?

2008-02-06T01:16:00.000-08:00

If you use long strings to store information for your redirect links you might be losing clicks. Let us look at a redirect link like http://yourdomain.com/campaignname/usersemailaddress/tracking/information. These types of links are frequently found in email campaigns. They are useful because they enable the marketer to track user behavior by simply parsing the link before redirecting the user to the advertiser site. SPAM filtering software scans the message and does the following things with a link like the one above:

Record the domain name
Compare the domain name with ones already present in the SPAM database
Create a signature of the entire url and record it
Compare the signature with ones already present in the SPAM database
Check the IP address of the domain
Compare the IP address to ones already present in the SPAM database
Check the Name Server (DNS Server) of the domain
Compare the Name Server (DNS Server) to ones already present in the SPAM database

If conditions 2,4,6, or 8 match, then the mail is blocked. If more mail is sent from the same IP address it is blocked also and automatically added to the SPAM database. As you can see the structure of your redirect links is very important.

One approach to the problem is to simply stop tracking clicks. By encoding nothing in the redirect link except the domain, the redirect link looks like http://yourdomain.com. This approach is not ideal since it involves relying on the affiliate network statistics. If their statistics are faulty or down for a period of time you could lose thousands in revenue.

Another approach is to use proxy sites to mask the redirect link. A proxy site is a site performs redirect link translation to your site. A proxy url might look like http://proxydomain.com/abcd. When the user clicks on the proxy link the proxy site converts that link to be http://yourdomain.com/campaignname/usersemailaddress/tracking/information. The problem with this approach is that it involves creating an entry for every link you want tracked which can be very time consuming. Proxy sites such as tinyurl.com provide free redirect link translation.

Our third approach involves using services provided by some registrars: URL forwarding. URL forwarding is similar to proxy site translation but is done at the DNS level. You can register a domain at a registrar and have them forward all requests for a domain to a particular IP address or domain name. Tracking individual user behavior is again a problem as the URL forwarding removes all tracking information. Registrars like Namesecure.com provide URL forwarding standard with all domains registered with them.

In closing you should investigate different formats for your redirect links and stay vigilant to improve them!

Road Runner Domains

2008-01-10T11:49:00.000-08:00

The ISP Road Runner has migrated a few of their domains and is responding with error messages when you try to mail to their users. The domains that are affected are:

jam.rr.com
midsouth.rr.com
mn.rr.com
se.rr.com
sport.rr.com
swfla.rr.com
ucwphilly.rr.com
houston.rr.com

These domains have been migrated to the comcast.net domain.
You can update your lists to avoid deliverability issues.

Find Out What SPAM Filters Scan

2008-01-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

In recent years SPAM filtering technology has become both advanced and faulty. We can no longer send our friends a message with a subject like "Go to Blake Street for a free t-shirt", and expect it to reach their Inbox. SPAM filtering technology using a lot of Bayesian filtering. Unfortunately since Bayesian filtering is based on probability it is not a 100% accurate. Spammers use Bayesian poisoning to bypass the filters. You have probably seen random content in your email enclosed in HTML tags.

As a legitimate email marketer it is nice to know how your email is going to be filtered. A useful tool to test for Bayesian filtering is Spam Assassin. Spam Assassin will assign a score to your email based on the SPAM and non-SPAM content. Here is a list of the tests that Spam Assassin checks for. Once you get Spam Assassin installed and configured you can check your messages for SPAM content before you send them.

A number of email platforms come with Spam Assassin integrated. The most notable of which is Permicity Campaign Manager Version 2.0 and above.

Are You Having Trouble Mailing To Yahoo?

2007-12-17T12:00:00.001-08:00

Since late last year Yahoo has become very aggressive with bulk email.

They introduced a new error code "451" to notify senders that "They just don't want your email." Here are a few interesting articles outlining the fixes people have tried:

1. Yahoo Mail Servers Rejecting Email
2. Some Advice From Yahoo!
3. Overcoming Email Deliverability

Our analysis confirms that delivering to Yahoo is linked to the rate at which you deliver emails and the time when you send the emails. People who send large batches of SPAM deliver email from 9pm to 11pm EST. They typically try to deliver over 20K messages per minutes. By throttling down your Yahoo delivery rates you will see an improvement in deliverability.

Do you have insight to share? Please add a comment.

New Feedback Loop Standard

2007-12-13T17:33:00.000-08:00

As the volume of unwanted email has grown significantly over the last few years. The increased volume has led to an increased number of email complaints. The new standard for Feedback Loops is in its final stages, we thought we would give you a sneak peek :)

According to the draft memo the following items are required in every feedback message:

The "report-type" parameter of "multipart/report" type is set to "feedback-report"
The first MIME part of the message contains a human readable description of the report and MUST be included.
The second MIME part of the message is a machine-readable section with the content type of "message/feedback-report" (defined later on in this document) and MUST be included. This section is intended to convey metadata about the report in question that may not be readily available from the included email message itself.
The third MIME part of the message contains either a full copy of the original message with a MIME content type of "message/rfc822" (as defined in RFC 2046 (Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, “Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types,” November 1996.) [3]) OR a copy of the headers from the original message with MIME content type of "text/rfc822-headers" (as defined in RFC 3462 (Vaudreuil, G., “The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages,” January 2003.) [1]). This part MUST BE included (unlike RFC 3462 (Vaudreuil, G., “The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages,” January 2003.) [1]). While some operators may choose to modify or munge this portion for privacy or legal reasons, it is RECOMMENDED that the entire original email message be included without any modification.
Each feedback report MUST be related to only a SINGLE email message. Summary and aggregate formats are outside the scope of this specification.
The subject line of the feedback report SHOULD be the same as the included email message and MAY include only the standard forwarding prefix used by MUAs such as "FW:" (many smaller operators using MUAs for abuse handling rely on the subject lines for processing).

The proposed fields in each email report are:

Field Name: Authentication-Results
Description: results of authentication check
Field Name: Feedback-Type
Description: type of feedback report
Field Name: Original-Mail-From
Description: email address used in the MAIL FROM portion of the original SMTP transaction
Field Name: Original-Rcpt-To
Description: copy of the email address used in the RCPT TO portion of the original SMTP transaction
Field Name: Received-Date
Description: date the original message was received
Field Name: Reported-Domain
Description: relevant domain name
Field Name: Reported-URI
Description: relevant URI
Field Name: Removal-Recipient
Description: email address to be removed from the mailing list
Field Name: Source-IP
Description: IPv4 or IPv6 address from which the original message was received
Field Name: User-Agent
Description: name and version of the program used
Field Name: Version
Description: version of specification used

So what does all this mean?
Email marketers will have to modify their unsubscribe mechanisms to support the new standard. Email marketers will also have to be more diligent to ensure that feedback reports are processed correctly. ISPs will be able to aggregate detailed complaint information about their user's complaints. ISPs can use this information to prosecute email marketers since they now have detailed information regarding each complaint. The overall work load for both email marketers and ISPs is reduced since the complaint process is automated.

Notes:
* AOL has already unveiled a beta version of the new format.

Is Email Marketing Dying?

2007-12-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

We all know that click and open rates are continually decreasing. One reason is that the volume of emails received by each user has increased substantially. Even corporate inboxes which undergo extensive filtering are growing.

The increased volume of mail translates into an increase of time spent reading and responding to email. System and Network administrators are constantly looking for new solutions to increase their productivity in dealing with the increasing workload. They are constantly on the lookout for the latest SPAM filtering technology .

Our first consideration is that if corporate users are receiving so much work email when are they going to respond to marketing email? Clearly their response rates are going to drop.

Users today are much more likely to report SPAM than they were a year ago. ISPs have made the "Mark as Spam" button a standard on every client. According to SpamCop, in general people are reporting more SPAM.

To get an overview of the total increase in volume, we turn to SpamNation. What to we learn?
The volume of SPAM is growing exponentially!

When you send your offers today you are competing for your audiences time with an ever growing crowd. As an email marketer if you are sending the "hot" offers from your affiliate network you know everybody else is too. Users get a high number of duplicate offers each day in their inboxes. Duplicate offers improve SPAM filtering technology. Much of SPAM filtering technology is based on machine learning. Bayesian Filtering is a form of machine learning that is commonly used to deal with SPAM. With faster processors, more memory, and faster bandwidth machines today are lot more capable of dealing with the volume than they were 5 years ago. State of the art software like Permicity Campaign Manager (PCM) can significantly help with Bayesian Filtering. PCM can be configured to help minimize Bayesian Filtering by decreasing the weighting in Conditional Probability Tables.

So what does all this mean? Clicks and Opens are going to continue to decrease unless Email Marketers find compelling offers that reach users inboxes.

Encoding: A Ticket To Bypass Email Filters!

2007-11-27T02:18:00.000-08:00

Encoding messages is by no means a new technique. Julius Caesar used a simple encoding scheme to hide the content of his messages to his troops. Caesar developed what we now refer to as ROT-13. It is a simple encoding that replaces every letter with one that is 13 places in front of it. You would replace an "A" with an "N", and a "U" with an "H".

We have far more complex algorithms today. Email marketers use these complex encoding techniques to bypass email filters. Email filters are designed to scan for plain text. When an email filter encounters encoded text, it ignores it. Hence email filter that will block a message with the subject "HOT VIAGRA STOCK FROM NIGERIA" will not block its equivalent "SE9UIFZJQUdSQSBTVE9DSyBGUk9NIE5JR0VSSUE=".

Now you are probably asking what the heck is that? I can't read that garbled text! Well you are right, sort of. One of the email standards, RFC 2047, defines a set of encodings to work with characters not found in the English language text. Words in English are typically encoded in a format called US-ASCII or just plain ASCII. The RFC 2047 standard lets you encode ASCII text in another format and still have it render as ASCII (plain English) on every email client. The main benefit of encoding is that the message is ignored by email filters, and displays as desired when the recipient views the message.

RFC2047 specifies that messages can be encoded with the Base64 format. Here is a simple php script that encodes to and decodes from Base64 format:

#!/usr/bin/php -q

<?php
if ($argv[1] == "e") {
  printf("%s\n",base64_encode($argv[2]));
} else {
  printf("%s\n",base64_decode($argv[2]));
}
?>

First save the script as b64.php. Now you can encode a subject line by typing:

./b64.php e "A FREE STOCK PICK"

and you will get:

QSBGUkVFIFNUT0NLIFBJQ0s=

You can decode the subject by typing:

./b64.php d "QSBGUkVFIFNUT0NLIFBJQ0s="

Now you just need to enclose the encoded text in a few tags specified by RFC 2047. These tags are what ensure the encoded text will be correctly decoded by email clients. I have taked the subject above and encoded it in the correct tags:

=?iso-8859-1?B?QSBGUkVFIFNUT0NLIFBJQ0s=?=

The "=?iso-8859-1" specifies the encoding used. The "B" identifies this as a Base64 encoded message. The message content is closed by a "?=".

I just revealed how to break the system so let's talk about how to fix it. Email filters need to evolve to deal with this new technique. Large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have to decode and evaluate Base64 encoded messages. Small ISPs and individual users can opt to delete Base64 encoded messages. This is a safe bet only if all your communication are to and from English speaking users. Non-English speaking countries have to rely on decoding and analyzing Base64 encoded text. Filtering software like procmail is probably the best for this application. It allows a per user configuration option to deal with Base64 encoded messages. Here is a sample configuration.

Email Deliverability Guides

2007-11-26T12:50:00.000-08:00

There is a plethora of information about email deliverability online. Here are few guides we found that have some interesting snippets of information:

Chips Deliverability Tips
Short snippets about Chip's email delivery adventures.

Email Deliverability for Beginners
A good place to start if you are new to the field.

Boosting Email Deliverability
A nice article explaining DNS and IPs clearly.

Clean Up Gmail Data

2007-11-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

Users can use multiple address formats for the same Gmail address. Hence you may have duplicates on your list. Here is an example that illustrates the concept:

joe.smith@gmail.com
joes.mith@gmail.com
joesmith+carloansignup@gmail.com
joesmith@googlemail.com
joesm.ith@googlemail.com

All map to the same email box: joesmith@gmail.com. By cleaning up your Google data you will avoid sending multiple campaigns to the same address.

Here is more information on the Google addresses.

Bad Data? Get Good Data!

2007-11-19T12:42:00.001-08:00

You bought a list and 70% of it bounced. Then you find that 10% of the list is complaining and you're ISP or ESP is upset. How do you avoid this situation?

1. Too Much Marketing
Anytime somebody is willing to sell you their data outright you should be weary. If they are selling it to you chances are they have sold it to others. The data is being actively marketed to; in fact, the users on that list are probably receiving more marketing than they ever wanted. When you start marketing to them you can expect a high complaint rate. Because of these factors you should make sure you have sole access to the data you are purchasing.

2. Old Data
People frequently change their email addresses because they use one to sign up for stuff and abandon it. If you are buying a list with old data you might as well scrape names off the Internet. Make sure your data is fresh by checking the opt-in dates. The registration dates should be no more than 3 to 6 months old.

3. Bad Collection Methods
Data that comes from a form that was served up a popup in a 10 step registration process is not good data. The user will often forget they signed up and complain frequently. Buy data from reputable sites that have large user bases. Let your users know where you got their information from.

4. $300 Disks of 300 Million Names
Umm. Hmmm. Yeah, you know where we are going with this. Don't buy data that looks ridiculously cheap.

Senderbase: Check your IP Health

2007-11-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder on how many blacklists your IPs are on? Or how many people have filed complaints about you? Check out Senderbase.

You can put in your IP or IP Address range and see several things.
1. The volume of mail you send in comparison to other senders.
2. Listings of complaints archived on Google

Typically ISP administrators use Senderbase to check how you are using their IP addresses. If you are applying for new IPs check your old IPs here first to ensure your IPs are clean.

Google Search Engine Optimization

2007-11-15T14:03:00.001-08:00

Email Marketing Tips #2

2007-11-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

1. Use eye catching landing pages.
Capture your users attention when they click on your offer with a landing page that is rich in graphics and content. Make sure your landing page loads in under 3 seconds.

2. Prepulate landing pages.
Prepopulate the forms in your landing pages so the user can submit the form easily.

3. Avoid animation or Flash in your landing pages.
Landing pages that have "lights and flashes" tend to decrease the brand value. Focus on your content to capture the readers attention.

4. Put related offers on your landing pages.
Give the user choices to select a related offer if they do not like the one you are presenting.

5. Optimize your landing pages for search.
Improve the visibility of your landing pages with optimized tags for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Deliver to Hotmail

2007-11-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

Hotmail. Hotmail. Hotmail. By the time your mail reaches the users inbox it feels like ColdMail. Delivery into Hotmail is a constant concern for legitimate email marketers and email service providers. Here is a step by step guide on how to deliver to Hotmail.

1. Get a Windows Live Hotmail account.
You are going to have to do a LOT of testing so expect this account to be very active.

2. Sign up for SNDS.
See where your IP addresses currently stand with Hotmail. Sign up for their free SNDS service.

3. Stop rotating your IPs.
Hotmail likes to see a history established with your IPs. Use a pool of IPs and send from each once a week.

4. Slow cook your IPs.
Like ribs you have to slow cook them. Send 10,000 messages the first day. Then 15,000 the second day. Then 20,000 the third day. Take a few months to work you way up to several million messages.

5. Blast your messages.
Use many messages per connection and open less connections. You have a 3 to 5 minute window to get your email through so use it effectively. As you IP reputation improves you will have a longer window.

6. Content. Content. Content.
Notice that some people use HTML <style> tags to hide content. They are using a technique to break the Brightmail filter and inbox their email. While we do not recommend this technique, we do recommend constantly tweaking your content to find something that works.

7. Use big messages.
Try to add a lot of text content for each message you send. This will certainly help not mark your email as SPAM.

8. Forget Bonded Sender.
If you are going to donate money, give it a useful charity not Bonded Sender.

Adsense Cartoon

2007-11-10T16:58:00.001-08:00

Start Email Marketing

2007-11-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

Email Marketing Tips #1

2007-11-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hi Joseph
Use your recipients information in the body of the email message. People love personalized messages. Having your messages differ by content is an excellent way to avoid being incorrectly marked as SPAM.

TRY IT FREE
Avoid using obvious SPAM words like FREE, $$$, and Sign Up. These words get your campaign quickly flagged as SPAM.

The best tasting steak for a .... vegetarian?
Identify who your target demographic is and tailor your messages to attract them. If you are a vegetarian you are not interested in steaks, so you will most likely ignore this message and future messages. Tweak your content constantly and use A/B testing to find the best message content for your users.

Text or HTML
Use both. Some people do not have HTML enabled browsers. Nowadays people even check email on their phone, so being accessible is key.

Is a picture a thousand words?
In fact it is. Use a equal balance of words and pictures in your campaigns. Use pictures to illustrate an idea. Use words to clarify and extrapolate those ideas.

Top 5 Reason Why People Complain

2007-11-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

Reading user's complaints is not pleasant. As human beings, we don't want negative feedback for the hard work we put in. We compiled a list of the Top 5 reasons Why People Complain to help you reduce the negative feedback.

Top 5 Reason Why People Complain:
1. They claim they never opted-in. This is typically the case with exit forms, co-reg data, and rented lists.

2. They receive too many messages each day. Many senders contact each member of their list with 3 to 5 advertising messages each day, this is way too many.

3. The users have already received the same advertisement many times. Sending that "hot offer" that your affiliate recommends results in saturation. Test many offers so you have a large pool to select from.

4. The unsubscribe mechanism does not work. For whatever reason your unsubscribe mechanism is not working and the user is still getting email from you. We recommend using a global unsubscribe process, if the user opts-out from one of your lists, remove them from all of your lists.

5. The user is offended. Offers that target a particular demographic and sent to your whole list often offend a group of people. If they have been married for 20 years they don't want a dating offer. Sometimes you just touch a nerve. If a person is neck high in debt, they don't want another debt offer.

Not everybody is good on camera :)

2007-11-07T10:38:00.001-08:00

Does A/B Testing Work?

2007-11-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

In a word, yes!

What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is a method of advertising testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples. A classic direct mail tactic, this method has been recently adopted within the interactive space to test tactics such as banner ads, emails and landing pages.

Employers of this A/B testing method will distribute multiple samples of a test, including the control, to see which single variable is most effective in increasing a response rate or other desired outcome. The test, in order to be effective, must reach an audience of statistical significance.

What should I test?
We have found that trying various subject and from lines to improve delivery is extremely effective. The Subject and the From line get your user to open the email. Try using ones that are similar to what your advertiser sent you but not the exact same text. Test multiple creatives. You will see variation based on time of day, season, and list demographic.

Summary
By tailoring what you send to your users, you improve customer retention and increase revenue.

An Angry User

2007-11-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

Improve Hotmail MSN Email Delivery

2007-11-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

Are you tired of having your mails blocked by Hotmail and MSN? After years of mailing to Hotmail and MSN we have some interesting finds we would like to share:

1. Forget what they tell you on their site about Sender ID, it has zero impact on delivery.

2. Hotmail and MSN delivery is based on CONTENT. Tweak your templates and test constantly, what works today most likely will not work tomorrow. Create a seed account on Hotmail and see what other people are sending you and how they are doing it.

3. Hotmail is rate limited. Deliver as much email as fast as you can into Hotmail, it is the best strategy for maximum delivery.

4. IPs are reusable at Hotmail. Check out SNDS at https://postmaster.live.com/snds/

5. Remove your Spam Traps, Hotmail has converted older accounts into Spam Traps. Refer to the article on this blog to figure out how.

6. Find more tips here.

Is video the future of email marketing?

2007-11-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Google just announced video ads via YouTube for blogs and websites. It is not going to be long before these get imbedded into email campaigns. You can read more about what Google is saying about them.

Introducing video units
AdSense isn't just for ads anymore; it's also a place to get video content for your site -- and earn extra revenue at the same time.

We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes.

You can also find more information and examples of these types of ads here.

Is Gmail Spam filtering buggy?

2007-11-02T11:56:00.001-07:00

Google recently published information about their SPAM filtering methods.

Here is what they say about their methods:

1. Community clicks

Gmail users play an important role in keeping spammy messages out of millions of inboxes. When the Gmail community votes with their clicks to report a particular email as spam, our system quickly learns to start blocking similar messages. The more spam the community marks, the smarter our system becomes

2. Quick adaptation

The same advanced computing infrastructure that powers Google search also tunes our spam filters. As new spam data is released, the scale of Google's computer network allows us to quickly modify Gmail's spam-fighting algorithms. It's often a matter of minutes between the time a spammer sends out a new type of junk mail and when it's blocked from Gmail accounts.

3. Powered by Google

Many Google teams provide pieces of the spam-protection puzzle, from distributed computing to language detection. For example, we use optical character recognition (OCR) developed by the Google Book Search team to protect Gmail users from image spam. And machine-learning algorithms developed to merge and rank large sets of Google search results allow us to combine hundreds of factors to classify spam.

4. Authentication, for everyone

Many webmail services support a single authentication system to verify senders and help identify forged messages. Gmail supports multiple authentication systems, including SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DomainKeys, and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), so we can be more certain that your mail is from who it says it's from. Also, unlike many other providers that automatically let through all mail from certain senders, making it possible for their messages to bypass spam filters, Gmail puts all senders through the same rigorous checks.

Our Analysis
We have several seed accounts at Google and find that nearly all advertising content is going into the SPAM folder. We found that by using several authentication methods we did get better success having our messages delivered into the inbox. The content is key, you need to have more text and small images and avoid words like unsubscribe, free, and the rest of the SPAM flags words.

Updated AOL Feedback Loop Information

2007-11-01T12:30:00.001-07:00

AOL has updated their requirements for a Feedback Loop.

Requesting a Feedback Loop:

When requesting a feedback loop, your domain must comply with AOL's reverse DNS guidelines. Additionally, it must meet ONE of the following criteria:

The reverse DNS for each IP shares the FBL domain.

A valid example would be:
192.168.1.1 resolves to mailserver1.accounting.aol.com
192.168.1.2 resolves to mailserver2.accounting.aol.com
At least one authoritative nameserver for each IP shares the FBL email domain.

A valid example would be:
FBL email address is: aolfbl@accounting.aol.com
192.168.1.1 authoritative nameserver is ns1.accounting.aol.com
192.168.1.2 authoritative nameserver is ns1.accounting.aol.com
The IP WHOIS information for each IP shares the FBL email domain in common. The domain may appear in any of the listed email addresses.

A valid example would be:
FBL email address is: aolfbl@abuse.aol.com
192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 IP WHOIS contains the line: OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@abuse.aol.com
The ASN WHOIS information for each IP shares the FBL email domain in common. The domain may appear in any of the listed email addresses.

A valid example would be:
FBL email address is: aolfbl@abuse.aol.com
192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.2 ASN WHOIS contains the line: OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@abuse.aol.com

You can find the entire page here.

Is email marketing still profitable?

2007-11-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Using Images in Email Campaigns

2007-10-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

1. Use more text. To improve deliverability you email campaign should not consist solely of images.

2. Use several images as opposed to a single image. Smaller images load faster. Also if you only have one image, the item that displays closest to the top of the page is the unsubscribe link.

3. Avoid transparent images. Transparent PNGs do not render well on older browsers and email clients and can make your email campaigns look sloppy.

4. Use image names that are unique to help with deliverability. If your images are called the same thing as other email marketers you have a higher likelihood of being marked as SPAM. Check our Permicity Campaign Manager which does this automatically.

5. Mask your image links so that you can track clicks on them. Make sure every image is click-able since people like to click on images.

Feedback Loops

2007-10-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

What is a feedback loop?
A feedback loop is a system that is put in place by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to send you the complaints when their users click on the "This is Spam" button. The complaints contain the users email and the campaign you sent them.

What should you do with that information?
Unsubscribe the user. If a user is complaining to their ISP it is creating delivery problems for you when you send to that ISP. Email marketing software like Permicity Campaign Manager have automated processing of feedback loops, so you don't have to manually unsubscribe thousands of complaints.

How do you setup a feedback loop?
Do a search for the ISP you send to and their postmaster. If you were looking for an AOL feedback loop, search for "aol postmaster." If the ISP offers a feedback loop you will find a link for how to setup it up. The process is pretty straight forward, you give the ISP an email address and they send all the complaints to that address. You can then check the mail at that address and remove those users.

Automated detection of Spam Traps

2007-10-29T10:11:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder how to find the Spam Traps on your list?

The first thing to do is understand what a Spam Trap is. A Spam Trap is an email address where any mail received is marked at Spam. It is rumored that Hotmail converted unused email accounts into Spam Traps to improve their filtering technology. When email is received at Spam Trap it is scanned by an automated piece of software to create a Spam signature. This Spam signature is used to flag email sent to regular accounts.

You can identify if an email is a Spam Trap by doing the following:

Put a blank image (transparent single pixel image) at the very top of your campaign.
Add a redirect link to the blank image to a site of your choice, the most obvious being the advertiser site.
Send your campaign and record the time the campaign was sent.
Check your reporting and make a note of all clicks on the blank image within an hour of sending the campaign.
Repeat this process for another campaign.
When you compare the results of the two campaigns, you will see that certain users always click on the blank image immediately when the receive the campaign - these users are Spam Traps. The rationale behind this is that a human being would not click on a blank image. Also most human beings do not constantly open a message immediately campaign after campaign and click on a blank image.

Reducing the number of Spam Traps on your list will improve your deliverability.

Port 25 PMTA - The fastest MTA

2007-10-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for an MTA that can really crank? We have found the Power MTA (PMTA) from Port 25 Soloutions can deliver around 1.2 to 1.5 million messages per hour to a diverse list. PMTA is a very simple package to install. They provide an installer for both Windows and Linux. The Linux installer is just an rpm package, and you can install it using: rpm -i PACKAGE_NAME.
You can ask for an evaluation license which will last for 30 days so you can get a feel for what the software can do. It is extremely customizable and lets you do route mail from multiple ips and multiple domains - which is essential if you are involved with large scale list management activities. PMTA has some nice log parsing tools like pmtaacctfind and pmtaacctstats to get bounces and delivery statistics from you logs. It also has a nice web based interface that will show you throughput, top domains, and much more. Contact me if you would like to get some discounted pricing for PMTA.

If you are looking for a turn-key email marketing system to run on top of Power MTA you can check out Permicity Campaign Manager (PCM).

How to check if your IPs are dirty?

2007-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some places you can check the status of your IP Addresses:

1. Senderbase.org
You can enter your IP range here to see if you are blacklisted or have abuse listings on Google.

2. Google
Doing a search for your IP will show you the feedback for that IP that people have posted in newsgroups or on webpages.

3. SpamCop
You can see the Spam complaints your ip has received.

4. SBL
If you are on this list, you have some major problems. If you are listed here it is usually due to a very high volume of mail sent and a large number of complaints.

IP Hopping

2007-10-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

IP Hopping is a technique where a sender utilitizes multiple IPs and continually rotates through them while sending. This technique is very successful initially as all the mail reaches the intented recipient. After a few days, the IPs get "dirty" and become blocked by ISPs. This initiates another IP rotation or hop. After a period of time you will find that you have a large number of IPs that are dirty and now it seems like when you use a new IP you are getting blocked faster. The reason for this is that SPAM filtering technology creates a signature of the content you send and uses this signature to identify and block you. Invariably your email software has a definite traceable signature, unless you are using a product like Permicity Campaign Manager which allows you to tweak the entire signature, and that is used by not only you but anyone else who uses that software.

I would recommend not doing any sort of IP Hopping, instead talk to the ISP administrator when you get blocked and find a way to resolve it. This approach is much more sustainable and also proves to the ISP that you are a legitimate business.

Analyzing Deliverability

2007-10-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

Definitions
Deliverability: The measure of how much mail you send actually reaches the intended recipients inbox.
Delivery Monitor Software: Software that enables you to see if mail reaches inboxes are specified ISPs, by utilizing test email accounts at those ISPs.
Seed Data: Add test or trial email addresses to your list.

Spam Assassin
There are several ways to measure deliverability and to get an accurate view you must use several data points. The first data point to check is to run your email through Spam Assassin. Spam Assassin assigns a score to your email based on the content and headers. Look at the items that are generating the highest spam score and modify them so your deliverability improves.

Delivery Monitor
The second step to measuring your deliverability is to use some type of delivery monitor software. I would recommend using Delivery Monitor. They are relatively inexpensive and have a clean and simple user interface. You first have to seed you data with the test emails that the site provides for you. You will also have to add additional header tags to the email so Delivery Monitor can track the email. Another delivery monitor software option is ReturnPath. Their solution is more expensive but offers a very nice user interface and also lets you preview how the messages are rendered at each different ISP.

Log Analysis
The third step is analyzing your email logs, they provide valuable information about deliverability. You can find out how the remote ISPs are responding to the email you are sending. Look at your logs to identify bounce codes, which often contain information about email blocks. You will find a link to the ISP administrative contact so you can resolve the issue with them. Process the bounce codes in your email software, in Permicity Campaign Manager you can do this in the Bounces section, so that each bounce is accurately marked. You can check the actual delivered numbers by looking for a 250 code to get an accurate count of how many emails were delivered. You can also find rate limiting information in the logs, if you see messages such as "Too many messages from host" you need to throttle down the number of connections and messages you are opening to that ISP.

Use images for Unsubscribe information.

2007-10-22T15:32:00.001-07:00

When you send email campaigns you may find that your email stops reaching the inbox of the intended recipients. One reason for this is that your email is being filtered and marked as SPAM. Since your Unsubscribe link, which you must have and test frequently to make sure it works, is a text link it gets filtered and is part of your "signature" used by SPAM filtering software.

One way to help avoid this problem is to use an image for the Unsubscribe link and postal address. You can frequently change the image name to avoid it being part of your SPAM signature.