Marketing Trends & Takeaways
Consumers Demand (& Win) In-Box Overhauls
Here Come the Opportunities for Marketers...
Marketing Trends & Takeaways
Consumers Demand (& Win) In-Box Overhauls
Here Come the Opportunities for Marketers...
AOL is currently experiencing issues which are causing incorrect error codes to be issued. This is an issue on AOL's side and they are currently working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We will keep you updated as soon as they have a resolution. Here is what the AOL Postmaster Blog is reporting...
"We are at present issuing a "451 4.3.0
This is not replacing the existing two codes:
500, text= 5.1.1 : Recipient address rejected: aol.com
and
550 Mailbox not found
Senders using scripts to remove unknown users automatically should be looking for all three codes for the moment.
AOL AntiSpam"
We recently hosted a Q&A webinar to give our clients more information about feedback loops and spam filters — two major factors that determine the deliverability of your email campaigns. In case you missed it, here are the most common answers to your feedback and spam questions.
What is a feedback loop?
According to Wikipedia, a feedback loop is “the casual path that leads from the initial generation of the feedback signal to the subsequent modification of the event.” OK, but what does that really mean, especially in terms of email?
Why should I use feedback loops?
The better question is why shouldn’t you? It’s really a no brainer. Without this mechanism in your email marketing plan, it leaves you wide open to poor deliverability and ultimately a notch on your reputation.
How should I use feedback loops?
You should use them as a means for opting out people who have complained, which ultimately will help improve your deliverability and reputation.
Where can I find them in eLoop?
The feedback loops (FPLs) are under the Reporting module, under Deliverability.
How often should I check them?
Every day, ideally. If you’re sending daily campaigns then you should be checking it every day before you send out your campaigns. You should definitely check them before every campaign goes out to limit the possibility of sending to someone who complained about your last campaign.
What should I do if I get a complaint?
There are three possibilities:
Why is there a $200 setup fee for only the Yahoo Feedback Loop?
The short answer is that Yahoo made the signup process more difficult and lengthy than the others.
Most feedback loops allow us to send a bulk list of IP addresses through a basic online form. Yahoo, however, has a more detailed procedure that takes one of our staff members time to complete for each individual domain name. We’ll continue to offer new feedback loops that we can bulk submit free of charge to our clients as they become available.
Spam Filtering
What is a spam filter?
A spam filter is mechanism (it could be software, hardware or a combination of both) used to determine if a message is “clean” or not, and allows or blocks messages based on these rules before it hits your inbox.
How do these filters work?
The process works by assigning a score to an incoming message. That score determines if the message is clean or spam. Companies have invested hours and hours into monitoring messages and coming up with algorithms to determine what is and what is not spam. Some spam filters are simple, like the Junk Mail feature in Outlook which filters mail as it comes to your inbox. This is usually managed by the individual who can white list, block, release, and monitor the messages that have been filtered right from their PC or MAC. There are also server-level filters like Symantec’s BrightMail, which filters the mail at the server level before sending it to the recipient’s inbox. This process usually involves the IT staff in some fashion and is a little bit tougher to manage from the recipient level. Also, this process leaves the recipient at the mercy of the IT staff, who can make a change to the sensitivity of the filter that might affect deliverability to the recipient’s inbox. In this case, if the recipient has trouble receiving your message they may either never know or have to go through a lengthy process to have the IT staff resolve the issue. And that will probably damage your deliverability. There are also outsourced solutions like POSTINI, which filter messages before they even reach your corporate mail server.
How are spam filters used/implemented?
There are various ways to use a spam filter, although most of the process is pretty automatic. The process is based on preset (and constantly managed, monitored and tweaked) settings either at the client, server or outsourced level. These presets determine whether a message is spam or not. As noted previously, the implementation can be done on three levels, outsourced, server/appliance or at the client level. All of these need some kind of monitoring and tweaking to be successful.
How can it affect my email deliverability?
If there are enough complaints or your messages meet the criteria of being spam, then ultimately the filters can mark you as a “spammer” and cease to deliver your messages. The big problem with this, of course, is that your marketing success will suffer. If your messages are being caught in the filters (which in most cases you aren’t going to know unless your recipients are calling you and telling you that they aren’t receiving your weekly newsletter anymore) then they are not reaching the recipient’s inbox. And if your recipients aren’t getting your message, they probably aren’t interacting with you. Meanwhile your deliverability looks fine on the reporting side because they aren’t bouncing back. We offer enhanced message testing through Pivotal Veracity, which can help determine or troubleshoot any problems with deliverability. This is available in your eLoop account under Outbound Messaging. What is the delivery process of an email from eLoop to the recipient’s inbox?
Once the campaign has been executed from eLoop:
Also note: Be sure to check your bounce reasons. This can give you a good indication why messages are being bounced back along with an action to apply to help with future deliverability. We can’t stress enough how important it is to monitor this information using the tools that we provide and test.
What does it mean to be blacklisted? What does it mean to be flagged or labeled as spam?
These two questions have a lot of synergy. Being blocked for spam is also considered being blacklisted, but it’s usually at the ISP level and then filtered down to the recipients depending on the ISP. For example, MSN or Road Runner (both of which you can check under Feedback Loops in eLoop) may block you from sending to their recipients based on a high level of suspicious mail coming from your IP address.
First, a little bit of backgrounds on blacklists. The term “blacklisting” refers to someone being prevented from access to something based on the judgments of others. In the case of email, it refers to your IP or Domain being blocked by one of the many blacklists being utilized on the Internet. This could be a permanent block or a temporary block depending on the severity of the infraction and or the frequency of the infraction. The eLoop Blacklist Check located on the main login screen uses many of the most well known blacklists to determine if your IP is blocked or not. Some companies have independent internal blacklists that they manage and monitor themselves. Other organizations subscribe to one of the many blacklists that are run by various organizations on the Internet. Some of these organizations are friendly and understand how to work with you. But others have a zero-tolerance policy for spam and are EXTREMELY difficult to deal with.
As we have stated before with feedback loops it is so important to retain any and all opt-in information. This is vital to being removed from blacklists.
What can I do to better manage my deliverability and sender reputation?
If it’s been more than a year since you took a good, hard look at your email template, metrics, reports or design close the door, shut off the phone and schedule a check up. Too often marketers spend time and resources setting up their e-mail marketing programs and forget that they need a little TLC (testing, list management, and cleansing) to function properly.
Here are five things to include in your check up.
Images can enhance a message and draw attention to its key components. But, when they are blocked and appear as a big, red X in the recipient’s preview pane (often with the instruction to “right click to download”) they can lose their effectiveness. The reason images are often blocked is to enable users to prohibit unwanted (or inappropriate) images from loading automatically. Blocking images also protects readers from spammers who use them to verify the email address is real.
The impact of blocking images comes in multiple forms (such as lower open rates and disabled banner ads which can hurt advertiser supported material), but they all lead to lower deliverability. Like other delivery issues, email marketers can institute practices to help minimize this issue.