An automated dialer from Blockbuster called me today to tell me that I had an overdue movie. I received a similar call about a week ago for the same movie. The problem is, I don't rent movies from Blockbuster!

It seems like someone else registered with my phone number (maybe just a typo) and now they are calling me about someone else's movies. To make matters worse, this is my mobile phone.

The automated message was about 2 minutes long and included a phone number for the Blockbuster branch that the overdue movie was rented from.

I waited until the end of the recording, hoping to hear "If you've received this message in error, press 2 to be connected to an operator" or "If you don't want to receive calls like this in the future, please press 2" but there wasn't anything like that.

Shouldn't automated phone calls include an "unsubscribe" just like emails?

Technically, this would be a "transactional" email or phone call, since Blockbuster isn't trying to sell me anything. However, I think this shows a good example of why even transactional emails should have an unsubscribe on them.

TrueSwitch offers the ability for email recipients to announce their digital change of address to participating ISPs, among other nifty services.  Larger ISPs have even opted in to provide this service for their members (such as AOL and Yahoo).  Like the USPS service, TrueSwitch will forward messages from an old account to a new specified email address for up to 30 days allowing you to decide whether you want to reach out to the senders and update your information.  Furthermore, they will announce your change of address to recipients in your contact list. 

However, I see some potential problems with this.  First, the forwarding service uses your new address in the friendly from.  However, does it actually send through your current account or just spoof it and send off TrueSwitch's IPs?  If the latter, this could cause major delivery issues with spoofing filters and let your email be wholly reliant on their IP reputation.  I assume there’d be a lot of hard bounces in address books that haven’t been updated and email addresses have gone dormant so the performance of their IPs would be worrisome.  Secondly, since they don't have coverage at all ISPs, folks not a part of the participating receivers will be left out.  And finally, what if you want your recipients to know about several new email addresses?  I personally have many and when one goes away, it's easy enough for me to send a blast out to everyone on my address book and tell them exactly where I will be checking future email from.  So, is this a service I would pay for?  Seems like a solution OtherInbox could handle all for free. 

I would love to get everyone's thoughts on this, especially since the holidays are upon us and emailing to friends and family from personal accounts skyrockets as plans are made, gifting decisions discussed and circulation of good old fashioned chain mail humor increased.

-Chris
Datran Media

So I had planned on writing a personal message to all this week to say Happy Thanksgiving! but I'm wondering if this might do it just as well. http://www.returnpath.net/thanksgiving2008/

Rumor has it that Matt Blumberg did the Turkey voiceover ;).

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Spam doesn't just happen in email. Facebook just won a lawsuit against Adam Guerbuez for almost a billion dollars. It's unlikely that he can pay even a small portion of that, but we'll take every win against spammers that we can get.

So a few of us have heard for months now that Yahoo! and Return Path were up to GOOD, but what who knew. Well the news hit last week and we are excited to hear that in the first week of January, Yahoo! will be using the Sender Score Certified program in its filtering decisions. Sender Score Certified members will receive preferential treatment in reaching the inbox at Yahoo! Mail.

For those in the program currently, hopefully you have seen tremendous increased results on your ROI and Inbox results through ISP's like HotMail, Road Runner, Cox, Comcast etc and with business anti-spam systems,like Cloudmark, IronPort, SpamAssassin, Barracuda, etc.

What does this mean for you as a sender? Well for years we have spoken about sender reputation and making sure yours is the cleanest and highest score of all. Like a credit score for email programs, a reputation score determines how your clients’ messages will be treated by ISPs and other email receivers. Tracked behaviors like low complaints, low hard bounces, and no spamtraps to name a few ensure your sending email with a class A score. A bad score in any of those areas and your DOOMED to have your email slowed-up, junked, or worse blocked.

How can you tell what your score is? You can check it here for free. The Sender Score Certified program works off the reputation (credit) score of your email. Make sure you have a good one.

If you are not currently a Sender Score Certified member now is a great time to apply.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

By J.D. Falk

Director of Product Management, Receiver Products

With every new technology, there are a few people who fully grok not only where it stands now, but where it's going -- who will be using it, and how. In our case, these are people whose thinking about reputation is so far ahead of the rest of the industry that if we would have had them as speakers at our IN conference a few weeks ago, and they revealed their visions of the future, everyone's heads would have exploded!

One of these is my friend Mike Adkins, who works on authentication and reputation for AOL. AOL has always been a leader in the industry, and Mike and I -- along with Dave Crocker, and other smart folks -- have been talking about the inevitable and much-needed intersection of authentication and reputation at MAAWG for the past few years. One of the recurring difficulties with this or any complex new technology is that it's new: there are no existing "best practices" and everyone is worried about making the first mistakes. Mike's fed up with this -- as are we all -- and he has decided to put a sharp wooden stake into the heart of the problem. Recently, he's been talking very candidly with the industry about AOL's future plans. The plans may change, he says, but this is their starting point -- and anyone who wants to continue sending mail to AOL's subscribers, or to understand the direction the rest of the industry is likely to take, needs to pay attention.

I tend to get overly wordy and perhaps somewhat theoretical when talking about this topic, so Return Path's marketing team has condensed what we understand of AOL's plan into a few simple bullet points:

•    AOL will be implementing domain reputation next year. It will be used in parallel with their existing IP reputation system, and will include a domain-based feedback loop and domain-based whitelisting.

•    Domain reputation will be based on DKIM. This way, it's actually your reputation -- not the reputation of some spammer who's been forging your domain. If you are not signing with DKIM, their old IP reputation system will still be in effect.

•    All AOL sites -- including Compuserve and Netscape -- will use the same system.

•    Announcements of the rollout and other relevant information will be posted on their postmaster site.

This is, still, a novel use of multiple, fairly young technologies -- and so we must applaud AOL's willingness to take the first public steps, and to be so open about their plans. Our colleagues elsewhere in the ISP world have indicated that they're developing similar plans, and for many, that will directly involve some new technology that we've been designing with them. Stay tuned for more..

Original Post

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Top Firms Fumble Opt Outs: Return Path

Nov 18, 2008 1:51 PM, By Ken Magill

More than 10 years since e-mail became a viable sales-and-marketing channel, many of the best-known marketers in the U.S. handle opt-outs poorly, according to a study released today by deliverability firm Return Path.

Granted, the study was of just 45 companies, but it was of 45 mostly household names, such as Wal-Mart, Staples, Sears, Disney, the New York Times, Kraft, Fisher Price, BMW, Expedia, Hertz and Marriott.

According to Return Path, 20% of those surveyed sent more e-mail after acknowledging the unsubscribe, which is not against the law, but does have the potential to tarnish the companies’ brands and their e-mail reputations. Consumers who have opted out are far more likely to report additional e-mail as spam, putting the marketer at greater risk of getting messages blocked by ISPs or diverted into would-be recipients’ spam folders.

Even worse, five of the firms continued sending e-mail more than 10 days after the unsubscribe request, a violation of the Can Spam Act.

Also, just two of the marketers offered subscribers the ability to change their preferences, such as the frequency of messages they receive. And just five companies offered an e-mail change-of-address option.

“There’s a huge opportunity in the opt-out process that I was surprised so few marketers are leveraging as fully as they could,” said Bonnie Malone, director of strategic services for Return Path. “And the fact that some marketers were mailing after that 10-day window was rather shocking. These are not small companies, these are well-known brands. And that’s not a new rule. It’s been around for several years now.”

The federal Can Spam Act requires marketers to honor e-mail opt-outs within 10 days or risk fines.

According to Malone, the experience a subscriber has when opting out of an e-mail program can be as important as the experience they had opting in. After all, she said, just because they don’t want any more e-mail doesn’t necessarily mean they’re no longer a customer.

“If that last impression is negative, you may lose them altogether as a customer,” she said. “Even if they don’t maintain a subscriber relationship with you, you want it to be as positive as possible from a branding experience, if nothing else. The end [of the e-mail relationship] is just as important as the beginning.”

Besides making the opt-out process pleasant, she said, marketers could offer an exit survey to spot shortcomings in their programs and fix them.

“Surveying can help you find out how valuable your e-mails are to them or if there are frequency issues,” she said.

Malone added that anecdotally, she has found that most marketers are keenly aware of their e-mail shortcomings but are struggling with IT issues.

“I’ve spoken to a number of marketers who voiced concern over their IT practices,” she said. “They know they have IT system challenges in their organizations and they’re admitting: ‘We know we have some shortcomings and we aren’t able to synchronize data as smoothly and as quickly as we’d like,’” she said.

“It’s something that many companies are still trying to figure out from a data perspective, especially when you have a multichannel company,” Malone added. “They may have been in the retail business for 100 years, but online is their newest channel, and they’re still going through growing pains there.”

http://directmag.com/email/news/1118-return-path-study/

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Perhaps like everyone else (but who cares about them - we all care most about ourselves!) email marketers have a lot of pressure on us right now.  The global recession, the tightening of spending by consumers, jobs being eliminated… there is a lot of stress in the macro-economic environment today.  Plus, there is stress in our micro-worlds… no one outside the email marketing world really understands what we do, how complex email marketing is or why it matters that we send subscribers messages that they love.

I think it's time to stand up for our subscribers - despite the pressures.  We must advocate for them – because the only way to increase revenues from email marketing is to create great subscriber experiences.

The most important thing to do is actively manage your inbox deliverability.  You can't earn a response if you can't be found or seen properly.  Plus, whatever improves deliverability invariably improves response - because it's all based on subscrciber experience.

Here's another idea you can try now, to give yourself and your program a bit of a boost, and to help you get through the 2009 planning

.       Improve Relevancy in Small Steps.  We all know about the behaviour triggers that help make our programs more relevant.  Basically, you change your contact strategy and cadence to send more email when subscribers are more inclined to buy.  This is effective, but can require additional resources or technology.   What to do if you don’t have those resources or technology?  A great way to improve your programme without new technology or data integration is to think about a content strategy that improves the value of your email messages over time.  Adding value to just some of your messages, even SOME of the time, will improve response to ALL your messages.   So instead of just sending promotions over and over, replace some of them with messages that feel more custom, even if they are still sent to large segments of your file.  Insert a few tips in your next promotion or business newsletter.  Host a poll.  Say “thank you” to everyone who bought this past quarter.  Send a no-strings-attached whitepaper to everyone who visited the website last month.  Encourage everyone who uses product “a” to take a free trial of product “b.”  Help subscribers network with each other.

I know I'm suggesting doing more with existing resources and time. But frankly, in these economic times, what choice do we have?  Now more than ever, we email marketers are being asked to deliver more than ever – higher revenue, larger subscriber files, more active lists and longer lifetime value.

What do you think?

Chris Wheeler from Datran Media (formerly of Amazon) wrote a great summary of email deliverability basics in DM News. Chris focuses on the following five concepts:

• Get Permission
  
• Maintain Your Lists
  
• Authentication Matters
  
• Follow the Rules and Regulations
  
• Develop the Right Creative

  Read the article for the full scoop.

AOL announced its plans to begin DKIM verification sometime this next year during an ESPC call moderated by Ben Isaacson of CheetahMail with special guest Mike Adkins from AOL.  DKIM is the next generation of DomainKeys, an encryption based authentication method, which is picking up adoption in the receiver community.  Currently, AOL uses an IP based reputation algorithm to determine the propensity of outbound mail to be spam. Under the new paradigm, a sender’s domain will be verified against the DKIM signature with inbox success being determined by that domain’s reputation.  Mike proposed that by the end of the first half of 2009 an initial version checking the signature will be in place. 

 

It is important to note that the current IP based reputation filters and delivery metrics will continue as they have been with a regular and enhanced whitelist.  DKIM will follow the same pattern with a domain whitelist explicitly requested by senders providing information about the domain and an enhanced domain whitelist that will be dynamically controlled by AOL (also coined an organic whitelist).  Domain reputation will be looked at as the first layer of the onion and, absent DKIM, will fall back on IP based reputation scoring.  It was also mentioned that SPF will be actively used as another data point providing information about a sender, whereas now SPF is checked but not used in the reputation algorithm. 

 

You can use *@dkimtest.aol.com to test whether your outbound mail is DKIM signed properly (the * is a wildcard character meaning anything can be used, such as test123@dkimtest.aol.com). There are some other special provisions that will be included with the DKIM verification in regards to some third party accreditation services which inject headers into the envelope.  It’s important to note that the first revision of DKIM with AOL will only help to add value to senders’ efforts for delivery but won’t punish senders who don’t currently sign.  But, as Mike stated, they want to keep their email recipients “safe and happy” and to that end, the likelihood that DKIM will be used in greater force in the distant future is very possible.  Net – get your email DKIM signed sooner rather than later!

 

To keep up with the latest on AOL, check out their blog.

The Washington Post reports that one of the largest spam supporting ISPs was shut down.

Joe Stewart, director of malware research for Atlanta based SecureWorks, said that these known criminal botnets: "Mega-D," "Srizbi," "Pushdo,""Rustock" and "Warezov," have their master servers hosted at McColo.

Collectively, these botnets are responsible for sending roughly 75 percent of all spam each day, according to the latest stats from Marshal, a security company in the United Kingdom that tracks botnet activity.

This is good news for senders everywhere!

We got informed by one of our customers that he got removed from his own newsletter and our logs stated that the reason was the feedback loop. We’ve begun to analyze the content of the complaints and it has turned out that Yahoo had started to a add couple of headers to their messages.

Here’s a sample:

X-IP-SENDER: 98.136.44.45
Received: from [216.252.122.216] by n77.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 27 Oct 2008 03:48:09 -0000
Received: from [69.147.65.166] by t1.bullet.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 27 Oct 2008 03:48:09 -0000
Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp501.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 27 Oct 2008 03:48:09 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-5
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 939505.70691.bm@omp501.mail.sp1.yahoo.com
Received: (qmail 63926 invoked by uid 60001); 27 Oct 2008 03:48:09 -0000
Message-ID: <20081027034809.63924.qmail@web46108.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
X-YahooUserId: REDACTED
X-YahooUserIP: 124.13.176.52
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:48:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: yahoo mail bot
Subject: NOTSPAM: Top Dog Trading Video #2
To: notspam@mailservices.yahoo.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

The Subject and To fields are most interesting. The Subject has the original message’s subject prefixed with “NOTSPAM:”. The To field seems to match the subject. After noticing this we started to browse different complaints. It turned out that after since October 25th the majority of Yahoo complaints has those new headers present.

Except the notspam@mailservices.yahoo.com address we found out that some of the complaints had the To set to possiblespam@mailservices.yahoo.com.

The notspam@mailservices.yahoo.com email address was added in the To field only between October 25th and October 30th. We have checked this across multiple servers. We still see some amount of the possiblespam@mailservices.yahoo.com in the To field and it seems to be the new standard as the number of messages with the old header-less format is minimal.

The question this brings up is whether Yahoo hasn’t sent us the data of people that were clicking “This is NOT spam” and instead of removing those email addresses from the list we should restore them as they were actually good subscribers. I’m talking about the interval between October 25th and October 30th.

Some of our customers and industry specialists reported that there was a drop in the average number of complaints coming from Yahoo’s feedback loops at the end of October. After a couple of days things went back to normal. Maybe this has also something to do with this. Obviously they were making some substantial changes in their system.

I just wouldn’t like if our customers lost some good subscribers because of this.

Has anyone noticed similar behavior and got similar reports from your customers? It would be great if the Yahoo team could make an official statement for sender’s, so we would know how to react.

BTW: It would be a great to see, who clicked “not spam” – this is a clear indicator that emails ARE wanted, no just the ones that are not

Yahoo kept their word.

We have posted a Yahoo FBL request for our customer
on Monday and the FBL was granted the same day!

A wonderful news for all marketers that have setup
new services after the Yahoo FBL was taken down.

Apply slowly not to swamp the Yahoo team.
They surely are busy guys.

Keep up the great work Yahoo!

So I hate to re-post so much outside news today to the blog instead of running educational material for you, but this just had to be posted about (of course this should be educating you as what NOT to do in your email programs). As you know, we here have been following the the very comical, but also VERY serious issue of list rentals gone bad with this re-post of our friend Ken Magill article Ouch: A List-Purchase Nightmare. Ken posted today an interesting follow-up to a multi-month long investigation about the list "management" company EmailAppenders.

EmailAppenders Hawking Bogus List, Claims Publisher
Nov 11, 2008 3:49 PM, By Ken Magill

EmailAppenders has been marketing a file of names and addresses the list’s owner claims the e-mail list compiler can’t possibly have, this newsletter has learned.

E-mails began arriving in marketers’ inboxes last week pitching a holiday sale on Internet Retailer’s list of 2008 conference attendees, according to samples of the messages obtained by this newsletter.

One problem: Internet Retailer doesn’t sell, rent or give those names away, according to the top executive of the firm’s parent company. As a result, said Jack Love, president of Vertical Web Media, EmailAppenders can’t possibly have a legitimately obtained list of Internet Retailer’s 2008 conference attendees.

“The list being marketed is not a legitimate list of IRCE attendees. We do not sell, rent or reveal that list to anyone,” he said. “It’s our most valuable asset.”

Love said he first became aware EmailAppenders was hawking a purported list of Internet Retailer 2008 conference attendees early this summer when more than a dozen exhibitors contacted the company inquiring about the offer.

“We had about 15 exhibitors call in,” he said.

As a result, said Love, Vertical Web Media sent a cease-and-desist letter to EmailAppenders and sent an e-mail to exhibitors warning them that the offer was not legitimate.

“We have been informed by a number of clients that a company called EmailAppenders has been offering to sell what it purports to be the Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition (IRCE 2008) attendee list, including names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and company names,” said the warning.

“Internet Retailer, which owns and operates IRCE 2008, has not and will not sell, rent or otherwise provide its list of IRCE attendees to anyone. We are in no way associated with EmailAppenders and did not provide it with the IRCE 2008 list that they are offering for sale. We did not authorize EmailAppenders to acquire, use and/or market for sale the IRCE attendee list, whether directly or indirectly.”

Love said he never received a response to the cease-and-desist letter, but that the unauthorized pitches seemed to stop so he let the issue drop.

However, e-mail pitches hawking a list of purported Internet Retailer 2008 conference attendees began appearing in exhibitors’ e-mail boxes again last week.

“We can very positively assist you in acquiring an Email list of IRCE 2008 attendees. We have a total of 5,000 attendees. The list would cost you $3,500. the list will be delivered within 2 days on realizing the payment,” said one of the e-mails, which was obtained by this newsletter.

“The list once purchased will be for your perpetual use. We have no restriction on the usage,” it continued.

It would be highly unusual for a tradeshow operator to sell its attendee list for perpetual use. When a marketer sells its house-file names without restrictions, it’s usually because the firm is going belly up.

Internet Retailer’s annual conference was named the fastest-growing tradeshow in the country by Tradeshow Week over the weekend.

The message pitching Internet Retailer’s names was signed by “Vanessa Anderson, marketing manager.” The footer did not include a company name.

A call to the New York City number listed in the e-mail reached a man who identified himself as Chris McAlister of EmailAppenders. When told he had been reached by trade reporter Ken Magill and that Internet Retailer was claiming his firm was marketing a list it couldn’t possibly have, the line went dead.

An immediate follow-up call reached McAlister’s voice mail.

A second follow-up call about a half hour later also went to voice mail. A message left on McAlister’s voice mail was not returned.

Meanwhile, Internet Retailer isn’t the only firm claiming EmailAppenders has misrepresented its business.

Over the summer, Bob Richards, marketing director for Javelin Marketing, said he paid more than $14,000 to EmailAppenders for a list of some 100,000 e-mail addresses.

But when Richards mailed the names 85,000 bounced, resulting in a server jam-up, he said.

When Richards demanded a refund and didn't get one, he published a press release about his experience and posted a complaint about EmailAppenders on RipOffReport.com.

In August, EmailAppenders sent a settlement offer to Richards, a copy of which he provided this newsletter. The proposal offered Richards $10,000 if he would rescind his various complaints.

He said he agreed to the settlement, but as of last week had yet to see a dime.

Anti-spam outfit Spamhaus charges that EmailAppenders is one of many names operated by Data Champions/Sloan Marketing, a spam ring in India.

Vertical Web Media’s Love said he is “looking into his legal options” against EmailAppenders.

http://directmag.com/mail/news/1111-email-appenders-bogus-list/

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver! (just not with EmailAppenders)

No, I'm not just re-posting this because my name is in it, but because it is a good piece that I back.

Posted by Kath Pay on Nov 11, 2008
http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/2008/11/successful-deli.html

Yep - you heard right. Back in 2005, George Bilbrey of Return Path wrote a blog "It's not your ESP - it's YOU!" and MarketingProf's also published an article recently "Email Deliverability is in Your Hands". This seemed to be the theme which was threaded through many of the presentations at both the London DMA's recent conferences. It appears that most marketers seem to think that they can buy deliverability - by changing ESP's or paying for accreditation. However, neither of these solutions will work unless the marketer is doing Best Practise.

From a combination of attending these conferences and with conversations with Dennis Dayman, Stephanie Miller and David Daniels, combined with my own experiences - I have come to the conclusion that deliverability is a 2 part process, both of which require due attention and ownership by the marketer:

Part 1 - Deliverability to ISP's - IP Reputation: This is a combined effort by the ESP and the marketer. The ESP needs to have everything ready and waiting for the Best Practise Marketer. Things such as the infrastructure, whitelisting, delivery monitoring, Feedback Loops, education about Authentication and enabling/assisting clients to become authenticated are all things which the ESP can do.

However, the main causes of emails not being accepted by the ISP is due to the percentage of spam complaints and bad addresses....and having a clean and up to date database is the responsibility of the marketer. This is where having a good Sender reputation is crucial and if you're on a dedicated IP address - well, hey..there's no one to blame but yourself if your reputation isn't as good as it could be.

Part 2: Deliverability to the Inbox - Brand Reputation. So, you got accepted by the ISP/mail server and they have delivered you to the recipients email client? Excellent - but will it be delivered to the inbox or the junkmail folder? This is where your brand, sender name, subject line, good clean coding, choice of copy, domain reputation, message relevance and things like image to copy ratio are taken into account - both by the spam filter and by the recipient.

ESP's can assist you with all of the above factors - but ultimately, the responsiblility of deliverability comes down to you, the marketer. Therefore, if your deliverability isn't as good as it should be - look to implementing Best Practices rather than changing ESP's.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

If you have been just sitting around waiting for the next part of this series, apologies are in order – the industry has been hopping during the month of October.  On the other hand, if you had overlooked the delay, perfect!  Glad to catch up with you!

Hoping that you have had the opportunity to take part in some industry-related event in this past month.  Personally, I have been privileged to speak at numerous events in several states.  I was also proud to take part in Eloqua’s first annual customer event in Las Vegas.  It was hugely successful, and a good time, too!
As you might recall, the plan to tackle the broad topic of “How Email Works” was to break it down into the following sections:

• How MTAs (Mail/Message Transfer Agents) Communicate
• What is a “Bounce?”
• How MTAs Handle Bounces
• How Bounces Can Affect a Subscriber’s Status

We left off in the series discussing “What is a Bounce?” Today, I wanted to talk briefly (yeah, right!) about how bounces are handled in the underbelly of the Internet.

Let’s break it down this way.

When you send a postal letter through the United States Postal Service (USPS) there are five (5) specific locations that will be crucial to the exchange.

1. Your mailbox
2. Your local post office
3. The road with the postal trucks on it
4. Your recipient’s local post office
5. Your recipient’s mailbox

Similarly, when you send an email in the simplest form, there are five (5) specific locations that will be crucial to the exchange.

1. Your inbox/outbox
2. Your mail server or ISP
3. The Internet
4. Your recipient’s mail server or ISP
5. Your recipient’s inbox/outbox

If we stick with our snail mail analogy, a bounce could easily compared to a letter marked “return to sender.” When you send a letter to an intended recipient at a home or business, but your friendly local postman finds that person is no longer at the requested address, the post office sends the letter back to you explaining that the letter, for one reason or another, is undeliverable. The letter will probably now bear a red stamp on it that describes why they couldn’t deliver it. It usually says something like “Return to Sender – no person at this address.”

Thankfully, when you sent the letter, you also included a return name and address block in the top left hand corner of your letter so that:

1. Your recipient knows who sent the letter before opening it.
2. If something were to go wrong and the postal service couldn’t deliver it, they know how to return it to you.

When you send an email, the same concept is applied.

1. You include a FROM or Return-Path address block so the recipient knows who sent the email.
2. If something goes wrong and the Internet Service Provider (ISP) is not able to deliver the email because the person is no longer on that service, they know how to return and notify you.
3. The “bounce,” or your “return to sender” notification includes a bit of information describing why the email could not be delivered. The most common bounces are 4xx (i.e., 421 Mailbox Full) and 5xx (i.e., 550 Recipient Not Found) errors. These can widely vary depending on both the ISP that is sending the email back and the sender’s systems.

Without getting into all the nuts and bolts of the specs, according to the RFC (Internet Standards) specification, all 4xx class errors are considered to be temporary failures and should be retried later. Again, by RFC specs, all 5xx class errors are permanent failures and should not be retried.

Okay, let's take a look at a couple of bounce messages. Buried in the myriad of letters and numbers, are a few important things:

Let’s say you attempted to send an email to a friend at example.com.  If your MTA (Mail Transfer Agent or your mail server) receives a bounce from this email, it should look something like this.

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<somewhere@example.com>

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to smtp.example.net.:
>>>> DATA
<<< 550 5.1.1 <somewhere@example.com>... User unknown
<<< 503 RCPT first (#5.5.1)

Here's a bounce from another mail server, which attempts to be friendlier:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at example.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<somewhere@example.com>:
10.10.10.10. does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND
Giving up on 10.10.10.10.

The part of the messages that read "MAILBOX NOT FOUND" or "User unknown" are key. Depending on the reason for the failure, these might actually be one of several different messages.

Again, just like your local postal office, when the letter is returned to them by the recipient’s post office (because they couldn’t deliver the letter), they:

1. Look at the return name and address block to see who originally sent the letter.
2. Look at the red stamp that was put on the letter by your recipient’s local postal office.

Your local postal office can then make a determination on what to do with your letter. In this case, the protocol is to return the original letter to your postal box at home, so you can take an action on it. Maybe it’s time to update your address book, or double-check your penmanship.  Once you have cleared up the mistake, you can then resend the letter.  (Or you could convince your friend that email would be much better than postal mail anyway.)

In the email world, when the email is returned to your mail server (or ISP) by your intended recipient’s mail server (or ISP), they:

1. Look at the Return-Path or bounce address it was sent from when it bounced to see who to send a notice to.
2. Look at the codes stamped in the bounce by the recipient’s mail server (or ISP) to determine the reason for the bounce or failure to deliver the message.

Your mail server (or ISP) will then send you the original email with a set of stamps (550 User Unknown) as shown above telling you what happened so you can take an action it. Maybe that action is to remove that person from your address book or double check the email address you had typed.  (Thankfully, this time your poor penmanship is not to blame.)

One of the most common solutions for a bounced email, (aside from checking to be sure that you are sending to the right address, of course), is to "wait a while and try again". The email system, while somewhat random, is also somewhat self-healing. If there's an email server with a problem, chances are it will get fixed or eventually bypassed, especially if it belongs to a larger ISP. For temporary problems, email servers will typically keep trying for up to four (4) days before giving up and will let you know if they have indeed given up with a bounce.

Now let’s talk about how this effects you on a day-to-day basis. How does my ESP or in-house solution handle my bounces for my campaigns on such a large level? Most companies today offer a “best in class” bounce handling system that goes beyond simple 3 digit (550 or 421) error processing. They want to ensure the best possible deliverability to each of your recipients. Most should be attempting to read not only the error codes, but also the description of the error, like “User Unknown” or “Mailbox Full.” So, their system should go the extra mile and continue to retry temporary failures automatically for you, or should stop trying to deliver email to bad email accounts. They should also be very THOROUGH in their reporting of email failures to you so you can understand the problems or trends in your email marketing programs (hard, soft, blocks, technical, etc failures). This also means they should retry failures intelligently, making sure they do not overload the receiving system in the process.

So, that’s it for today.  That is how email servers handle bounces in a nutshell. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us to get further clarification on this subject, submit a topic idea, or plain just post a comment to us.  Looking forward to How Email Works, The Final Chapter.  (Coming soon to a blog post near you.)

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don’t Just Send, Deliver!

A big thanks to my wonderful wife for editing this document for me.  She rocks.  and I have the t-shirt to prove it. (she wrote that part, but it’s true)

The Anti Phishing Work Group’s Internet Policy Committee (APWG-IPC) and Carnegie Mellon University’s Supporting Trust Decisions Project (STDP) have joined forces to educate consumers about phishing and established the AWPG/CMU Phishing Education Landing Page program. The goal of this initiative is to instruct consumers about online safety at the “most teachable moment” when they have just clicked on a link in a phishing communication.

The APWG-IPC and CMU’s STDP created a webpage to educate users about phishing. The page explains that they have just fallen for a phishing communication (email or otherwise) and advises consumers and enterprise users about ways they can help themselves to avoid being victimized in the future.

http://education.apwg.org/r/en/

Think the site should also give some advice on browsers to use that might help people see the phishing site BEFORE they fall into the trap. IE7 and IE8 both have good security measures in them to stop phishing before it happens. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/features/stay-safer-online.aspx

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

For those who read Seth Godin's books like "Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers" he has some interesting comparisons to make you understand what he's talking about. I was lucky enough last week at the Return Path IN conference in NY to hear a keynote titled "No Free Stamps Here!" from him. One of the funniest, but truest things I heard was this:

THE TWO WAYS TO GET MARRIED
The Interruption Marketer buys an extremely expensive
suit. New shoes. Fashionable accessories. Then,
working with the best databases and marketing
strategists, selects the demographically ideal singles bar.

Walking into the singles bar, the Interruption Marketer
marches up to the nearest person and proposes marriage.
If turned down, the Marketer repeats this process on
every person in the bar.

If the Marketer comes up empty-handed after spending
the entire evening proposing, it is obvious that the blame
should be placed on the suit and the shoes. The tailor is
fired. The strategy expert who picked the bar is fired.
And the Interruption Marketer tries again at a different
singles bar.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It's the way most large
marketers look at the world. They hire an agency. They
build fancy ads. They "research" the ideal place to run the
ads. They interrupt people and hope that one in a hundred
will go ahead and buy something. And then, when they
fail, they fire their agency!

The other way to get married is a lot more fun, a lot more
rational, and a lot more successful. It's called dating.

A Permission Marketer goes on a date. If it goes well, the
two of them go on another date. And then another. Until,
after ten or twelve dates, both sides can really
communicate with each other about their needs and
desires. After twenty dates, they meet each other's
families. And finally, after three or four months of dating,
the Permission Marketer proposes marriage.

Permission Marketing is just like dating. It turns strangers
into friends and friends into lifetime customers. Many of
the rules of dating apply, and so do many of the benefits.

THE FIVE STEPS TO DATING YOUR CUSTOMER
Every marketer must offer the prospective customer an
incentive for volunteering. In the vernacular of dating,
that means you have to offer something that makes it
interesting enough to go out on a first date. A first date,
after all, represents a big investment in time, money and
ego. So there better be reason enough to volunteer.

Without a selfish reason to continue dating, your new
potential customer (and your new potential date) will
refuse you a second chance. If you don't provide a
benefit to the consumer for paying attention, your offer
will suffer the same fate as every other ad campaign that's
vying for their attention. It will be ignored.

The incentive you offer to the customer can range from
information, to entertainment, to a sweepstakes, to
outright payment for the prospect's attention. But the
incentive must be overt, obvious and clearly delivered.

This is the most obvious difference between Permission
Marketing and Interruption Marketing. Interruption
Marketers spend all of their time interrupting strangers, in
an almost pitiful attempt to bolster popularity and capture
attention. Permission Marketers spend as little time and
money talking to strangers as they can. Instead, they
move as quickly as they can to turn strangers into
prospects who choose to "opt-in" to a series of
communications.

Second, using the attention offered by the consumer, the
marketer offers a curriculum over time, teaching the
consumer about the product or service he has to offer.
The Permission Marketer knows that the first date is an
opportunity to sell the other person on a second date.
Every step along the way has to be interesting, useful and
relevant.

Since the prospect has agreed to pay attention, it's much
easier to teach them about your product. Instead of filling
each ensuing message with entertainment designed to
attract attention, or with sizzle designed to attract the
attention of strangers, the Permission Marketer is able to
focus on product benefits -- on specific, focused ways
this product will help that prospect. Without question,
this ability to talk freely over time is the most powerful
element of this marketing approach.

The third step involves reinforcing the incentive. Over
time, any incentive wears out. Just as your date may tire
of even the finest restaurant, the prospective customer
may show fatigue with the same repeated incentive. The
Permission Marketer must work to reinforce the
incentive, to be sure that the attention continues. This is
surprisingly easy. Because this is a two-way dialogue,
not a narcissistic monologue, the marketer can adjust the
incentives being offered and fine tune them for each
prospect.

Along with reinforcing the incentive, the fourth step is to
increase the level of permission the marketer receives
from the potential customer. Now I won't go into detail
on what step of the dating process this corresponds to,
but in marketing terms, the goal is to motivate the
consumer to give more and more permission over time.
Permission to gather more data about the customer's
personal life, or hobbies, or interests. Permission to offer
a new category of product for the customer's
consideration. Permission to provide a product sample.
The range of permission you can obtain from a customer
is very wide, and limited only by its relevance to the
customer.

Over time, the marketer uses the permission he's obtained
to change consumer behavior, that is, get them to say, "I
do." That's how you turn permission into profits. After
permission is granted, that's how it becomes a truly
significant asset for the marketer. Now you can live
happily ever after by repeating the aforementioned
process while selling your customer more and more
products. In other words, the fifth and final step is to
leverage your permission into a profitable situation for
both of you. Remember, you have access to the most
valuable thing a customer can offer - attention.

Five Steps to Dating Your Customer

1. Offer the prospect an incentive to volunteer
2. Using the attention offered by the prospect, offer a
   curriculum over time, teaching the consumer about your
   product or service
3. Reinforce the incentive to guarantee that the prospect
   maintains the permission
4. Offer additional incentives to get even more permission
   from the consumer
5. Over time, leverage the permission to change consumer behavior towards profits

I hope you'll be intrigued enough by this sample to go ahead and buy yourself a copy of his book! You can get the book at any bookstore or you can buy it online.

To buy online, click on one of the links below:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684856360/permissionmarket

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Permission-Marketing/Seth-Godin/e/9780684856360/?itm=1

http://www.permission.com for a big chunk for free

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Sitting on my flight back from NY this past week I was reading USA Today and thinking at great length about the economy, my friends who are jobless or will be soon, and how difficult it is to hire when so many need jobs. I truly believe in the idea of networking to get your next job.

For those who know me intimately should know back in 2001 (dot-com bubble burst) my family and I found ourselves hunting HARD for my next position after a company wide layoff. I did everything I could to find work including making the best decision in my life to join a group called Careerconnection.org which is a career management and networking organization here in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. I met so many people and was able to make new connections I hadn't thought of using to find my next position.

Since that time, I have always used the ideals I learned from them to hire within my industry, hire through friends, and apply these three points

* Supporting local employers with their corporate placement needs.
* Assisting professionals with lifetime career management.
* Providing the community with a forum to partner for a better DFW economy.

I want to apply those points here as well! So many times I see job offers/postings that I can't simply get to everyone in a timely manner. I would like, but that means checking email ever 10 seconds and sending out email blasts to those who I know.

What I am asking you here is this. If you are hiring an email expert of some sort, please let us know here at deliverability.com. We would like to post your position up on the blog for all those to see. You can give as much or little information as you need and it should include a contact point for you. We of course reserve the right to not post jobs we feel are NOT a fit and this is NOT a free job posting board for recruiters either.

If you like this idea, please use the contact us option on the site to send us your information.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

If you use Twitter, you may want to follow @deliverability for a notification of each blog post as well as other breaking email news.

If you're looking for other email industry tweets to follow, check out some of these:

People

• @jordanayan - Jordan Ayan, Subscriber Mail
  
• @joshuabaer - Joshua Baer, Datran Media & OtherInbox
  
• @davidbaker331 - David Baker, Avenue A
  
• @mattb2518 - Matt Blumberg, Return Path
  
• @dtboyd - Dylan Boyd, eROI
  
• @neinstein - Nicholas Einstein, Datran Media
  
• @johnengler - John Engler, Pipeline Success
  
• @davidhhendricks - Dave Hendricks, Datran Media
  
• @LorenMcDonald - Loren McDonald, SilverPop
  
• @Lanadatran - Lana McGilvray, Datran Media
  
• @samrpath - Stephanie Miller, Return Path
  
• @empg - Jeanniey Mullen
  
• @4Stefan - Stefan Pollard, Responsys
  
• @tamaragielen - Tamara Gielen, OgilvyOne
  
• @EmailKarma - Matt Vernhout, EmailKarma
  
• @djwaldow - DJ Waldow, Bronto Software
  
• @RetailEmailblog - Chad White, EEC

Companies

• @blueskyfactory - Blue Sky Factory
  
• @bronto - Bronto Software
  
• @campaignmonitor - Campaign Monitor
  
• @datranmedia - Datran Media
  
• @deliverability - Deliverability.com
  
• @EISummit - Email Insider Summit
  
• @eROI - eROI
  
• @exacttarget - ExactTarget
  
• @mailchimp - MailChimp
  
• @otherinbox - OtherInbox
  
• @returnpath - Return Path
  
• @strongmail - StrongMail
  
• @subscribermail - SubscriberMail
  
• @VR4SmallBiz - VerticalResponse

If you're on Twitter and not listed here, please add yourself to the comments below!

Today at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, Return Path is presenting IN: The Email Reputation Conference.

Many smart marketers have gathered to find out what it takes to get delivered to the inbox and ultimately increase ROI in their email programs. The industry's foremost experts, marketers and ISPs are talking about their experiences, giving advice on best practices and presenting strategies on how to build a raving fan base.

You should take a look at the live blog postings going on.

My opinion? I went into this knowing the content being presented was a major repeat to me, but I will say I was COMPLETELY surprised at some of the questions from some of the attendees when it came to Q&A after the panels. I don't say this to be rude, but was floored to hear that what's normal or clear to me in terms of email terms, best practices in email marketing, etc wasn't to clear to a few still. I won't post any examples here as I want to protect the confidentiality of the attendees and also not embarrass others, but hearing some of this was unexpected and a HUGE eye opener to me... I guess we need to still keep on preaching and teaching. The message(s)/practices still haven't filtered down. I'm now guessing that the Sender Training in MAAWG is now more important than ever...

GREAT event Return Path! Venue was classy, nice break times to allow for networking, fun games played, and clear information about the future of email. I heard great comments throughout the day from attendees.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

If you haven't already heard, AOL is once again leading the industry in making available their knowledge and systems to legitimate senders

When there is a problem delivering your message to its destination you receive an error message included in the mail returned from AOL's system. The following information will give you more details on the meaning of the error message and the steps you can take to solve the problem.

Moving forward, priority will be given to requests that come through their online tools.

FBL Modification/Deletion Request Tool: Any requests regarding FBLs should be made here.

RTR/RLY/DNS Block Removal Request Tool: This form is for mail administrators only. Telnet and nslookup results from the IPs in question are required to submit this form.

HVU Inquiry/Removal Tool: Anyone receiving an HVU error can submit a support request here. HVU blocks occur when you try to send email with a blocked URL to AOL users. This form will help you identify which URL is blocked and to request removal of the block.

Other information requests: We recognize that not all support requests will fit nicely into one of the buckets above, and this page is where you can tell us about any other issues you experience while sending mail to AOL users. We do not guarantee that you will receive a response to an inquiry placed using this form. If you are being blocked, please use the appropriate tool. Submitting an unblock request on the "Other" tool is the slowest way to resolve your issue.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

BlueTie is beta testing the Return Path feedback loop for the domains it hosts including excite.com, iwon.com, and myway.com. Right now its only open to Return Path customers but it should open up to the public sometime soon.

So check this out, Return Path has launch a podcast that they are broadcasting every two weeks which is giving their followers another way in this Social Media arena to hear their ideas and comments on the email industry.

http://www.itunes.com/podcast?id=294631500

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

I know we probably don't want to hear it, but I recently blogged over at OtherInbox that from a consumer's perspective it's probably better and safer to update their email address to a bogus one instead of unsubscribing if that option is available. Why? Because most software will overwrite the old email address with the new one when updating an email address, leaving no trace of the old email address.

When unsubscribing, most software will mark the user as unsubscribed and add their email address to a suppression list. Many times that suppression list will be shared with other companies in plain text. And then the suppression lists get abused and the consumers receive more spam. From the consumer's perspective, they are less likely to receive spam by changing their email address to a bogus one instead of unsubscribing.

It would stink for marketers if lots of consumers did this. It would hurt list hygiene and would cause us to get higher bounce rates.

I'm glad to see the ESPC and MAAWG pushing to adopt MD5 as a best practice for sharing suppression lists. I hope we'll see more affiliate networks and email service providers supporting MD5 in the near future.