Check out this article and 2008 email stats from our friend Stephanie Miller of Return Path which reminds us about the reality of email marketing.

1. Email delivers $57 for every $1 spent. (Source: The DMA, 2008)
2. Spam now accounts for 90-95% of all email sent. (Source:  Forrester Research, "Secret to Email Delivery" 2008) 
3. While 70% of marketers collect enough data at sign up/registration, only 25% of them actually use it. (Source: Return Path Subscriber Experience Study, 2008)

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&art_aid=97408

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

History on EmailAppenders

http://directmag.com/email/news/1223-internet-retailers-sue-emailappenders/

Internet Retailer Sues EmailAppenders

Dec 23, 2008 2:02 PM, By Ken Magill

Internet Retailer has filed a lawsuit against EmailAppenders, alleging the data service provider wrongly claimed to have Internet Retailer’s 2008 conference attendee list for sale.

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, Internet Retailer alleges EmailAppenders infringed on its trademark and engaged in deceptive business practices when in early summer and again in the fall, e-mails began arriving in some corporate inboxes from EmailAppenders claiming to offer a list of Internet Retailer’s 2008 conference attendees.

According to Jack Love, president of Internet Retailer’s parent company Vertical Web Media, the firm gives its conference attendee list to no one.

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

In an interview conducted for an upcoming article in Direct Magazine before Internet Retailer’s lawsuit was filed, Ian Cooper, president of new business development for EmailAppenders, said his firm never represented the list as the same one owned by Internet Retailer.

“We have the list because we sent one of our sale executives there,” he says. “Is there anything wrong with collecting business cards and selling the list? … Who says they gave it to us? We never claimed that.”

Cooper also claims his firm’s version of Internet Retailer list contains 6,000 names. According to Internet Retailer’s complaint, about 5,100 people attended the conference.

When questioned on the 6,000 figure, Cooper said two people collected 600 business cards a day.

According to Love, Cooper’s claim is ridiculous. “Anybody collecting cards without a booth would be tossed out,” he says. “We have 50 staffers monitoring the show. That would have to be an intense effort. We’d spot it and toss them out.”

Named in Internet retailer’s lawsuit are Frank Simon, Vanessa Anderson, Chris McAlister, and Steve Dawson.

Internet Retailer is asking the court for a preliminary injunction barring EmailAppenders from using its name. The complaint also calls for the court to order EmailAppenders to pay Internet Retailer all the money the marketing services firm made using its name, along with unspecified damages and attorney fees.

A message left on Cooper’s voicemail asking for comment on Internet Retailer’s lawsuit was not returned.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

The Silicon Republic writes: 

"Tough new Irish laws will see businesses face fines up to €250,000 if they are found guilty of sending unsolicited email.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan has signed new legislation to tackle spamming and other unsolicited communications.

Under the new regulations, unsolicited mail for direct marketing purposes will be an indictable offence.

The Data Protection Commissioner can refer serious breaches of the legislation for prosecution through the Circuit Court where fines of up to €250,000 or 10pc of the company’s turnover, whichever is greater, can be imposed.

Fines for less serious offences will increase from €3,000 to €5,000.

Is this just another spam law? One comment by an Irish public official raised some concerns for me. Billy Hawkes, Data Protection Commission said, "Increasingly, in this period of economic downturn, my Office is receiving complaints about businesses making unsolicited contact with their past customers for marketing purposes."

So apparently in Ireland, a previous business relationship is not adequate permission to send an email promotion? 

Joshua Baer

Datran Media

p.s. Hat tip to Chris Wheeler from Datran Media for pointing this out.

Common Craft produces short video tutorials on popular topics such as Blogging, Twitter and more. They are some of the best instructional videos I've ever seen. Here is the latest installment, covering Phishing scams in email. Send this to your mom!

So this was bound to happen with a web email provider and I am glad to see it. Just like in many email clients that you have on your computer these days (Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Outlook, etc) you can now better manage the copious amounts of different inbound information that comes to you (Email, RSS, Blog alerts, etc)

Yahoo! mail now features a "Smarter Inbox" that gives higher priority display of email customers care most about or receive most regularly like from friends and colleagues. The smarter inbox lets you filter these more important emails right on the welcome page for mail.

They are also tying in the idea of social media management into this launch. So instead of your Inbox being full of not only emails, RSS feeds, social media updates, and spam... you can now more effectively manage these sources separately. GIves you the ability to make priority on what you want in your face when you login. Part of this reminds me of how GMAIL allows you to mange long threads of email discussions.

There is a video example of this new idea here

"We're creating a better, more relevant user experience," said Ash Patel, executive vice president of Yahoo's audience products division. "And we're opening up Yahoo more for third parties to leverage." So this means that Facebook and others can write code or plug-ins to allow user to manage all their communications from one place. Wouldn't be surprised to see Goodmail or Return Path create a plug-in to facilitate delivery of accredited email. 

Again, I love this idea in this era of information overload, but it will take a bit of time for people to understand all of this change going on. Heck, we are just now getting the idea of RSS into the consumers hands.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Several companies I've worked with in the past have created monitoring services of the domain protection flavor around ensuring your brand isn't being spoofed or falsely represented. Path and/or encryption based authentication measures help protect against this nefarious act by ensuring the entity sending the mail is truly authorized to send on behalf of it.

Return Path publicly launched their tool in conjunction with DMA urging its member entities conform to the latest email authentication standards.  Looks like anyone with access to the Delivery Assurance workbench from Return Path already has access to this data.  But, if you're a member of DMA and didn't have access to their toolset previously, you'll now be able to keep tabs on your sending domains. I'd be very interested in getting users' perceptions of and effectiveness around the new tool.

Email authentication is just another lever one can pull to ensure their mail meets standards at ISPs and is greeted with greater deliverability. By now, everyone should already have SPF/DKIM in place or have it on their roadmap to implement.

You can see the full announcement here.

Chris Wheeler
Datran Media

So I know this post isn't strictly about email, but with the idea of other e-medium's coming around to facilitate communication I thought it might be beneficial.

So the idea or adoption of social media avenue's (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc) looks a little like an out of control brush fire as they grow so quickly. I myself have decided NOT to adopt these technologies in my personal life due to the fact that I just don't have time, tend to lead a private life outside of business, and still am trying to understand what the deal is in me telling everyone where I am at every moment in my day. I do however use some of these in my professional life.

I did open a Twitter account (ddayman) after Gary Vaynerchuk "yelled" at us saying that marketers really need to look at these technologies for their marketing plans within their own companies, but after about six (6) weeks of trying to keep up with all my followers I decided last week to close the account.

The funny here is that originally the Internet was motivated by the need to share information, which has led to a thriving e-business community and then resulting drive for information security and at the same time loss of data as technology has become more mobile and store related.

We as a people will buy anything that’s one to a customer.

• Loyalty Programs
• Express Checkout discounts
• Challenge

The challenge is to create a culture of privacy where people automatically think about whether they are doing the right thing every time they touch any information about another person or what the post about themselves.

We in general have cause this problem as we are comfortable with giving away our information when the perceived benefit outweighs the intrusion.

As personal information becomes more accessible, each of us - companies, associations, government agencies, and consumers - must take precautions to protect against the misuse of our information.

One of my co-workers Jackie Kiley sent me this interesting article on social media security issues that I think you will find as interesting as well.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/sec/?p=105&nr=ABG

Posted by Ralph DeFrangesco on December 9, 2008 at 11:17 am

Web 2.0 technologies, with their ability to let users create communities, work collaboratively and interact in various online settings, are powerful tools. Some businesses can’t get enough of them for interaction with consumers, networking, marketing, training and project management.

Unfortunately, in the rush to create these powerful tools, security was an afterthought. Some of the more notable Web 2.0 attacks were the Twitter Trojan, the Facebook worm, theSamy worm and Spaceflash attacks on MySpace in which cross-site scripting was used to change user’s profiles. The German version of Wikipedia was used to spread links to malicious sites, and one of the most popular blog platforms, Blogger.com, was used to set up blogs that injected malicious links in valid blogs in the form of comments. Right now, as you’re reading this, the koobface worm is wreaking havocon Facebook users and their contacts.

What should really concern CISOs are the programming techniques that give these sites their interactive capabilities. Currently, most developers use Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) as their development platform. Ajax itself does not create the vulnerabilities, but it does create a larger attack surface that can be exploited. According to Shreeraj Shah, founder of Net Square, Ajax, RIA and Web services are the top three vectors that are promising to affect Web 2.0 technologies. Of course, if Web 2.0 developers prioritize using secure coding practices that include extra testing that focuses on known vulerabilities of the technology, so much the better for the end product.

The fact is that users like the interactive capabilities of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and they will continue to use these sites regardless of security concerns. Security professionals play an important role by educating users on potential risks of Web 2.0 tools and how to avoid them. They can also decrease the chances of their organization having a problem by developing security policies for the Web 2.0 world. These policies should include:

• Implementation of data protection controls.
• Implementation of an acceptable use policy to limit who can use them.
• Blocking unacceptable sites.
• Monitoring content.
• Reviewing potential vulnerabilities on a weekly basis.
• Using a firewall between the Web 2.0 tool and the rest of the network (if hosted in-house).
• Conducting regular penetration tests to check for vulnerabilities.

I guess my point here is to be careful folks on what you use these mediums for. Have a little restraint when posting ideas. They become VERY permeant on the Internet. Think before posting. Audit what you plan on using these for. Don't post EVERYTHING. We don't need overload now in these mediums like we do with email today.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

MailChannels points out that SpamCop is showing spam on the rise again, after it took a big drop when the McColo facility was shut down in November. Not surprisingly, it seems that the spammers just picked up and moved to new hosts. Plus its that time of year again - when everyone is sending out just "one more email blast" to try and make their numbers for the year.

I wish that some company was tracking the amount of "perceived spam" or "spam in the inbox" in the same detail. The anti-spam guys always want to focus on how much more spam is being sent, as a way of inflating their own value proposition. My gut tells me that the amount of perceived spam is going down, even though the overall volume of spam being sent is going up. 

Thanks to Jim Campbell of the Email Sender and Provider Coalition (ESPC) for the highlights.

5 Years After CAN-SPAM

Are we better off for having the CAN-SPAM law in effect? At best, marginally so. But no law could have stopped the real spam problem that inundates us today and promises to get ever-worse. 

By Larry Seltzer

eWeek

December 9, 2008 

URL: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/5-Years-After-CANSPAM/  

The CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003 was controversial from the start. I think it's fair to say that nobody thought it would solve the spam problem, but many (such as this guy) thought it could help.

Has it solved the spam problem? No, of course not. Has it helped? Yes, marginally.

It has helped in two ways: First, there have been a few prosecutions under the law, basically of high-profile spammers who were also being prosecuted under other fraud-type offenses. CAN-SPAM is, in such cases, at least some leverage for prosecutors. But that's a very small benefit.

The other big thing that CAN-SPAM did was to set rules for businesses to follow in order to do mass-mailings. These were the most controversial part of CAN-SPAM because they were opt-out instead of opt-in. This is why critics said, and continue to say, CAN-SPAM "legalized spam." But it did also require that those businesses make opt-out provisions explicit in communications and to observe them, and this is an improvement over the past.

Many will say (and yes, I have seen your complaints) that some businesses don't follow through on these opt-out requests, but the real spam problem was never this sort of business. The spammers sending the overwhelming majority of the spam out there are not even pretending to comply with these laws.

So what can be done? I spoke with Greg Shapiro, CTO at Sendmail, the prototypical mail server company. He advocates for sender authentication and domain reputation checks. I've been on this bandwagon for years, although my recent realization that Webmail-based spam undermines it has dimmed my enthusiasm, and Shapiro acknowledges these problems. They need to be addressed through proper network etiquette, which means that ISPs and other mail providers, including Webmail providers, need to rigorously monitor outbound mail through filters and network pattern analysis to look for spamming behavior before it leaves their network.

These aren't perfect measures by any means, not that I have better suggestions. In fact, I assume that Webmail providers are doing what they can now to enforce "network etiquette" within the bounds of cost and other considerations. The real problem they have is that their CAPTCHA tests for account signup can be hacked and scripted so that attackers can create enough accounts to live within the bounds of network etiquette.

Years ago I even toyed with the idea of replacing SMTP altogether and dismissed the idea as impossible, no matter how great the benefit. Now it seems that the benefit wouldn't be so great after all. (Good thing they didn't listen to me ...)

So Shapiro and I talked about what might replace the CAPTCHA. One possibility is a variation on the old PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) scheme. PGP advocates are anxious to point out that their system provides solid enforcement of identity, so that you can prove that messages are from whom they purport to be from and that they have not been tampered with. But PGP is, almost by design, difficult to work with.

Imagine a new class of e-mail account, a verified account, sort of like EV-SSL, which provides enhanced verification of identity for SSL applicants and a visual feedback, in the form of the green address bar, for Web sites. In this case, before getting one of these accounts, a user would have to get a digital certificate from a trusted certificate authority. There might be many of these, as there are with SSL certificates, or there might be just one: There was some talk years ago about the 

U.S.post office getting into this business. Anyway, stick with me on this.

To get one of these new accounts, you have to present your certificate to the e-mail provider, who might also act as a go-between to obtain it for you. Every message is signed by some hash of that certificate, which therefore must either reside on your computer or be network-accessible in a secure way.

The result is a PGP-like system where individual senders can be uniquely identified. If enough users adopt this system, then recipients can start to use it for reliable whitelists and blacklists.

I know I've ignored a ton of technical stuff, but assume I've solved the technical problems. There remain huge problems of privacy, ease of use and so on. What identity information should the certificate authority require from me, an ordinary Internet user? It must be strong enough to ensure identity, yet not onerous enough to violate privacy or be too troublesome to bother with. If I lose my certificate, I'll need to reprove my identity to the CA in order to get my certificate reissued.

To make sense, does the system require that all users get no more than one certificate? There's a good argument for this, although it ends some aspects of anonymity, since no matter what address I use I can be identified, if not by name, then as a particular unique individual whose public key may be identical to one used by other e-mail addresses.

I could go on with the problems that such a system presents; as with replacing SMTP, even if you could make it happen technically it won't happen because people would rather put up with the problem than deal with the solution.

Five years after CAN-SPAM, the spam problem is, in many ways, much worse. CAN-SPAM is not at fault, nor could a "better law" have done any better. As long as there is money to be made by sending e-mails, rules won't get in the way of the spammers.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

This was an interesting panel as well at the Email Insider Summit. It got pretty heated.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.printFriendly&art_aid=96472

Marketers taking part in MediaPost's Email Insider Summit this week wrestled with the question of how aggressively to employ text messaging--either as a way to obtain email addresses or as part of an integrated campaign.

SMS, of course, offers huge potential in that people have their cell phones with them most of the time. But marketers suggested that it is a very private arena, and they run the risk of appearing overly intrusive when they use it.

Chip House, vice president of marketing services at ExactTarget, endorsed using SMS as "another tool" to build an email list, and "not as a promotional device." House appeared on a panel Wednesday at the Park City, Utah event.

He cited an example of artists asking fans at concerts to text their email addresses and then using the contact information for future communications--perhaps to provide updates on a tour schedule.

Marketers that sat on the panel and those in the audience mostly agreed that SMS programs should have consumers opting-in.

Those in the audience expressed varying opinions on what directions to go with SMS. One suggested messages functioning essentially as advertising can work, citing texts sent by Borders that persuade a family member to visit the bookstore.

But another email marketer said the space calls for moving slowly and delicately. "If you view it as another promotional channel, you're going to burn out your customers right away," he said.

There appeared to be a consensus that messages delivered from marketers must have a vastly different tone than the emails they normally send; in other words, SMS is a medium that commands its own creative tactics (even if email, SMS and other mediums are used in an integrated effort).

Audience member Jay Stevens, vice president of international online marketing at MySpace, said the social network does not employ text messaging much in the U.S., but uses it frequently in overseas markets, particularly Asia. In fact, in some markets, people prefer to receive notifications via SMS, he said.

Hotels.com's Brad Nash summarized much of marketers' mixed feelings on SMS at a gathering to open the Summit on Sunday evening. "It's such a private thing," he said. "If you do it wrong, you can greatly tarnish your brand. You have to tread lightly."

Nonetheless, there's a need to stay on top of how the space evolves: "As young people get older and older, how do we adapt to them?"

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

The final day of the Winter 2008 Email Insider Summit was dominated by a 2009 pledge, an awards ceremony, and a challenge to all.

The pledge was a list of email marketing commitments proposed by moderator Stephanie Miller (Return Path), Jack Hogan (Lifescript), and Brad Bacon (The Weather Channel).

Deliverability.com challenges you to make the same several commitments related to your 2009 email marketing strategy. You can add your name/company if you wish, but we ask you to sign these individually pledges promising the following: 

http://doodle.com/participation.html?pollId=furhk5gr977s6pd4

I will try to post results on the number of people who sign this.

Thanks to Stephanie Miller, Jack Hogan, and Brad Bacon for this... I know they will be interested in their work results.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

This is going to sound bad for me, but does anyone remember getting that one BAD report card that just called you out to your parents about how "good" your doing in school? Well, AOL is about to do the same thing as well.

Previously, Report Cards were sent to any domain generating in excess of 0.1% inbox complaints

http://postmaster-blog.aol.com/2008/11/25/change-to-the-report-card-process/

In this post, AOL is letting us know that they will begin to send out a report card to those senders who's complaint levels are in excess of 0.3% inbox complaints. 0.1% is still the target for a bulk mailer, AOL does not feel it is necessary to alert mailers of a potential problem until they have reached 0.3%. Think of this as a progress report before the report card in school

http://postmaster-blog.aol.com/2008/12/10/change-to-the-report-card-process-part-deux/

This post takes it one step further to the principles office. They will be  sending a different report card to domains generating an excess of 1.0% inbox complaints on a given day!

How do you get these? Sign-Up for a Feedback loop at AOL

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

P.S. Yes, Christine really looks like that...

Anyone here this news? Goodmail is going to certify emails that contain code to support video in email?

Personally? I currently read my email in TEXT and also convert inbound email to TEXT. HTML sometimes makes more of a mess when it doesn't render right and I just don't have the time to click open images or show HTML for every message I get whether real or a spammer. There are a few trusted sources that I know can render right and don't CRAM everything they can into the email that I do request HTML for.

Back to video in email though...

I simply don't have the bandwidth in time or DSL/CABLE speeds to sit down and watch a video as well. Can I do this on the plane? NO. I don't want to have to wait till I land to have bandwidth to "watch" my emails. Plus, aren't a few of the cable providers clamping down on bandwidth now?

I don't have this problem with my MAC, but can PC's take anymore processor intensive things? It's hard enough to make your PC boot up in less than a minute after you load all your programs much less having to make it play 1,000 email video's per day (yes, I get 1,000 emails a day)

In my eyes, email in its current form is a poor thing to try to host media of this magnitude. It never was intended to do this? Also, can we FIRST fix the current issues with email before trying to add another fun problem to it?

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a neat idea to some extent, but it's not for me as a consumer. Think of those mom's who don't have time as it is?

Would love to "SEE" your comments on this...

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

P.S. Funny timing on this. Over the holiday, I am thinking of starting a few of these posts as VIDEO entries instead (once I figure this out)

As some of you know, I was at the Email Insider Summit (EIS) this past week in Utah and again the industry has taken another brave approach and let the consumers speak to the marketers directly.

The panel of moms at the EIS gave a top researcher of consumer media habits (and us) their ideas about online consumption and how email plays a part in their lives. Of course there were some surprising outcomes of how they use email and the Internet in their daily lives. Just like at Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) 2008 San Francisco event with "older/wiser" panelist and at the May 20008 EIS with the panel of college students, we heard how the consumer wanted to be sent email, see information within that email, and how they want to use that information.

What I heard was some interesting things from these busy mom's

• Many only read their email 1-2 times a week. Why? No time...
• They tend to take the first few minutes of their computer time when they can get it and use it to "clean" out their junk first. If they don't recognize it, out it goes. "First thing I do when I open my email is just delete a bunch of stuff."
• When asked what ONE thing they would take to a deserted island with them? All answered some sort of communications device like a Blackberry or iPhone. This was a surprising answer from some of those who said they don't want to have to email all day, but seems to me this is one way they want to Triage their email.
• They don't want to have to give up all their information for a simple coupon. One mom said she was tricked in thinking she would just get $10 dollars off if she just filled out a simple form, but instead the form kept making her jump through hoops to get the $10 dollars off.
• Some complained that advertisers lie about what sort of offers mom's will get if they sign up. They don't get what they were told they would get or most of the time aren't sure what they are signing up for
• Some mom's said they are loyal to companies who make it simple. “Send me an offer and let me purchase. Don’t have time to navigate, jump through hoops. Make it easy.” 
• Some get so much email that they turn on their PC at 6AM and don't stop using it till bedtime late at night. Some have it in the kitchen which makes it more accessible.
• The delete button is used more often than any other.
• Marketers send to much email. "It's like my inbox is another kid, calling Mom, Mom, Mom. All this noise, it just blends in. I can't keep up, I don't even try." 

There is much more that was said, but overall my take away was that

• They are paranoid about email and with good reason. They don't trust email.
• Mom's want information that's easy to digest or understand. Give them enough information to make an informed quick decision.
• Give them the upfront costs or process to get something. Don't make it hard.
• Consistent theme of the moms was the issue of time -- they don't have any. Kids and other scheduling items are the important things (which I agree). Make it simple.
• Because people are on the defensive when it comes to email, they will go on their first instinct or impressions when reviewing their email which is why they delete and or question why they signed up for this IMMEDIATELY when they look at it. Is there value in this email?
• Email to them as consumers is more of an inconvenience than helpful
• Time is of the essence when it comes to email.
• The computer, ever be its intent to be helpful, is as one mom described it a "time sucker" instead 

Side thought:

On the last day, my best friend Stephanie Ann Miller of Return Path moderated a panel titled "A Call to Arms: How You Can Truly Move the Needle on Email". There, she suggested that marketers often deliver messages they want to convey, rather than what a consumer is seeking. She was quoted as stating "We're giving them broccoli when what they really want is pizza." Much of email marketing is still not relevant to--and not targeted at--consumers". I think points DIRECTLY to what these moms are trying to tell us. Good thought and mom/kid comparison SAM!

As a side joke, does anyone else here now see a new demographic or segmentation titled BUSY MOM in the frequency box? I know my wife could use it.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Now some of you just probably said, I thought Canada had one already!?

Canada has always had their privacy regulation "Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act" (PIPEDA) which typically controlled how someone could use your email address, but they never have had a law that made it illegal to send spam in Canada.

Bill S-202 Introduced by Senator Yoine Goldstein would crack down on spam by prohibiting the sending of commercial emails to Canadians without their prior consent. The bill would also ban practices such as email harvesting, ban phishing attacks, and would require all commercial email messages to have a clear subject line, accurate contact information, an easy way to unsubscribe. It would also give Internet Service Providers (ISP) with the authority to block, filter and refuse spam messages - even deny service to those who have been convicted under the new law or thinks the messages that might be sent could be prohibited under the new law. Businesses who also knew they were being promoted by spam would also be liable unless they took action to stop the messages or notify authorities.

Exemptions would be made for charities, political parties, polling firms and businesses that have a pre-existing relationship with an email user. These groups would still be required to allow users to opt out of further message.

Penalties range from a fine of up to $500,000 (or two years in jail), to a fine of up to $1.5 million (or five years in jail) for repeated offences. Additional fines equal to the profits from a spamming operation could also be imposed. Those harmed by spam would also be empowered to seek damages from the perpetrators in court.

What's interesting about this was the that Facebook just used the U.S Can-Spam act to prosecute a Canadian spammer.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

An interesting debate has arisen over a recent column in the Washington Post by author James McGrath Morris. Morris runs an email newsletter and recently discovered that some of his emails were scoring high on an anti-spam content checker, placing the deliverability of his messages at risk. Coincidentally, he also had some personal email blocked due to his sending IP being listed on Spamhaus. Unfortunately Morris decided to conflate those issues and label them as part of a disturbing trend of "censorship."

One cannot fault people for seeking ways to avoid unwanted or aggressive solicitations, but the consequences of some anti-spam measures may not be what the people seeking protection from spam had in mind. Some efforts to block unwanted e-messages are threatening free speech on the Internet.

Unfortunately, in Mr. Morris's rush to make this an argument about the evils of censorship, by leaping right to that incendiary debate, he has ensured that any subsequent discussion will generate a lot of heat but very little light shed on either the underlying problems or the solutions.

A few brief points:

• Anyone familiar with the modern art and science of email deliverability will recognize that the issues implicated here most likely have less to do with content censorship than they do with modern (and largely content-neutral) anti-abuse measures.

• Running an email newsletter raises a number of issues that are quite different from sending personal emails. While anti-spam measures may affect the deliverability of both, the underlying issues and their solutions are very different and should not be conflated.

• Content filtering is not "blacklisting." If you can't make the distinction, you can't understand the issues involved... much less solve them.

• For most major ISPs, content filtering is *far* less important than the "reputation" of the sender, as determined by having a properly configured sending infrastructure, using authentication techniques like SPF or DKIM, and other factors that have virtually no bearing on the substantive content of the message.

• The fact that some email will go undelivered due to overly zealous or hair-trigger content filters is an indictment of incompetent system administration, not an indictment of today's modern anti-spam measures.

If Mr. Morris wants to have an argument about censorship, he's welcome to do so. But that discussion is far less relevant to what's happening to his email than he seems to know.

This was a recent question posted on the forum of the Email Marketers Club* (EMC). Within minutes, the comments started flooding in. This was a no-brainer. A softball. My reply?

Simple answer. I'd recommend lopping off all email addresses that are over 1 year old. Don't send to them - ever. I blogged about the reasons why a few months back: Email Address Shelf Life. Risk > Reward. I was encouraged by other EMC members echoing and elaborating on my sentiments. The beauty of an active community is that they jump all over forum posts like this one. A sampling of some of the comments:

• "The longer and older is your mailing list the bigger is your problem. if you start sending a lot of invalid emails to Hotmail or Yahoo! you will be blocked."
• "I would second the opinion of not sending anything over a year old. I would make sure you set the expectations with your client on the possible pitfalls of mailing data this old. I don't recognize some emails I signed up for 6 months ago never mind 6 years ago."
• "The best list is never the largest, but rather the most receptive to your message."
• "Good luck sending that list without getting booted by your ESP."
• "Why would you use a service to clean a list that so obviously just needs truncating? DJ is right, as most of the time of course, you need to dump contacts."
• "Quite frankly your client needs to wake up. A 7 year old list with 2.8 Million contacts has just wasted them, at the very least, 6.5 years of time."

The individual with the original question was not giving up easily. He wrote:

This [sic] people have a very well know website, very popular, and until 3 - 4 years ago they used to send a monthly newsletter to this list. Now they are planning to re-start the newsletter using our services. They say that the first couple of years they had opt in, and for the past 4 years or so, double-opt in.

I almost lost it. My reply... Well known, popular, etc does not exempt them from having a bad list. Again, my recommendation is to chop off all emails that are >1 year old. Double opt-in or not...get rid of them. Too much changes in a year. Email addresses go dormant (leading to honeypot addresses). Dedicated IP or not, if you send to a 7 year old list, your IP will get blocked. Not good for a well-known company, right?

It seems like this topic has been a hot one this week. Our friend Ben Chestnut of MailChimp blogged "Real stats: How sending to old lists will kill your deliverability." One of the sharpest minds in the industry, Stephanie Miller of Return Path, fired back a cautionary reply in her post, "The Risks (and Sometimes Rewards) of Not Following Best Practices."

The moral of the story is this: Sending to an old list is very risky and most often far outweighs the benefits. It is no longer good enough to just "do" email marketing. Smart, strategic, best practice email marketing always wins.

DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto

*The Email Marketers Club is social networking site with over 1800 members founded in May 2007 by Tamara Gielen of BeRelevant. It provides a platform for email marketers across the globe to network and share information and experiences with each other.

Pivotal Veracity has announced a new tool for use by its current subscription members.  It sounds like another nifty service allowing marketers to get better insight into how their email is performing at participating ISPs.  Now, if only they'd make the solution available to everyone.

From their press release:

"PIVOTAL VERACITY UNVEILS THE 1st EVER EMAIL ENGAGEMENT INDEX
The only industry wide measure of email relevance based on real
customer behavior!

Phoenix, AZ – December 2, 2008 – Pivotal Veracity, the industry leader
in cross-platform email deliverability and optimization solutions announced today the unveiling of the first ever cross-industry Email Engagement Index© (EEI). The EEI is a comprehensive report of never before tracked metrics that give marketers a first-hand view into the inbox and how well they are engaging customers. Some of the new insights include: how much time transpires between when they send their email and when their customer logs in and sees it for the first time, how many of their customers actually read their emails with images both on and off, what percent are using the preview pane versus full-message view to read them and a lot more! The EEI also ranks each mailer so they can easily see how their performance rates relative to other mailers and provides benchmark data so the mailer can compare metrics such as "true" inbox frequency to others in their industry over time.

"We are an industry rife with metrics – opens, conversion rates, unsubscribe rates, etc – but they all measure the end-result, not the conditions that may have caused them," said Deirdre Baird, President,
Pivotal Veracity. "Before the EEI, we could measure spam complaint rates but we couldn't answer 'Why are my spam complaint rates going up?'; we could measure clicks but we couldn't answer 'Why are they going down?'. To answer these questions, we needed to take a step back and gauge holistically and strategically how we are engaging our customers and, we needed a way to do so mathematically, over time, and relative to others because, after all, no mailer is alone in the inbox. That is where the EEI comes in."

New Insights for Today's Challenges In addition to being the only industry-wide standardized score for engagement, the EEI introduces a set of new critical metrics that allow mailers to improve their performance by understanding if and how well they are engaging customers. Such as:

The Right Message at the Right Time with "Sent to 1st Seen" – A mailer sends a special sale announcement to customers on Monday; unfortunately 200f their customers only access their email accounts on weekends. How fresh is the content seen by this mailer's customers? Not very. Sent to 1st Seen allows mailers to determine whether they are sending emails at the right time and to alter when and what they are mailing. Deliverability and Contact Frequency with "True Inbox Frequency" – How many emails are truly making it to each customer after *all* levels of filtering? The EEI allows mailers to track how many inbox emails each customer is actually seeing and how this changes from one day of the week to the next as well as relative to other mailers. Are customers more likely to pay attention to your mail on a day when there are dozens of other retail offers sitting in their inbox or on a day when
your mail is one of the few? Interest and Appeal with "Read Rate"– Open Rates are flawed and have been for some time. They can only be measured when images are on (which artificially deflates the metric ) and register a hit even when the customer only clicked on the email 1/10th of one second in order to delete it (which artificially inflates it). Read Rate measures true interest by only counting those customers who spend at least 5 seconds or more on the email and is measured with images both on and off. Urgency and Priority with "1st Seen to Read" – On Monday mornings a business customer may have dozens and dozens of emails in their inbox. Now that they've seen it, how important is it to them? Do they open it right away or wait another 5 hours? 1st Seen to Read gives mailers never before tracked insight into how customers are prioritizing their emails relative to others and allows them to gauge the effectiveness of subject lines and content by day of week. "With the ever increasing volumes of mail in the inbox today's marketers are faced with the enormous challenge of figuring out how to stay relevant in the minds and eyes of their customers. Succeed - and your clicks and conversions go up. Fail - and your unsubscribes and spam complaints do thereby preventing all future communications. The EEI is the boldest step yet to help marketers address this challenge", said Michelle Eichner, VP Client Services, Pivotal Veracity.

Accessing the EEI The EEI is computed each month across thousands of mailers using multiple proprietary data sources. The results are provided to each registered mailer in a multi-page report that details their own performance as well trends across critical industry benchmarks. The only requirement for participation is that a mailer be using an authenticated (SPF, SID, DK/DKIM) from domain in their mailings. No tracking or any other special setup is required by mailers other than registration for receipt of reports. To ensure universal availability to mailers, the EEI is available exclusively from Pivotal Veracity and Pivotal Veracity's agency and ESP partners.
----------------------------------------------------------------------"

-Chris Wheeler

Datran Media

I found it pretty interesting to read that Apple's MobileMe service blocks outbound emails to addresses @spamcop.net. Apparently because they were having problems getting blacklisted on SpamCop and implemented this as a way of reducing their number of SpamCop spamtrap hits.

We received a GREAT question this morning asking "I have been browsing the net for a compilation of bounce codes for ISPs such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Excite... A number of these providers either offer their codes on help pages or have been kind enough to email them through to me. I was wondering if there is a list anywhere that lists them all, highlighting Hard and Soft bounces as the ISPs see it? As an ESP, an up to date standardized list would certainly come in handy!"

So, we thought it might be helpful if we listed a few here and let others post/comment ones they know of.

AOL:
http://postmaster.aol.com/trouble/mailer.html
http://postmaster.aol.com/errors/index.html

Charter:
http://www.charter.com/visitors/general.aspx?ownerid=11

Comcast:
http://postmaster.comcast.net/mail-error-codes.aspx

RoadRunner:
http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm

Yahoo!:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/

We are listing these in hopes that senders can correctly interpret what they HAVE to do when they encounter bounces.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

Do you even need a more CLEARER point when it comes to OPT-IN?

A new or amended law has snuck up on a few of us around here. Israel has passed an amendment for a "new" anti-spam law that went into effect December 1, 2008. The main goal of the amendment is to provide tools for minimizing the public's exposure to SPAM. It is VERY broadly defined and can be extend to other communications and correspondences between a commercial entity and the public.

My IMMEDIATE advice would be that if your doing business in Israel or sending to people in Israel that you run a re-confirmation campaign to ensure OPT-IN for any of the materials you might be sending and labeling the message as an advertisement if it is such.

As stated above and by my friend Al Iverson (no, not the basketball player) the law continues the ever growing practice and legal requirements that OPT-IN is the king. I know the U.S. allows for OPT-OUT and some of you take that legal limit as the line you draw in your process, but without re-hashing this in great detail...you should perform the BEST PRACTICE of OPT-IN all the time. Doing such covers majority of privacy protection regulations, the ever growing number of opt-in email laws, and it's just a little easier on your complaint rates in this spam filtering world dependent on behavior metrics.

What does this law specially say? Well that's the confusing part since I don't read Hebrew and the law is written a bit confusing/broadly. I did find a law firm in Israel that was able to break this down for us. GKH is Israel's leading corporate and securities law firm. They said this:

The Amendment imposes certain limitations and prohibitions on an "Advertiser" that delivers "Commercial Material" to the public via:

• email
  
• fax
  
• SMS
  
• automated phone message

"Commercial Material" is defined in the Amendment as: "message which is distributed commercially, and its purpose is to encourage acquisition of certain goods or services or spending money in any other way."

"Advertiser" is defined in the Amendment as one of the following alternatives:

1. One whose name or address appears in the Commercial Material as the contact details for the purchase of the subject matter of the Commercial Material
   
2. One for whom the content of the Commercial Material may publish his or her business or promote his goals; or
   
3. One who markets the subject matter of the Commercial Material on behalf of another. 

How is permission defined? Well in the law it's written as "An Advertiser may distribute Commercial Material only after receiving the addressee's explicit written consent in advance for the acceptance of such Commercial Material from the Advertiser. The addressee's consent may be received in writing, including via e-mail or via automated phone messages."  Yes, you read that right, WRITTEN.

The Prohibition and Limitations Imposed Under the Amendment per GKH

1. Consent

An Advertiser may distribute Commercial Material only after receiving the addressee's explicit written consent in advance for the acceptance of such Commercial Material from the Advertiser. The addressee's consent may be received in writing, including via e-mail or via automated phone messages.

In addition, the Amendment includes an exception which states that an Advertiser may distribute Commercial Material to addressees without receiving their prior consent if all of the following conditions are met:

1. the addressee gave his contact details while purchasing goods or services or during negotiations for such purchase, and the Advertiser informed him or her at that point that the contact details will be used for sending Commercial Materials
2. the Advertiser gave the addressee an opportunity to notify the Advertiser of the refusal to receive Commercial Material, in general or Commercial Material of a certain type, from Advertiser, and the addressee did not exercise such opportunity
3. and the Commercial Material refers to goods or services similar to those purchased or that their purchase was negotiated by addressee. 

An addressee who gave his or her consent as detailed above is entitled to revoke his or her consent and to notify the Advertiser about his or her refusal to receive any future Commercial Material at any point in the future. An addressee revocation notice must not be subject to any conditions, including any fee, and shall be done either in writing or in the same manner in which the Commercial Material was distributed to addressee, according to addressee's choice.

2. Formal requirement regarding the Commercial Material 

Any Commercial Material must carry the following notices:

• The header of the Commercial Material must contain the word "Advertisement". In case the Commercial Material is distributed as an e-mail, the subject line of the e-mail message must contain the word "Advertisement". 
  
• Advertiser's detailed address and contact details.
  
• A statement regarding addressee's right to notify Advertiser about his or her refusal to receive any Commercial Material in the future and an explanation how to exercise such right or refusal. 
  

In case of a short Commercial Material, the Advertiser needs only to include his or her name and contact details for sending a refusal message. 

3. Penalties

Any breach of the requirements set forth in the Amendment shall be a civil wrong, and may also be considered as a criminal offense. In addition, the Amendment also amended Appendix II of the Class Action Law, 5766-2006 (hereafter: the "Class Action Law"), adding a claim against an Advertiser as one of the possible claims suitable for class actions. Such amendment of the Class Action Law, along with the Amendments made to the penalties section, provides the addressees with the opportunity to bond together and shares the costs of such lawsuit, and might become an incentive for filing such claims against Advertisers

There is NO case law to date on this and again interpreting it is hard because of that plus how BROADLY it was written. The Knesset Committee that legislated the Amendment stated that "Commercial Material" should be broadly defined and includes any matter distributed commercially and it was  stated that the intent of the Amendment was to close all possibilities and not leave any loopholes. So again my IMMEDIATE advice would be that if your doing business in Israel or sending to people in Israel that you run a re-confirmation campaign to ensure OPT-IN for any of the materials you might be sending and labeling the message as an advertisement if it is such.

We strongly recommend you to review your policies and activities in order to examine whether you fall under any of the prohibition imposed by the Amendment and seek any additional legal advice you may need.

-Dennis

Eloqua

Don't Just Send, Deliver!

This post is being provided for informational purposes only. Nothing in this post shall be construed as creating a representation, legal advice, warranty or commitment, contractual or otherwise, by deliverability.com, it's guest posters, Eloqua Limited or any affiliate of Eloqua, to you or any other person or entity. It also does not guarantee that your email and/or any other aspect of your business is in compliance with state, federal, or International laws. We are making no representation, warranty or commitment that any message you send to end users will be delivered. This post is not a substitute for, should not be used in place of, and should not be considered, legal advice. It is recommended that you contact your general or legal counsel.

I noticed a new phenomena on Twitter yesterday. I got email notifications from bogus account names that my Twitter account is being followed.

Obviously the first thing one does is checking what user is following you and the only message one sees is a commercial ad.

Here's what I got on my Gmail account:

Maybe Twitter's user account registration system is being "worked on" by hackers or someone was doing this manually, but this definitely is able to put some message and link through.

Maybe Twitter should implement reputation-based mechanisms with Report Spam buttons to their system just like ISPs do. Spammers are trying to appear at every possible place with eyeballs and Twitter definitely has a lot of them.

Did you receive any similar "follow" notifications?

At the risk of getting tomatoes tossed at me as the token marketer here, I took a contrary assessment of the MailChimp study that Dennis highlighted here.  The study shows that emailing to an old file boosted complaints and unsubscribe requests, and depressed open and click through rates.

But that does'st tell the whole story.  If I was a marketer only focused on response results, I’d look at this data another way.  I’d say,  “Hey – I got 7,688 clicks on the “bad” list and only 6,925 clicks on the “good” list.  I doubled my bounty! So mailing the bad list was totally worth it!  Let’s do that again.  And again! Party on!”

Many marketers sstruggle with this sort of situation.  We know the best practice is to not email old files. We know the best practice is to refrain from emailing that extra campaign this week.  However, at the same time we are under pressure to drive short term revenue.  “The numbers are down, just send another email campaign.”    And it works – the extra email campaign drives revenue.

In this case, not following best practices generated a lot of traffic.  The MailChimp study doesn’t say if the old file clicks converted at the same rate, but let’s assume that they were at least comparable.  There was some gold in that there old file.  Of course there was a lot of shiny rocks, too. 

So, if you are going to break the rules, be smart about it and make sure you have enough data to make informed business decisions.  You need to know if the risk of complaints or brand degradation from annoying your subscribers outweighs the short term revenue.   Consider these protections and optimization strategies.

1.  Make sure you mail from a distinct IP address, and quarantine the data to be sure it’s spam-trap free.
2. MailChimp could never assess the value of this old file if they didn’t have the deliverability data.  You must seed these mailings if you want to make good decisions about future mailings.  Deliverability is a marathon not a sprint.  Track as many campaigns as you can.
3. Finding the gold in this file meant mailing the entire file. But next time, consider only emailing those who opened. Or be sure to remove records that have not responded in 12 months.  Keep the old file risk to a minimum.
4. Track the results all the way through to the bottom line.  In this example, if the clicks from the old file didn’t return actual purchases/conversions, then they are worth a lot less.  So when you do your ROI, be sure to use the numbers that are most meaningful for your business.

Although sometimes we feel like marketing strategy is equivalent to holding up a torch and peering in the dark, murky back room of a cave, in email marketing we have enough data to make good business decisions.  Shame on us if we don’t take full advantage.