Essential Guide to E-mail Marketing - Haymarket

28 INFRASTRUCTURE DM News • E-Mail Marketing Guide 2007
E-mail authentication:
It’s time
BY AL IVERSON
ISPs like Hotmail have been pushing e-mail authentication for
years. I’ve been talking about Sender ID and Hotmail for more
than two years now and Meng Wong (now of Karmasphere) has
been educating senders and receivers on why sender policy framework
(SPF) is important since at least mid-2004.
For a long time, it seemed like a solution in search of a problem.
Common questions included,
what does e-mail authentication
do, why should one invest in a
new technology, and if mail is getting
through fine. There simply
didn’t seem to be a good enough,
or compelling enough reason for
most senders to start authenticating
their mail.
But now the industry recognizes
that there are significant delivery
benefits for senders who authenti-
Al Iverson
cate their mail.
ExactTarget
There are now three primary
authentication technologies in play: Sender ID, SPF and
DomainKeys/DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). Here’s a simple
overview.
Sender ID just got very important at Hotmail. Sender ID is an
integral component of getting your e-mail to any inbox at
Hotmail. If you’re not doing Sender ID, or your Sender ID
records are set up incorrectly, you’re going to have issues soon, if
not already. Hotmail has clarified on numerous occasions and in
numerous venues that if you publish a Sender ID record, and do
it correctly, it improves your ability to deliver mail.
DomainKeys (soon to be replaced by DKIM) is the authentication
technology most important to Yahoo. What’s the benefit? If
you want to participate in Yahoo’s feedback loop, you need to sign
your mail with DomainKeys. If you don’t have DomainKeys
authentication in place, you won’t receive spam complaint data
back from Yahoo users. Senders who utilize feedback loops enjoy
better deliverability. Yahoo is a large enough receiving site that any
spam-blocking issues are sure to have a huge negative impact on
e-mail performance.
SPF matters, too. Sender ID is backwards-compatible with SPF,
so you need to be doing at least one or the other to prevent
Hotmail issues. SPF will also give you a modest delivery boost at a
few other ISPs, with the promise that more are to come. Since it’s
the easiest technology to implement, at the very least, you should
be utilizing SPF. It’s a simple text record you put in DNS, and it’s
something you should immediately task your server administrators
(or e-mail service providers) with helping you implement.
Authenticate today and the benefits won’t be limited to better
deliverability with Hotmail and participation in Yahoo’s feedback
loop. As more and more receiving sites and spam filters begin
looking for e-mail authentication, the benefits will multiply.
Al Iverson is director of privacy and deliverability at ExactTarget. You can
reach him at aiverson@exacttarget.com.
ESSENTIAL GUIDE
How marketers can prevent
spam complaints
BY BEN CHESTNUT
You don’t have to be a spammer to get reported for spamming.
Even totally clean, 100 percent double opt-in lists will get one
or two abuse reports per 50,000 recipients. Sometimes it’s just a
simple mistake, but getting reported for abuse is pretty serious. If a
major ISP receives even a small handful of complaints about your
e-mails, it will start blocking all e-mail from your server.
So it’s worth looking at how legitimate e-mail marketers get
falsely accused of sending spam.
Sometimes, it’s a simple mistake. But more often than not, it’s
the marketers’ own fault, caused by one or more of these actions:
■ The marketer collected e-mails legitimately, but took too long to
make contact. People receive full-blown e-mail newsletters and
they don’t remember opting in two years ago.
■ The marketer runs an online store that yields thousands of
e-mail addresses of customers who have purchased products in the
past. Instead of asking people to join the e-mail marketing list, the
marketer just start blasting offers out.
■ The marketer is exhibiting at a trade show that has provided a
list of attendee e-mail addresses. Instead of e-mailing those people
an invitation to join its list, the marketer just assumes it has permission
and starts e-mailing
newsletters and promos.
■ Fish bowls and business cards.
To marketers, it's common sense
that this is a list-collection technique.
To prospects, it’s just a free
lunch.
■ Purchasing or renting members’
e-mail addresses from an
organization, then just adding
them to the list without getting
permission.
Ben Chestnut
MailChimp.com
Ways to Prevent Abuse Reports
■ Use the double opt-in method. This way you have proof that
each and every recipient gave permission to send them e-mails.
■ Even if they’re your customers, don’t send promotions without
permission. Set up a separate “marketing list” for customers to
join. Give them reasons (or free prizes) for signing up.
■ Don’t hide your opt-out link. Make it very prominent. Some
marketers are placing the “Unsubscribe” link at the top of their
e-mails, so they’re easy to find. We think this is a best practice.
■ Make sure your e-mail looks reputable and professional so that
people will trust your unsubscribe link.
Ben Chestnut is the co-founder and managing partner of MailChimp.com. He
can be reached at ben@mailchimp.com.