Sender Score Certified
Key reading: Should I certify my emails?
Other certification services:
Overview | Habeas SafeList | CertifiedEmail | SuretyMail
(Please visit the service's website for up-to-date information)
Website: Link
Main location: New York, USA
Description: Sender Score Certified is an email accreditation service run by Return Path. Once you are accredited, your sender IP addresses are added to the Sender Score Certified whitelist. ISPs, other email account providers and anti-spam technologies using this whitelist will then give preferential treatment to your emails, raising their chances of being successfully delivered to inboxes.
Accreditation follows only after you reach certain standards examined as part of an audit of your email marketing reputation and practices (a non-refundable application fee is required). Accredited sender IP addresses are monitored and their whitelisting may be suspended or revoked if you fail to maintain the standards required.
An annual fee is charged to keep your Sender Score Certified account active.
Benefits: Improved deliverability to email receivers using the Sender Score Certified whitelist. Additional benefits at Windows Live Hotmail include automatic rendering of images and links (bypassing any image blocking and link suppression), inclusion of an "unsubscribe" button within the webmail interface, no hourly throttling limits and more lenient daily throttling limits.
Reach: See below.
In their own words:
Ken Takahashi, Return Path's Vice President, Global Channels, told me:
"Sender Score Certified is the largest, most comprehensive and widely used whitelist covering over 1.2 billion inboxes of the world's top ISPs. This program is designed for commercial senders who are willing and able to maintain the highest ethical, professional, and technical standards when sending email. We cover Windows Live Hotmail, Road Runner, GoDaddy, Time Warner Cable, USA.net and many more. We also cover spam filters from Barracuda, Cloudmark, IronPort and Spam Assassin."
Update: Sender Score Certified is now used by Yahoo (as of January 2009).
"Also, because of our reputation data network, we know that email on Sender Score Certified meets higher standards than our competitors meaning that is has lower complaint rates and fewer spam trap hits. Clients see up to 17% lift on delivery when they come onto Sender Score Certified."
Additional notes: Read an interview with Takahashi on deliverability, certification and sender reputation.