Sometimes the deliverability problem is you

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on September 20, 2007

delivery boxGetting legitimate email into inboxes and past spam filters is obviously important. So important that emotions can get out of hand when email doesn't get through.

Human nature is to search for a scapegoat when delivery rates crumble. Much ire is thrown at two suspected culprits...the ISP, webmail service or blacklist behind the email block, or the email services sending out the emails for you.

These scapegoats may be convenient, but are rarely the real source of the problem. The main reasons email gets blocked are all to do with the emailer's own practices.

Sending email to people who didn't request it. Sending irrelevant email. Continuing to send email to addresses that bounce each time. Sending too much email to folk. The list goes on.

You may have read recent reports of political organizations crying "censorship!" after finding their email blocked at leading ISPs. The truth of the matter is exposed by the former head of AOL's anti-spam team, Carl Hutzler, in this blog post.

It's an inside view into how deliverability problems can usually be traced back to something the sender did wrong. Spam complaints from recipients and high bounce rates are to blame, not censorship. Carl notes that blocking issues...
"...were not issues with the organization and what they stood for. The issues were due to mailing practices and the resulting poor statistics that the organizations had in our spam control systems."
Nor is it usually useful to point the finger at the email service provider (ESP), at least not until your own house is in order.

One ESP I worked with revealed customers had an average of over 18% bounce rates. In other words, almost one in five of all emails sent out goes to an address that's not working. Hard to blame the ESP when address lists are so outdated.

Back in 2005, Anne Holland wrote on this topic. She noted...
"I strongly advise marketers not to assume that switching vendors equals better deliverability. Why? Because so much of delivery is determined by your own practices as a mailer -- not by your vendor."
It's easy to blame others for delivery problems, but the solutions may be closer to home.

(As an aside, your choice of ESP does matter, of course. Top ESPs provide the tools and advice that help you follow delivery best practices, for example by supporting email authentication, offering built in bounce management systems etc.)

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5 Comments:

Mark,

Here are a couple other resources that all agree with this message:

One in Four Messages Trashed, And It’s Your Fault: http://directmag.com/disciplines/email/messages_trashed/

It's not your ESP - it's YOU!:
http://www.returnpath.biz/resources/newsletters/1105/

Matt
By Blogger Mvern78, on 20 September, 2007  
 

Thanks Matt for the suggestions. The ReturnPath article in particular makes the point very well.
By Blogger Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on 20 September, 2007  
 

Hi Mark,
As a company we found out about 6 months ago that it was our fault we had bad delivery and have been working very hard since to clean up our act.
However, I'm not sure that Yahoo actually want to work with marketers to improve the situation. Some of our biggest improvements have been gained by getting on the ARF feedback loops on MSN/AOL/etc, but despite numerous request through all the official avenues Yahoo won't even reply to us.
I would have thought Yahoo would want to set up the loop, it will only reduce the number of emails we send them.
Do you know of any better ways of setting up the loops or others who have had this problem?
Regards
V
By Anonymous Anonymous, on 24 September, 2007  
 

Hi V. Hmmm...can't offer an answer for you unfortunately. Possibilities - you're not using domain keys authentication? (I think that's a pre-requisite for them to work with you and might help your cause.)

I know some deliverability experts hang around the various forums, or you can try buzzing Matt at EmailKarma.

Failing that I can only point you to the deliverability services, who might be able to help through their close contacts with Yahoo. One I need to add to that list is Word to the Wise.
By Blogger Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on 24 September, 2007  
 

Thanks for the info and sources. I'll let you know how we get on.
V
By Anonymous Anonymous, on 25 September, 2007  
 

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