If you were Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! Mail...

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on August 01, 2008

email symbol...how would you define unwanted email...?

What would you consider a potential indicator of a "bad" sender? Not a traditional spammer, but a sender who simply isn't producing email that people want to receive?

How about:
  • recipients never click on a link in the email
  • emails are never moved to a folder or archived ("trash" or "junk" folders don't count)
  • recipients delete the email
  • the emails are never rescued or opened when delivered to the junk folder
  • recipients never scroll down the email
  • recipients don't forward the email
  • recipients don't use the interface's print facility
  • recipients over-use unsubscribe links
  • recipients never unblock images or add sender to address list
I'd measure these behaviors, compare the results to those for other bulk senders and then stop delivering email from senders that fall into the bottom X%. Whether opt-in or not.

Now imagine an email future where all the above contributed to an individual spam score for each sender and for each recipient, allowing the webmail service to define "unwanted" at the individual inbox level...

This isn't just an intellectual exercise.

If you construct such a list, it will help you focus on producing emails that are wanted.

Equally, the history of deliverability tells us that the new spam isn't just email that stimulates a "report spam" response. It's email that fails to produce a positive action or which encourages a negative one.

I'd place good money on the above scenario becoming real: filtering or blocking of emails that fail to engage. Recipients already do this subconsciously.

(Deliverability gurus: please step in and tell us how much of this is already done or planned.)

Even if it remains theory, what would YOU put on that list? And how would you minimize your "spam" score?

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5 Comments:

I'd place good money on the above scenario becoming real: filtering or blocking of emails that fail to engage.

Totally agree, and have suggested as much on a few phone calls. If you can get past the initial shock of the idea("...but I'm not spamming, so I'm not doing anything wrong..."), it makes a lot of sense.

Surprised there's not more talk about this when people discuss relevance. Thanks for bringing it up.

the emails are never rescued or opened when delivered to the junk folder

Maybe someone can clarify/correct me on this, but doesn't this already occur at some ISPs? I could swear I read a report from Google that stated they factor this into Gmail's filtering. Will go looking...
By Anonymous Justin Premick, on 01 August, 2008  
 

Thanks Justin. Yes, the "rescued from junk folder" is already a factor.

From the recent Yahoo workshop:

"The effect of clicking "not spam" on a message is that it sends a powerful signal to our systems that we've made a mistake."
By Anonymous Mark Brownlow, on 01 August, 2008  
 

Yep, some of the webmail providers are already looking at some of these things.
By Blogger J.D., on 01 August, 2008  
 

I would add to the list...

The more adds to an address book or safelist should add credibility to the sender.

I usually ask new subscribers to do this on the first auto response message I send out.
By Anonymous Alex, on 11 August, 2008  
 

Yep, a worthy addition I think Alex. Thanks.
By Anonymous Mark Brownlow, on 12 August, 2008  
 

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