Return Path + Habeas = good for email marketers?
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on August 25, 2008
Return Path's purchase of competitor Habeas means the merger of two of the largest deliverability services in the world. Is this good for email marketers?General opinion in the industry seems to be yes, not least due to the positive impression people have of Return Path as a company (an impression I share).
But any concentration in a marketplace raises questions. Matt Blumberg, Return Path's CEO and Chairman, was kind enough to take time out to answer them for me.
Q. The sender side of the email world seems happy with the move. Have you had any reaction from the receiver side of the industry to the purchase?
Blumberg: The reactions have been very positive. Our largest receiver partners (both Return Path's and Habeas's) are excited that we can bring more senders through our rigorous process and "to the table" with them.
Q. With the Habeas SafeList and your own Sender Score Certified whitelist set to remain separate, can we expect a package discount for those companies who choose to use both?
Blumberg: We haven't finalized go-forward pricing strategies yet, and the two companies have historically priced services very differently, and in different bundles with other services we each offer like the monitoring tool and consulting. That said, of course our objective is going to be to gain as much client adoption of all our tools and services as possible.
Q. Is there a danger that the credibility of the SafeList might be compromised if it's seen as a poor sibling to Sender Score Certified?
Blumberg: I'm not sure anyone sees it that way. The two lists have different distribution to receivers and different qualification criteria to gain accreditation.
Q. Goodmail Systems is perhaps the closest to you in terms of email certification. CEO Peter Horan implied possible future agreements between Goodmail and Gmail / Microsoft / international ISPs. Is there room for both Sender Score Certified and Goodmail to run concurrently at the same ISPs?
Definitely. We are both going to be running at Yahoo! shortly. ISPs want credible, high quality mailers to have multiple paths to the inbox.
Q. Although you've commented that Return Path can't be described as a monopoly, it does now occupy a very strong position in the deliverability world. Some people might be a little unnerved at that much "infrastructural influence" being in the hands of a single private entity. Any comments on that?
Most ISPs do offer their own whitelists. Goodmail (massively venture backed) and ISIPP (small, scrappy, well-connected) are still in the marketplace. I'd guess that ISPs are unlikely to accept 20 whitelists, but I'd also guess they don't just want to accept one.
In addition, the major factors in inbox placement are not whitelists (either those run by the ISPs or third parties) but rather the reputation systems that are run by both ISPs and third parties like Ironport, Secure Computing, Barracuda, Commtouch, Cloudmark and others.
Thanks Matt!
More on email certification | Tags: return path, habeas, matt blumberg, email deliverability
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