Deliverability and what your ESP can do

A common theme in 2008 was the need to accept self-responsibility for your delivery success. You can't expect your email marketing service to wave a magic wand and ensure all your emails end up in the inbox.

The reason is the growing role of sender reputation in determining how ISPs and others treat incoming email. And this reputation is largely determined by your own list management and sending practices: what you send and who you send it to.

But it would be wrong to dismiss the role of the ESP entirely. Deliverability may be your responsibility, but an ESP can provide support to help you manage this responsibility effectively. What kind of help can you look for?

(Note: the real-world ESP examples are just that: examples, not endorsements. You'll find a big list of ESPs here.)

IP address issues

Sender reputation is largely tied to an email source (predominantly the IP address from which the emails are sent).

As a result, it's often better to have such a sender IP address for your exclusive use. Then you're in complete control: it's your practices that are determining the reputation of that IP address.

If you share an IP address with other senders, their poor email practices might drag down this reputation.

Now, it's not quite as straightforward as that, as this post explains. There are cases where you may prefer to share an IP address, particularly if you're not going to send enough emails to establish your own reputation with big ISPs.

Your ESP should at least be aware of the role of sender IP addresses and reputation, and be proactive in managing their clients and IP addresses so that the latter do not run into reputation problems.

Example: StreamSend offers customers a private IP address.

Support for authentication

As Ken Takahashi recently noted, "A lack of authentication won't get you filtered out (yet), but it does subject you to more scrutiny from anti-spam technologies."

Does your ESP provide you with the tools or information you need to authenticate outgoing emails? (See these articles to learn more about email authentication.)

Example: Silverpop enables SPF authentication for all new clients, with other authentication options available according to need.

Good ISP relations and deliverability expertise

Top senders of email have good relations with top receivers of email. This is not so the ESP can pull a few strings and get your email fast tracked to the inbox. That's not happening.

But good ISP relations mean an ESP can provide better support when you do have a problem with a particular ISP: getting the information you need to solve a problem and guiding you toward better practices.

Example: ExactTarget has a dedicated deliverability service team.

Bounce management tools

One of the important aspects in sender reputation is the validity of emails on your list. Your reputation suffers if you continue to email invalid or dead email accounts.

A good ESP provides you with feedback on bounced email and gives you the tools you need to manage these addresses. For example, automatically suppressing "dead" addresses from future sends.

Example: Listrak "removes all hard bounces from your list automatically...(and)...allows you to set the number of delivery attempts for soft bounces."

Feedback loops

Feedback loops (FBLs) are a mechanism by which larger ISPs can tell senders about spam complaints generated by their emails. And it's these complaints that can hurt your sender reputation most and see you put on blacklists.

Top ESPs are registered with important FBLs and able to give you information on complaint levels, so you can start investigating the likely cause: poor content, poor permission, bad subject line, etc.?

Example: MailChimp uses FBLs to automatically unsubscribe addresses that generate spam complaints at major ISPs.

Pre-send spam checking tools

Most ESPs now have tools you can use to test whether your email is likely to make it past some of the more common spam filters out there.

Example: Campaign Monitor has a tool that will "run your campaign through popular spam filters at the desktop, server and firewall level before you send it."

Best practice support and advice

The real key to delivery success is keeping subscribers happy. Ignoring the techniques and technologies for the moment, ISPs are essentially filtering incoming email so that the ones that get through are the ones people want. So any tool or feature that keeps people engaged with your emails is, indirectly, a deliverability tool.

Obviously there are budget issues at play, but try not to design your email program around the limitations of your ESP. Instead, find an ESP that supports what you want to do to make your emails better (double opt-in, welcome messages, segmentation etc.)

Customer filters

One indicator of how serious your ESP is about supporting deliverability is their attitude to new customers. If they let anyone send emails through their systems, then chances are they're not too concerned about such things as sender reputation.

Do they have any checks in place to ensure their customers are meeting (and continue to meet) basic email marketing standards, such as requiring an opt-in, monitoring legal compliance etc.?

Example: Bronto has a vetting process for new clients.

Cooperation with accreditation services and whitelists

Your ESP may already work with whitelists and certification services, so that their customers get fast-tracked into these programs or priority consideration or simplified application processes.

Example: VerticalResponse also acts as a reseller of the Sender Score Certified accreditation program.

That's a few pointers to get you started...if it all seems complex, there are deliverability consultants and services out there to help you.

...and I invite them to weigh in with their additions and modifications!

Tags: email marketing, email deliverability

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