Future of deliverability: 4. The role of certification

Part 1: User interaction
Part 2: Authentication
Part 3: Domain-based reputation

If your emails are certified by an authoritative third-party, then you get priority delivery treatment at ISPs that recognize that certification.

Sound good?

Yes, no, maybe: the pros and cons of getting your emails certified are outlined here.

In theory, certification simplifies life for ISPs and others managing incoming email by pre-identifying "good" messages.

So some might suggest (I have in the past) that certification is the future of email deliverability.

But does our panel of experts agree?

Will certification become a must have?

First off, it seems very unlikely that email stamps will become a serious proposition, where everyone has to pay to get email delivered.

Jeremy Saibil, Director of Deliverability at Campaigner says:

"I don't think pay-for-delivery is going to happen. Unless there is a radical change in how internet interaction is billed overall...email has purposes other than those associated with marketing, so the needs of personal and professional users will trump paid email."

But will some kind of paid certification become critical for marketing email?

Chris Wheeler, Director of Deliverability at Bronto, says:

"I would never say that 3rd party accreditation and certifications will be a must for every sender. They make financial sense for some senders who need an extra lift in inbox delivery or want the added assurance emails will be automatically rendered, but this won't replace responsible email marketing."

Even those running certification programs agree that not everyone will need it. George Bilbrey (President) and Tom Sather (Professional Services Director) of Return Path say:

"Email is never going to be 100% pay-to-play, which is a good thing. Good email marketers will always have good deliverability."

Does this mean certification is primarily for bad senders?

If low delivery rates come from poor email practices, then is certification a way for bad senders to pay to get into the inbox?

No.

You need to satisfy rigorous standards before obtaining certification: ISPs are not going to give special treatment to certified email if it means more unwanted messages landing in their customers' inbox.

The credibility and growth of certification therefore depends on certifiers maintaining those standards, even if it means turning down paying customers.

Which means senders whose poor email practices cause them delivery problems probably can't get certified. Saibil notes:

"...businesses that would consistently benefit from certification will likely not qualify for it."

But do good senders need certification if they already have good delivery rates?

Conversely, if you run a high-quality email program, then the potential delivery lift through certification may not be big enough to justify the expense. Saibil again:

"...at the end of the day, if your email marketing practices are good, you won't need certification to deliver the mail..."

Deirdre Baird, President & CEO of Pivotal Veracity adds:

"...we probably will never reach a day when all mail is certified because if mailers are engaging in industry-established best practices and have a winning marketing strategy, they don't need a 3rd party to certify their email as deserving of inbox placement: users will do that."

She continues:

"Its also critically important to note that "Certification" or "Safe Listing" is not going to insulate the mailer against poor deliverability."

"...the ISPs' move to customer-level preferences and engagement as the highest-priority filter significantly minimizes the impact these types of programs can have on folder placement."

So who does benefit from certification, if bad senders don't qualify and good senders don't need it?

Well, even small improvements might justify the costs of certification and there are still real delivery benefits. One is what we might call delivery insurance. As Saibil notes:

"Many of our clients use certification as a safety net to guard against content issues or similar surprises that can periodically negatively impact on their delivery rates."

Bilbrey and Sather also say:

"...we are seeing a lot of ISPs shift their focus toward finding ways to identify good email in an attempt to reduce false positives. With this wider acceptance by ISPs we think the benefits for marketers will make certification programs like ours even more attractive and more cost-effective."

...and certification is not just about deliverability

What many forget is that certification has other potential benefits.

For example, participating ISPs may not block images on emails certified by partners. Some certification programs cause icons to be displayed that mark you out as a certified sender, which might bring trust benefits.

Long-term, certification may be linked to other benefits, such as support for more design functionality (e.g. scripts) that current webmail services typically block automatically.

Baird says:

"Certification will continue to hold appeal for some marketers, especially those whose messages are frequently being spoofed and those that need assurance that critical communications are bypassing filters (even then, end-user preferences prevail, by the way)."

Each sender needs to assess each certification alternative in the light of their current situation, the relative benefit to their current performance levels, and the cost of complying with the standards and paying for the certification process.

It seems unlikely that certification will come to dominate deliverability in the way that reputation etc. does.

But certification's role seems set to grow in a wider context, through the overall mix of potential benefits for design, delivery, trust-building etc.

Part 5: a look at B2B lists and reputation.

More on deliverability

Sign-up for the Email Marketing Reports NEWSLETTER
Twice a month, free, packed with email marketing advice and all the posts from this blog.

Email:      First Name:     
    More info and sample

 feed | email | Twitter

The main website for everything email marketing
Email marketing search engine
Introduction and email advertising basics
Service listings and sources of statistics
Advice on email design and delivery issues

Top email marketing info sources for 2009
Outlook 2007 and HTML design
42 HTML email design resources

follow me on Twitter