Category: Email Deliverability

As a sender, whether you manage email in house or utilize an ESP like mobileStorm, you may be wondering lately……

Why are my messages being delayed?  Is my ESP to blame? What should I expect and why?

The truth of the matter is, it’s the holiday season and everyone, (YES including spammers), send a LOT of email. As you can imagine, the onset of increasing volumes has created chronic email congestion, resulting in delayed and in some cases non delivery.

To provide a more familiar picture, think back to Thanksgiving day or past holidays where you were caught in a traffic jam (bumper to bumper) and couldn’t seem to get anywhere. As a result, you were late.

Just as holiday road traffic can be a provoking situation for travelers, the same applies to email. However you may be wondering, who is supposed to manage all this traffic and make sure it gets delivered anyway? Isn’t that the ISP’s Job? The answer is yes, but it doesn’t quite work the way you may think.

During the holiday chaos, ISPs, especially AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo, are completely slammed due to the influx of email traffic.  Unfortunately, they have very low resources to manage the inbound capacity (Annalivia Ford from AOL talks about this on her blog tiled “It’s a racket“. Hence, they are forced to use literally every resource available to ensure their members (your subscribers) get “prioritized” mail. Well…what is considered priority to a subscriber?  It’s usually personal email where friends and family wish each other happy season greetings, or other communication among colleagues.

Although these messages are high in priority, ISPs also understand their customers need to receive other types of communication. For example, to ensure messages such as receipts, email confirmations, and itineraries are delivered, they place priority on transactional type of mail. Since bandwidth is limited, ISPs are forced to limit the number of non priority messages by rate limiting or deferring mail (usually a marketer’s campaigns) until resources become available.

However, ISPs do encourage in some cases to retry sending messages. This process may take up to 3 days, (depending on your MTA configuration) before it is actually delivered.  Furthermore, ISPs also look for messages that have good levels of subscriber engagement. This is actually tied to their reputation calculator which contains other metrics, but engagement is an important factor to review when deciding prioritization once resources are available. After all is said and done, there is also the war on SPAM which accounts for 80% of the traffic on the internet.  It is no surprise keeping this forth type of mail out of  the inbox completely hogs up the majority of bandwidth  ISPs have left to  accept and process legitimate email.

As for the ESP, many have asked, what part do they play in this seasonal headache? Are they to blame? Like our traffic jam analogy, ESPs represent the means of transportation used to get to your destination. Although many differ in size, have a variety of features, performance, offerings, and top notch customer service, their basic function is the same.  However, we do work with clients to ensure they are engaged with their subscribers, and send mail that people are expecting and want.

Delayed email during the holiday is something that is a common issue each year and will subside once the season is over.  ISPs have a tough job and so do senders, however, be patient. These guys have a lot of mail to deliver and they will eventually get to yours as long as you plan ahead for delays, constantly review your email program, implement best practices, and keep it relevant.

Until next time…

Deliver and stay engaged

I recently came across a great article on the future of deliverability.

Quick overview: We all know that when a subscriber clicks the “report as spam” button, the ISP gets data to help them make decisions about what they want to do with a senders email  such as block or send to the spam folder.

ISPs fight spam in a bunch of different ways, reputation, authentication, content blocking etc.

This article talks about how ISPs are starting to use other types of data such as, “subscribers who do not open emails”, to punish senders with poor best practices. Its all coming down to a marketers reputation.

If email marketing is important to your company and drives revenue, I suggest you work with an ESP (Email Service Provider) who can stay on top of changes like this and help you make decisions about the best way to manage your business.

I always say, delivery is as fluid and changing as water. New technologies and methods to fight spam are constantly being developed and innovated.  Think about it, an ISPs entire business depends on making sure their subscribers are not inundated with spam. If they don’t do a good job, people leave, and revenues drop.

Currently 72% of the 320 billion messages sent on a daily basis is spam. It will continue to become harder and harder to reach the inbox if you do not get good guidance and expertise, this is one of the main reasons we created mobileStorm Pro.

Read this great article on the future of deliverability here:

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2009/10/future-of-deliverability-1-role-of-user.html

Read the full article here: http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/1425/get-out-that-rake

“Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan had a problem. With an abysmal delivery rate of 81.29 percent, his email campaigns weren’t getting through to many of the people who wanted them. “The company was constantly getting complaints from its subscribers,” explains a mobileStorm case study. “Consumers claimed they hadn’t received Cesar Millan’s once-monthly newsletter or that they only received it sporadically.”

Analysis by mobileStorm revealed the likely cause:

• When subscribers signed up, their addresses were not verified.
• The list—which dated back to 2005—contained inactive and invalid addresses, making it especially vulnerable to spam traps.

To clean up the list, mobileStorm used tactics like these:

• Identifying subscribers who had never opened or clicked on an email message
• Removing obviously non-engaged subscribers
• Sending the rest a message asking them to confirm their subscription, and letting them know their address would be removed if they didn’t respond by a certain date

Finally, the case study reports, “confirmed users were added back in along with known good addresses. Suspect addresses, opt-outs, and non-respondents were removed.”

After the company cleaned the list, the delivery rate shot up to 99.7 percent. ‘Nuff said.

The Po!nt: Time for some fall raking. To help ensure your holiday emails get the most response, clear your lists of “fallen” addresses. A timely clean-up could pay off.

Source: mobileStorm. Read the full case study here.

We all know that reaching your audience with a relevant message and a targeted list is all you need to get results . . . Not!

No one knows this better than the one person who knows more about dogs than dogs do. Cesar Millan learned the hard way, that email delivery is a skilled practice that demands effort and attention and persistently laying down a solid routine (not unlike training your pooch to stay off the couch).

When you take your eye off the ball for so long . . . things start to get out of hand. There are fundamentals to email marketing that will help you avoid a perfect storm that causes email delivery to go into a tailspin.

The biggies are:

• Collecting email addresses without verifying them

• Letting your email database go stale without updating your addys

• Old databases create the perfect climate for “spam traps,” which can ruin a sender’s reputation and cause delivery issues at ISPs.

If any of this sounds familiar . . . know this: The fixes for these types of situations are rarely found in a fire & forget solution. It’s more likely that you need an expert ear to hear you out and, then, an expert hand to roll up the sleeves and do some digital marketing plumbing. While there are no “quick” fixes, lousy delivery rates can totally be turned around. For instance you can:

• Identify all subscribers who had never opened or clicked on an email message

• Segment the data using certain specific time criteria

• Remove obvious non-engaged subscribers from your list

. . . but there’s a lot more.

Cesar’s case isn’t much different than others trying to ride the bucking bronco of email marketing, which rarely promises instant results and, more often than not, requires skill, patience and an expert helping hand. In Cesar’s case delivery went from a paltry 81.29% to a screaming 99.7% (now that’s more like it!).

You can find out more about how stop your email delivery from eating your wallet by reading the Cesar Millan case study.

(The following was written by Patrick Knight, Director, Client Deliverability, and myself.)

When you send out an email campaign, you need to know how many of your subscribers actually took the time to click on your message and open it. This measurement is called the “open rate.”

The open rate compares the number of people who opened an email message to the number who did not. It’s a percentage of the number of messages “delivered.” An open rate is dependent on a number of different factors. It could be affected by aesthetic reasons, or it could reflect your data management, which in turn may have to do with deliverability issues.

For instance, if your email is blocked by Yahoo!, and the majority of your subscribers have Yahoo! email addresses, the open rate for your email campaign may be disproportionately low.

On the aesthetic side, an open rate is influenced by things like the subject line, sender identification, HTML rendering (such as how the email is show on a mobile device), bulk folder delivery, relevancy of content, and timing of send.

Sometimes a message might be reported as having been opened multiple times. This may happen for a number of reasons. For example, email clients such as Outlook render HTLM within the preview pane, so that each time the user scrolls through his or her inbox and passes your message, it will count as an open. This happens because each time the user previews the message, the user is actually requesting the embedded image from your server, resulting in the report of an open. Ultimately, this would be counted as multiple opens versus a unique open.

Unique opens are somewhat like total opens. The important difference is that only one user is being counted or reported. For example:

• User #1—opens email 2 times.
• User #2—opens email 4 times.
• User#3—opens email 4 times.

This makes a total of 10 opens. However, there are 3 unique opens.

Whether or not emails are opened consistently is largely based on sender reputation, relevancy, and other factors mentioned earlier. Although open rates render inconsistencies, email is very much about building a relationship with your subscribers. As you achieve this through relevant content, setting and honoring expectations, creating trust with your brand, and following best practices, email open rates tend to increase. Read the rest of this entry »

(The following is an excerpt from the article “Email Conversion Rates: A Primer” by Director of Client Deliverability Patrick Knight, appearing in tomorrow’s edition of mobileStorm’s Outside The Inbox.)

Conversion data should be analyzed to know the effectiveness of an email campaign. Your conversion analysis can tell you how many of your recipients actually did exactly what you wanted them to do. Based on this number a marketer can better understand the audience, and create campaigns based on this feedback in order to make a future offering more effective.

Additionally, low conversion rates can be used as a key indicator of email deliverability issues. Since conversion rates are based on the number of messages delivered—not messages sent—inbox delivery of the message is of great importance, which ultimately can significantly affect return on investment (ROI). mobileStorm’s technology can provide click rates which can be used in conjunction with other metrics to determine a marketer’s conversion rate.

In the short term, marketers can use conversion data to make adjustments as needed, and find what best works for what they are trying to accomplish. In the long term, marketers can use this data to better understand their client base.

(Want to know more? Subscribe to Outside The Inbox, mobileStorm’s newsletter about digital marketing. Go to the newsletter today, and read Patrick’s article tomorrow!)

(The following comes from Patrick Knight, Director of Client Deliverability for mobileStorm.)

In the world of email, bought lists are pretty common. Buying a list is not against the law per se(CAN-SPAM never specifically states it); however it’s not such a safe bet since it’s not necessarily clear how these lists are compiled. In many cases they contain addresses that were collected by third-parties who use pre-checkboxes, `and or contain harvested, spam traps (old addresses used to monitor and identify spam activity) and invalid addresses (addresses that are no longer active and bounce).

Contrary to what many marketers think, purchasing lists is not very cost effective, when you consider the facts. Anywhere from 80-90% of these lists have data that is useless. Not to mention the costs marketers incur by having to resolve issues as a result of using these lists.

There is never a time when you should send messaging to people who didn’t opt in. The question to ask your self is …Did these people request to be on my list? Do they expect to receive emails from you, have you sent emails to these people before. The main point here is consent.  These people did not give you permission to send them messages.

Those marketers who do buy lists run serious risks. Beside the fact these people never sign up to receive your messages, even if you were to perform a permission pass campaign you run the risk of hitting spam traps, and in the end, it’s just not worth the risk.

 A sender’s reputation is based on measuring many variables including, spam trap hits, number of complaints, and invalid addresses.  As mentioned, many of these lists contain addresses that affect these variables negatively which can hinder if not ruin a good senders reputation.

Ultimately, good senders can end up being listed by major blacklists.  IP addresses used to send messages in some cases can be permanently blocked.  Furthermore, subscribers who have given permission to receive messages will most likely not receive it because of blocks place on your IP. It may also take a significant amount of time and resources to repair your reputation. If utilizing an ESP this can also cause collateral damage to your provider.

So you know you want to add or continue email campaigns for your 2009 marketing efforts. But you need to consider email relevance as a factor from the start. Not only will this increase your campaign success rates; it also will serve as a preventive measure against your messages being marked as spam.

Where do you begin? The answer is to start with your subscribers, those people to whom you plan to send email messages. Remember, there is a person on the end of each address (at least in most cases).

Some of you may already have a database with existing email addresses, while others may be employing various forms of email capture–via a website, brick-and-mortar locations, etc. Regarding those contacts in your existing database, it’s important to ensure they still want to receive your emails. If you’re just starting to send out marketing emails, make sure you send an opt-in message to these addresses. This way you reduce the risk of sending an irrelevant email to a recipient who will very likely hit the spam button.

Next, consider where you are getting your email addresses, and why your subscriber signed up in the first place. Was it for a newsletter to keep updated on information in your industry? For a specific product offering? Or maybe to get updates on new events? Each of these people have completely different motivations for interacting with your company, and will be more responsive to messages that take this into consideration. Each grouping should either have its own list, or else be properly segmented within your database.

Remember, email can be the extra punch in your marketing strategy, but not just in terms of the volumes of leads. Quality email programs allow timely deployment of targeted messaging, which triggers an increase in the quality of leads (and the qualification) and ultimately equals higher revenue for your business.

Tune in next week for more on email relevance…

Shaneli Ramratan, Director of Marketing, mobileStorm

While the world watched U.S. citizens’ votes with a careful eye on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on something pretty important too: It decided to allow the unlicensed use of the white space television spectrum.

This means that a big chunk of radio airwaves–those being freed up once all U.S. TV broadcasts go digital early next year–can now be used to create wireless broadband networks. In turn, we soon could see Wi-Fi Internet access as democratic as this week’s election was.

“Opening the white spaces will allow for the creation of a Wi-Fi on steroids. It has the potential to improve wireless broadband connectivity and inspire an ever-widening array of new Internet-based products and services for consumers,” said FCC chairman Kevin Martin.

The creation of this “Wi-Fi on steroids” has innumerable implications for anyone using digital communications. For marketers, it means that their email messages will reach people more often, and in more places, than ever before. Travelers with laptops will be on the Internet much more, since they won’t have to struggle to find a wireless connection. Notebook-users on a budget could connect to the Internet at home, too.

Meanwhile the latest smart phones are being equipped with Wi-Fi. Consumers without a 3G connection, and/or a special Web plan with their cellular providers, will still be able to access the Internet on their phones thanks to Wi-Fi. Their latest mobile email messages–including marketing messages–will always be at their fingertips.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”

If you haven’t heard, Google has a new feature to prevent people from sending late-night drunken emails. Good to know the Labs works hard on things whose value is mere publicity hype.

Called Mail Goggles, though it’s actually meant to IMPEDE the drunk’s vision of the world, the feature allegedly ensures a person is of sound enough mind to send an email. It proffers a series of math problems, to be completed correctly within a short set amount of time, before it allows the message to go through.

The whole thing, while good for a laugh, is silly:

• I had a coworker in college who could edit news copy while drunk. He’d always find an error that a sober person had written, no matter now many Three Wise Men or dollar drafts he’d had. So solving math problems wouldn’t be that big an impediment to users with a calculator.
• You have to personally enable and set the feature ahead of time. But no one ever PLANS to drunk-message or drunk-call; it just happens.
• Mail Goggles is only active on late weekend nights. So it’s not going to help the person who really needs this feature: The perpetual lush.

I do think such a feature would make more sense for SMS. After all, you keep your phone with you while bar-hopping, and it’s a lot easier (not to mention more likely) to dash off a late-night text than it is to stumble home, turn on your computer, wait for it to boot, and start sending emails to ex-paramours.

But there IS one thing that Mail Goggles might be good for: Preventing spam. There are studies that show when spam is most often sent (for the life of me, I can’t remember, but it was something like between 3 and 5 in the morning on certain weekdays). Mail Goggles could be activated by Google during those times, preventing robots from sending mass unwanted emails.

They could even call it Marketing Goggles.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manger, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me” (while sober)