I took a little break from blogging, and am now back in the saddle again. However, rather than getting to hear me preach about deliverability every week, I am going to share my slot with my esteemed colleagues Jared Reitzin and Shaneli Ramratan. So enjoy the new schedule!

The FTC recently approved some slight modifications to the CAN-SPAM act. While these changes will not dramatically impact the way we send email, they are worth noting, as they do affect the way some mailers manage their unsubscribe process, among other things.

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Recently, the email sending industry saw some fairly significant issues with delivering email to Yahoo. Senders trying to deliver bulk emails to their Yahoo subscribers found these to be continually “deferred”, or temporarily bounced back. It was later discovered that Yahoo had upgraded their filtering systems, which caused this continuous deferring. Since then, they have fine-tuned their systems, and are reporting that the issue has been resolved. Yahoo also noted that any sender still experiencing their mail being deferred is an issue that the sender will need to resolve. I would like to discuss both the mechanics of mailing systems, with respect to deferring, as well as why some ISPs (like Yahoo) choose to defer messages.

MTAs Explained

To the average individual, sending email is all about composing a message and clicking the “send” button. The message then is somehow delivered to the recipient. However, there is a whole lot of technology that happens in those few seconds when the message is transmitted. Here’s a simplified process flow:

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In the world of email deliverability, technologies and methodologies are in a constant state of flux. ISPs have to be on the alert for new spam and virus attacks, and as a result are constantly changing their blocking and filtering technologies to combat these problems and to protect their customers. When it comes to delivering email to the Inbox, ISPs also have to be careful about what email they accept, especially regarding senders from which they have never seen email traffic.

A classic example of this is where a company may start with or switch to a different Email Service Provider, and as a result will be sending their email from a brand new IP address. From an ISP’s perspective, this is like “the new kid on the block” – they’ve never seen email traffic coming from this new IP address. They don’t know if these messages are legitimate or simply a spammer that has decided to switch IP addresses. Thus, they are going to be very cautious about the email coming from that new IP address, and will scrutinize it with the full extent of their spam filters until they can ascertain what kind of email is being sent and its impact on their network. If the messages sent generate complaints or high amounts of hard bounces, the ISP will most likely not remove these filters and may opt to bulk and/or block those messages altogether. However, if the messages don’t generate complaints, and are sent to valid email accounts, the ISP will most likely turn down their filters and let email pass through more easily. By the very nature of sending from a new IP address, the sender is building either a good or bad reputation with that ISP.

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Short blog this time — it’s been a crazy week. The majority of my time has been spent primarily on two areas:

1. Helping to set up our clients on our system – meaning setting up their email, DNS, and authentication settings.

2. Working with potential and current customers on delivery best practices – maintaining clean lists and using a confirmed email opt-in method.

Folks, I can’t stress enough the importance of these two items. If you send email, and want to have good deliverability, you have to follow some simple rules:

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