Outlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide By Megan Ouellet, Director of Marketing • Listrak, LLC • December 5, 2007Outlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 Spam messages are on the rise. According to IronPort, there are over 62 billion spam messages sent per day, up from 31 billion last year. And the threat is greater than ever as spam messages contain viruses and large images that clog email servers. To combat this, ISPs, corporations, and individual end users are implementing new technologies and strategies to secure their inboxes by blocking unsolicited messages. While these precautions are necessary, many times messages from legitimate email marketers are casualtiie of this war as they may inadvertently contain characteristiic used by spammers and are, therefore, mislabeled as spam by ISPs or the end users themselves. Ensuring that your emails are delivered to your recipients’ inboxes and that they render correctly when viewed may seem like an uphill battle, but there are several factors that you can address that will greatly increase your deliverability. Howevver before you begin you must first make sure you have an accurate account of what your current deliverability metrics are. According to the Email Experience Council (eec), four-fifths of ESPs calculate deliverability by deducting all failed messages from the total mailed. The remaining one-fifth calculates it by deducting only hard bounces. The eec also found inconsistencies in bounce data and bounce managemeen practices from ISPs and ESPs, which makes it difficult for companies to measure their results accurately. It is criticca that you work with your ESP to learn how it calculates its delivery rate and how it handles and labels both hard and soft bounces. Knowing these items will help you identify problem areas so you can quickly make adjustments to fix any issues. Listrak, a leading provider of email marketing solutions, has put together the following email deliverability best practices guide to help you increase your deliverability by addressing the major challenges that lead to filtered or blocked messagees This white paper specifically focuses on email reputation, authentication, accreditation, content, and email sending technology. Reputation ISPs primarily base delivery of your emails on your company’s reputation. In fact, a study performed by Return Path’s Sender Score estimates that 77 percent of the information used to determiin whether or not an email is deliverable is based on the reputation of the sender. Instead of sending or blocking emails based on the indiviidua content of a single messaage ISPs look at past behavior and the way subscribeer responded to messages. This is a really efficient way for ISPs to sort out the legitimaat senders from the spammers as spammers are usually repeat offenders. For example, spammers do not care about the quality or hygiene of their lists so they receive a lot of bounces, invalids, and complaints. And spammers are now using graphics-heavy “image spam” as a way to bypass textbaase filters, so many spam messages are much larger than genuine emails. Also, spammers are not worried about their image or brand, so spam messages are not authenticated or accredited, and they usually contain missing or invalid header information as well as link and image tags in the content of the message body. Another contributing factor is the sheer volume of messages that are sent out over a certain amount of time as spammers send out millions of messages while legitimaat email marketers usually throttle large message sends so only a limited number of messages are sent out at a time. ISPs look at all of these areas and use them to determine the reputation of the sender. Even though each ISP has its own threshold for what is and is not acceptable, once that threshool is reached, the reputation of the sender is damaged and future emails are delayed, or worse, blocked. It is important to remember that you have control over your reputation as your actions positively or negatively affect how ISPs and your subscribers view your company. Here are some Reputation Factors User complaints Length of time domain has been operating Volume and size of messages Number of bounces, invalid addresses, and emails sent to spam traps Mail server settings Third-party reputation lists – blacklists, blocklissts accreditation services, etc. Configuration of emails – headings, links, images, content, authentication, etc.Outlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 things you and your ESP can do to protect your reputation to ensure that it remains positive. Keep complaints low: The number one reputation metric has been and will continue to be user-generated complaints. Most of these complaints are derived from “Report Spam” buttons found within the application interfaces of major ISPs such as AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Comcast, Gmail, etc. This paper seeks to outline the specific problem areas where complaints are generated; however, it is imperative that you monitor your complaints constantly and remove any complaiiner from your lists immediately. ISPs provide mailers with feedback loops that include the complaining email address as well as other information such as the particular campaign that generated the complaint as well as the date, time, etc. If you are using an ESP, it should provide you with detailed complaint data garnered from the feedback loops the ESP has in place. However, if you are running an email solutiio in-house, you want to be sure to register for feedback loops with all of the major ISPs. You must also register your “abuse@” and “postmaster@” email addresses with abuse.net so complaints are sent to the correct addresses. Each ISP has its own complaint threshold, but it is generally recommended to keep complaints under one percent. Employ good list management and hygiene: The biggest changes we will see in 2008 will be ISPs pinning a greater share of your reputation on your list quality. Remember that spammers don’t care about their list quality. Because you are playing by the rules, you do not want to look like a spammer and, therefore, you will want to pay close attention to the quality of your lists. In doing so you will need to make sure that your hard bounce percentage is consistently less than five percent. Targeted, relevant emails that are sent in a timely manner to the right person not only have the highest conversion rates, they also have the lowest number of complaints. Identifyiin and fixing any technology glitches such as missing rDNS (reverse DNS), and maintaining a clean list of valid, verified email addresses free from typos and old addresses will ensure that you are emailing your subscribers what they want when they want it, and will protect you against hard bounces. If you are using an ESP, it should have tools in place to assist you with this process. In 2008, we will also see more email marketers segmentiin their lists by removing inactive subscribers. This trend will become more popular as many early adopters of this method found that by trimming inactive addresses from their files, they not only increased open and click-through totals and percentages, they also increased deliverability and overall ROI. Inactivvit is a sign that your emails are no longer relevant to those subscribers, so removing them from your lists before they report your messages as spam is a best practice that should be followed by all email marketers. For more information on how to deal with inactive subscribers, read Listrak’s blog “Quick tip: how to re-engage inactive subscribers.” Manage bounces correctly: Bounce management is critical to a good reputation and deliverability. However, there are literally thousands of bounce codes and they are constantly changing as ISPs continue to battle spammers, so managing bounces can become difficult and time consuming. Hard bounces are permanent delivery errors, such as invalid, closed, or non-existent addresses, and they must be removed from your list immediately as mailing to these addresses will damage your reputation. Soft bounces, or transient bounces, are temporary delivery errors caused when a server is down, the network connection is bad, or an inbox is full. It is okay to resend the messages to these subscribers, but you must reviie your bounce reports first to be sure you take the correct Feedback Loop & Whitelist Request AOL Whitelist AOL FBL Earthlink FLB Excite FBL Hotmail SNDS MSN Netzero/Juno/United Online FBL Netzero/Juno/United Online Whitelist Outblaze FBL Roadrunner Whitelist SpamCop.net USA.net FBL Verizon WhitelistOutlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 action on the different failure codes so you do not continue to send messages when there is a good chance that the delivery will fail. Monitoring your bounce data allows you to identify if a particular email server is blocking your messages so you may resolve the issue quickly and save your reputation. Follow list acquisition best practices: The best way to avoid complaints is to make your opt-in process memorable to your subscribers while clearly communicating your delivery scheduul and setting expectations. Using tactics such as closedlooo confirmation, allowing your subscribers to set their own preferences for frequency and content, and providing log-in information to your preference center so your subscribers can manage their online accounts, will greatly decrease the amount of complaints you receive. It will also ensure that your list does not include spam traps, which are valid email addresses that are set up to capture unsolicited messages. You should review your subscription process regularly, makiin sure to update the process as necessary. For example, it is no longer safe to assume you have someone’s permission to send them an email, you must ask for it. Have subscribers select the emails they wish to receive by selecting unchecked subscription boxes. Also, if you are still automatically subscribing email addresses you obtained through tradeshow giveaways or other gimmicks, stop. A better practice is to send a follow up email inviting the recipients to subscribe to your email list. Slight modifications of your subscription procees will reduce the number of spam complaints you receive and will ensure your reputation remains intact. Brand your messages: 80 percent of users decide whether or not to report a message as spam without opening the messaage If the message isn’t clearly branded, you run the risk of being reported even if the subscriber requested to receive the information. You should include your company’s name in the From Line and, if possible, in the Subject Line so recipiennt may quickly identify that the email came from a trusted source. However, branding should not stop there. It is imperative that you use a dedicated IP address, or a pool of dedicated IP addresses if you are sending to a large list, so you maintain infrastructure isolation and transparency. If you are already using or considering to use an ESP, this is a must as shared IPs lead to shared reputations. This means that you could be blocked due to the activities of the ESP’s other customers. Also, you need to ensure that your domain name appeear in the header of the message and that all tracking links and images use your domain name as well. Implemeentin these items allows the ISPs to recognize your company and your good reputatiion Include friendly reminders: This is an email marketiin best practice that should be followed as it greatly reduces the number of spam complaints. Simply adding a line at the top of the message stating how you obtained the recipient’s email address and why they are receiving the message will serve as a reminder that your subscribers did, in fact, ask for the information. Including personal information, such as name and opt-in date, and also including an easy way to unsubscribe, lets your subscribers know that the information they are receiving is from a trusted source that cares about them. An example of such a message is, “Sarah, you have requested to receive Listrak’s One to One monthly newsletter on 3/14/06. If you no longer wish to receive this message, you may unsubscribe at any time.” You may even take this one step further and include a link to your privacy and antisppa policies so your subscribers know that you value your relationship and you are doing everything you can to protect them from spammers. Honor unsubscribes immediately: It’s hard to imagine but there are still some marketers out there who are reluctant to remove a few names from their lists. Each and every email Remove bounces that contain the following DNS immediately ‘%’t have a yahoo.com account%’ ‘%user unknown%’ ‘%illegal alias%’ ‘%unknown user%’ ‘%mailbox not found%’ ‘%unknown address%’ ‘%no mailbox%’ ‘%free AIM%’ ‘%no such%’ ‘%disabled or disconnected%’ ‘%not a valid%’ ‘%undeliverable address%’Outlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 must contain an easy-to-use unsubscribe method – not a microscopic link buried at the bottom of the message that is easily overlooked, but an actual visible link that removes subscriiber from your lists immediately. If the link is overlooked, the subscriber will simply report your next unwanted messaag as spam. Worse, if subscribers click on the unsubscribe link only to be taken to a website that is hard to navigate, it will be difficult for them to remove themselves. Similarly, if a message is sent stating that they will continue to receive emails for several weeks during the unsubscribe process, you are inviting people to complain about your emails and giving them the ammo they need to report your email as spam. Monitor your reputation: There are several proactive steps you can take to monitor your reputation and many of the services are available at no cost. For example, you can check blacklists for both your IP and your URLs for free at Sender Score, MxToolBox.com, and Spamhaus, and there are several vendors, such as Return Path and Habeas that offer reputation monitoring services for a fee (see the Accreditation section). Monitor your partners’ reputations: Every teenager learns that their reputation isn’t solely dependent on their actions. Bad behavior from their friends can lead to negative opinions and damaged reputations. The same is true for email. Even if you follow all of the rules and best practices your reputatiio may still suffer damage if your business partners do not take the same precautions. Be sure to check the reputation of a company before you partner with them and make sure it is following best practices so you are not associated with a company that does not follow the rules. Even if you follow all of the rules, some of your subscribers will still mistakenly report your emails as spam, which is why it is so important to monitor and remove bounces, inactivves and complainers from your lists. For more information on reputation, read Listrak’s white paper “How Reputation Impacts Deliverability.” Authentication Your reputation plays a large part in the deliverability of your email messages but there are other factors you must consider, too. Authentication forms the basis of your reputation as it validates your identity. If you are not already authenticating your emails, now is the time to start. Spammers and phisheer try to disguise their emails by saying that the emails were sent from legitimate companies in order to convince recipiennt that it is safe to open and respond to the messages while avoiding accountability. Email authentication allows ISPs and email servers to verify that the sender of the email is, in fact, who it claims to be. If your emails are not authenticated, ISPs could deliver your messages tagged with “cannot verify sender,” place them in the bulk or junk mail folder, or block them completely. Authenticating your emails will protect your identity, brand, reputation, and deliverability while providing your recipients with higher levels of trust and security. To help organizations sort through the complexities of authenticating emails, the DMA has recently put together an Email Authentication Help Center and Authentication Checklist, and it is currently develoopin an Email Reputation Registry along with Return Path to enhance this service. Also, the Email Service and Provider Coalition provides a free Sender ID testing tool that will tell you if your emails validate with SPF and Sender ID. These are valuable tools to help with your authentication process. IP address-based authentication methods are one of the leading solutions available on the Internet today. There are two primary IP address-based authentication solutions, which are Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Sender ID Framework (SIDF). These solutions prove that the sender of the email is authorized by the owner of the domain name, and although they are similar in function, there are a few differences that you must be aware of. SPF is an open standard and a configuration tool that is availabbl for free at http://old.openspf.org/wizard.html. SPF proteect emails from spammers by allowing domain name owners to publish which IP addresses are allowed to send emails from a particular domain by checking that domain’s DNS record for an SPF record. When an email server receives a message, it cross-checks the sender’s IP address against the domain name in the From address in the message envelope. If it is authorized, the message is assumed to be legitimate and it is delivered to the recipients. If not, the email is assumed to be fraudulent and it is either tagged as coming from a questionabbl source, or it is blocked completely. SIDF, the authentication method of choice for Microsoft, including MSN and Hotmail, is similar to SPF in that it crossOutlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 checks the sender of the message against the published SPF records. However, whereas SPF checks against the envelope From address, SIDF validates the sender’s IPs against the Purporrte Responsible Address (PRA), which is also known as the email’s visible From address. If the sender is authorized, the email is delivered and, if not, the email is tagged or blocked. A free SIDF configuration tool is available at www.microsoft. com/senderid/wizard. Another leading method of authentication is the cryptographii solution, DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). Instead of checking IP addresses against domain names, DKIM requires senders to store public keys in their DNS records while providing matching private keys in their outbound email servers. When an email passes through the outbound service, the private key generates a signature that is embedded in the header of the message. ISPs then verify that the signature was created by the private key and match it to the public key in the DNS records to validate the message and ensure that the message was not altered in anyway. Yahoo is the main proponent of DKIM and it uses this method exclusively to authenticate emails. Like SPF and SIDF, there is a free DKIM configuration tool available at www.dkim.org. Although some companies choose to implement some of these methods, it is in your best interest to implement all three authentication methods for even greater protection. You will be securing your identity while assuring ISPs that your emails are genuine so they can be delivered to your recipients. If you are using an ESP, you should be sure that it understands and supports these technologies as well. Accreditation Many companies are also choosing to use accreditation services along with authentication as an extra line of precautiion Becoming a certified email sender will help solve your deliverability issues, but it is not a quick fix or a stand-alone option as you must have a good reputation to begin with in order to become an accredited sender, and you must maintain a nearly flawless record in order to preserve your status. Accreditation services seek to bring trust back to the inbox by providing a guarantee to the end user that the email is not only authentic, but it also contains information that the end user requested to receive. Accreditation also builds trust with the ISPs as they know that you are continuiin to follow the strict guidelines set forth by the certification providers. To gain certificatiio you must pay an independent third party to vouch that you are a legitimate sender. Services, such as Sender Score Certified, Goodmail, and Habeas, offer certification based on stringent requirements regarding your email markettin practices and policies. However, once certified, ISPs trust that your emails are valid and your messages bypass the filters so they are delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes. In some cases your emails will even be delivered with the images and graphics displayed by default, a tactic which increases response and conversion rates. While it was controversial at first, accreditation has gained in popularity as it is yet another way legitimate email senders can distinguish themselves from spammers and, therefore, ensure that their messages will be delivered to their recipiennt on time and intact. If you are considering becoming an accredited sender, make sure that your IT department and ESP can support the requirements as some of the accreditation technologies require highly technical changes to how you send your email. Content Even though ISPs have shifted away from filtering or blocking messages based solely on content, it does not mean that the content of your emails is any less important. It simply means that additional measures have been put in place to enhance the ISPs’ content filters and their abilities to recognize and block spam. You must be sure to continue to follow all of the best practices for email content, subject lines, graphics, and coding. Accreditation Requirements Permission-based list acquisition strategy Published authentication records Complaint levels lower than industry standards Established, high-standing reputation Well maintained infrastructure Incorporated list maintenance and bounce management Strong security network Unsubscribe available on all email messagesOutlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 As mentioned in the Reputation section of this white paper, targeted, relevant emails that are sent in a timely manner to the right person not only have the highest conversion rates, they also have the lowest number of complaints. Also, emails that are branded properly in the From address and subject lines are less likely to generate complaints as senders easily recognize the sender. Listrak has written many white papers covering these topics, including “How to Make Your Emails More Relevant,” “Crafting a Must Read Subject Line,” and “Creating Relevant Email Campaigns with Dynamic Content.” You must also make sure that the HTML structure of the email is solid as design errors will not only cause your emails to render incorrectly in your recipients’ inboxes, but email serveer may block the messages completely. Best practices for coding emails include: Avoid CSS: Cascading Style Sheets is a tool used by web desiggner to streamline the development process while ensuriin consistency. While it is a helpful tool for websites, CSS should not be used when developing HTML email templates as they can be stripped out or overwritten by different email clients. Avoid Scripting: Like CSS, scripting, such as Visual Basic and JavaScript, may be stripped out of your emails or cause them to be blocked completely as email clients may mistake the scripts for malicious code. Host images, audio, visual, and flash on your website: Embedding these items in your emails will greatly increase the size of your messages, and could, therefore, cause your messages to be blocked or filtered. Graphics, audio, visual, and flash should be hosted on your website and your emails should include a link pointing to the full URL address. Code emails by hand, or use an ESP: Coding for HTML emails is different than coding for websites. Some programs, like FrontPage, can add extra code to your emails that can lead to your messages being blocked, or delivered incorrectly and mislabeled as spam by your recipients. If you cannot have an experienced programmer code your emails, you should either build the emails using your ESP’s integrated HTML editor, or you should outsource the development to the experts at your ESP to do the design work for you. Follow table best practices: Avoid using 1 x 1 pixel spacer gifs to force the width of your table as they are commonly found in spam messages and can cause your emails to be blocked or filtered. To learn more about HTML best practices, read Listrak’s white paper “Checklist for Outsourcing HTML Newslettters. Before you send your messages, you should also test the emails using a spam scoring application as this will check the content of the message and catch potential issues in advannce If you are using an ESP like Listrak, it should have an integrated spam scoring feature that evaluates the message using specific tests to determine whether or not the message contains items commonly found in spam. If your ESP does not provide a spam scoring feature, or if you are using an in-house product, you may download Spam Assassin for free, or use a paid service, such as Return Path’s Campaign Preview, that offers a snapshot of how your email will look in the different email clients as well as spam score. Keys to Relevant Emails Segment your list based on clickstream activity, purchase behavior, etc. Use a preference center to manage subscribers’ requirements Personalize emails with recipients’ names and preferences Use Dynamic Content to send the right informatiio to your subscribers Brand emails with the company name so recipiennt easily identify you as a trusted sourceOutlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 Email Sending Technology Of course, none of these aforementioned items will matter if your servers are configured incorrectly or if you are plagued with compatibility or other technical issues. You should work closely with your IT department and ESP to be sure that you have the right technology implemented to improve your delivery rates. Set up DNS records correctly: One of the most important technical factors that can make or break deliverability is your DNS. As mentioned in the Authentication section of this white paper, you must have a proper Domain Name System environmeen set up, including published SPF records and authorized IP addresses. This way, email servers can authentic that the emails that claim to be sent from your domain name were actuaall sent from you and not a spammer. You must also make sure that your IT department has fully configured Reverse DNS (rDNS) records for the IPs of your sending server(s) as this is another way for email servers to validate emails. Finally, you must ensure that your mail server settings are current and correct. Maintain transparency: It is also critical that you use a dedicated IP address, or a pool of dedicated IP addresses if you send out a large volume of message, and if possible, you should segment the type of emails you send by IP address. For example, sending promotional emails from one IP addrres and transactional emails from another is an easy way for you to detect any problems that may be occurring while allowing you to send other messages without issue if probleem do arise. You must also publish a fully qualified domain name that specifies the host’s position in the DNS hierarchy. These items will help keep your identity at the forefront of each message so email servers can easily recognize you as a trusted source. Properly configure servers: Your servers should be set up to handle the proper volumes of outbound as well as inbound emails so you can accept bounces and failure notices. Also, make sure that your outbound server issues a valid MAIL FROM email address so messages may be received at this addreess You must be sure to review bounced emails, removing invalid emails quickly. Use an MTA that allows you to tweak sending rates: Your Mail Transfer Agent should be configured to throttle the delivery of messages so you are not sending a large volume of messages to ISPs all at once. Varying the number of emails that are sent out at a time is a great way to differentiate your company from spammers, so be sure your MTA can be configured to handle the different rates. Adhere to the rules set by ISPs as well as your ESP: Each ISP, as well as your ESP, has different thresholds for the number of emails that can be delivered in a specific time frame, as well as the number of email retries that it will accept. Be sure to know what is and what is not acceptable and follow the rules closely so your messages are delivered in a timely manner. While these items might not be the responsibility of your marketing department, they directly affect the deliverability of your email campaigns so you must be aware of the techniica aspects of sending and receiving messages. Your IT department and the experts at your ESP will be able to ensure you have the right tools in place. Summary There is no way to guarantee that an email will be delivered to your recipients; however, if you do not follow the items outliine above you run the risk that your emails will be filtered to the junk mail folder or blocked by the ISPs. Although increasiin your deliverability rate may seem like an overwhelming task, there is a great chance that you are already followiin many of the best practices outlined in this white paper, including monitoring your reputation, keeping your list clean with a low bounce percentage, authenticating your emails, using an accreditation service, being aware of your content and HTML design aspects, and ensuring that you have the correec technology in place. However, if you are missing any of these key areas you will want to address them to maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing. The experts at Listrak are available to help you with all of these deliverability processes. Please visit www.listrak.com today to learn more.Outlook for 2008: Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide www.Listrak.com • 717-627-4528 • Fax: 717-627-6087 About Listrak Listrak is a leading provider of hosted email marketing softwaare allowing permission-based marketers to manage, send, track and grow their email marketing investment. We deliver email marketing intelligence through our intuitive web-based application. Leading marketers have come to rely on this intelligence to better manage email in their multi-channel marketing mix. Listrak software helps companies, agencies and associations better manage customer relations in their marketing campaiigns Its web-enabled interface helps marketers engage their customers using an advanced profiling and personalizatiio engine. Listrak’s world-class support and professional services assist clients with enterprise integration. Its clients include L’Oreal, Motorola, Jeep, PR Newswire, The Islands of the Bahamas, and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. To learn more about the many ways Listrak can strengthen your email marketing campaigns, or to sign up for a 20-minuut web-based tour, visit www.listrak.com. © 2007. All rights reserved. Listrak is a trademark of Remark Internet, Inc., d/b/a Vertex Internet, d/b/a Listrak, LLC. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners and are used for identification purposes only.