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David Fowler is Vice President of Deliverability and Privacy at Alterian. Fowler has over 20 years of experience in the marketing industry, including a focus for the past five years on deliverability. In his position as VP of Deliverability and Privacy at Alterian, he leverages his expertise and knowledge on best practices around deliverability to help Alterian’s international client base realize the unique deliverability benefits in the e-mail channel available through Alterian’s integrated marketing platform rather than stand alone email tools. Fowler most recently served as Global Vice President of Deliverability & Privacy Services at BlueHornet, a provider of permission-based e-mail marketing solutions.

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Email Deliverability: 10 Golden Rules

Written on
August 27th 2008
Author
by David Fowler  |
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googlemail.jpgADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — Based on recent statistics, up to 96% of all email is considered spam. Every message you send competes with a very small “deliverability opportunity” to reach the inbox. As there are no industry standards pertaining to deliverability, your message is not guaranteed to be delivered at all.

I thought this would be an appropriate opportunity to reflect on the deliverability marketplace, and to share some insight with you on some of the basic deliverability principles you need to consider and adopt when sending commercial email. We have come along way since 2003 but the deliverability market has matured, and that is good news for all of us. What follows are 10 Golden Rules of deliverability that are still important and critical to consider when engaging in email marketing:

1. IP Reputation

Your IP address and appropriate activity from your mailing history begins to establish your “Sender Reputation” in the eyes of the recipients. IP reputation has become extremely important in deliverability related matters – both positive and negative.

2. Permission

Confirm and re-affirm the wishes of your audience. Relevance is the key for your customer; provide options to change preferences again in every email you send.

3. Consistent and Recognizable “Friendly From” Address

Ensure you always send your email messages from the same From Address. Customers are more likely to open messages and enable links from companies they recognize and with whom they have a direct relationship. Adding your address to their Address Book is easier if it’s the same one every time and could allow your email to bypass certain ISP filters ensuring better deliverability.

4. Ensure Every Email is a Wanted Email

Fundamental, but important: If customers want your email, they are more likely to add you to their address book. If customers routinely read your emails, they are less likely to be fooled by Phishers. If customers want your email, they won’t report it as spam. If customers don’t complain about you spamming them, or do so at very low rates, your email reputation will improve with the ISPs and you will encounter less aggressive filtering from the ISP as a result.

5. Recognizable Branding

If the images are stripped or turned off in your HTML email, will your recipient still be able to identify your brand in the body of the email? Always develop HTML versions that convey your most important points even without the images and be sure to always include a full link to your site.

 6. Validate Your Email HTML

Rendering does not end with the email client. Most rendering issues are due to poorly constructed HTML. Some ISPs will filter mail into the spam folder because of this. Always ensure your HTML is validated against current industry standards. Ensure that you also review what your emails look like across the top ISPs and Desktop clients. Just because you sent the right format (e.g. text versus html) does not mean it renders properly.

 7. Test Text vs. Rich Text vs. HTML

Consider the implications of different formats based on your customer preferences and behavior. Many mailers are text emails which may outperform HTML. Test different formats against different customer segments as well as different types of communications.

8. Monitor the Delivery to the Inbox and Spam Folders

Consistent monitoring of your campaigns will provide you valuable insight into the performance of your messaging strategies.

9. Manage Your Hard and Soft Bounces

Know hard and soft bounce rates. Track hard bounces by source. Hygiene matters, both soft & hard bounce notices, can provide invaluable information regarding the ISP’s treatment of your mail.

10. Acquire and Remove Names Responsibly

To ensure your URLs are not irreversibly damaged, and deliverability severely impacted by complaints and bad addresses, be smart with appends, list rentals, blind/generic co-registration programs, affiliates and sponsorships. Verify the name sources, vet source reputation and delivery, and verify addresses prior to adding to your house-file. This is particularly critical in B2B marketing. Opting out should be as simple as opting in; don’t be tempted to put in extra steps or send ‘just one more email’. If you use specific campaign opt-outs, these should be accompanied by an option to unsubscribe from all communications.



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