The Email Wars

Kind of like a Made in the USA stamp or a Organic Produce/Free Range sticker you might find at the grocer, but for email. This has been out for a while and I think it is a good feature, but more of a revenue source that Truste has started rather than the solve all solution.

Would you trust a sign up any more than you do today if it had a Truste Certified Stamp?

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It is nice that someone brought this to light as we have heard this from some ISPs across the country. They contend that it is easier to block delivery of all Airlines and Travel emails as they give the lists, or maybe sell them, to everyone. Not a very friendly practice when you trust them as much or maybe more than you do smaller brands or sites.

Renting a car online may also deliver spam

Airlines and other online travel providers do a better job than other Web businesses in terms of providing easy navigation through their sites, being responsive to inquiries, and having open and honest information about their policies, says a new study by the Consumer Respect Group (GRC), a consulting firm that studies online retailers.

But they perform less well than other businesses when it comes to privacy.

A whopping 74 percent of car rental companies share data collected from online customers with either business partners or third parties, said CRG spokesman George Cohen. If companies share your data, said Cohen, “You can expect more spam and more junk mail.”

Two car rental companies, Cohen said, do not share data: Enterprise and Alamo. Only two major providers, Cohen said, share data without your express consent: Orbitz shares with third parties, and Priceline with other entities within the parent company.

Major travel companies that will not share data unless you agree to opt in, according to Cohen: Northwest, Southwest and Air Tran airlines; InterContinental and Hyatt hotel chains; Travelocity, Expedia, Hotels.com and Cheaptickets booking sites, and Amtrak and Greyhound.

I love this article from some CIOs about the dark war they are fighting. I know that spam is a problem, and I applaud the fight, as we are fighting the battle ourselves, but it is not a dark and menacing force that should be portrayed as scary. It is a battle that each and every citizen with a computer or email account fight daily. We are seeing a reduction in most cases across the board in the volume of junk we get each day.

But the one that worries me is that if we paint all email as a war, we forget that most of the companies that these CIOs work for are engaging in legal opt in email marketing. If they fight too hard, they misght destroy the marketing programs of thier own repsective companies. It is a fine line, tread carfeully.

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Study: Neglect A/B Split Testing, Lose Millions

Online marketers lose large amounts of money - millions, in the case of large companies - when they launch web and email marketing programs based solely on intuition instead of empirical testing, according to an MEC Labs research brief titled “A/B Split Testing,” issued yesterday, writes DM News. The research brief outlines three specific A/B split tests conducted by MEC and examines how the findings can be used to create more effective promotional materials. It also discusses proper testing protocol.

A/B split testing evaluates the impact of a web page, email, letter or other promotional material by creating two or more versions of a message or product to determine which is more successful in maximizing conversion, click-through, sales or other measurable result. Traffic to the various versions is divided equally, and customer behavior is tracked to determine which version works best.

David vs Goliath? Rommel vs Patton?

Funny how powerful the web makes the consumer or individual isn’t it. We have the ability to create content and battles as a regular spammer, just to fight the big guy. When will the Big Guy really smash the voices out?

Robert Soloway hates Microsoft. Or so it seems. Soloway lost a court battle to the software giant, who accused Soloway of illegal spamming. According to Brian McWilliams, investigative journalist and author of Spam Kings, Soloway is allegedly one of the world’s dirty dozen of top spammers.
Most recently, Soloway has been sending a rash of spam raging against the Microsoft Sender-ID framework, claiming that Microsoft is itself a spammer. Soloway’s activities have gotten him into so much hot water with ISPs that he is currently operating his spam campaign sans domain.

http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailscams/a/spamis.htm

This is an article that really shows no new genius that a field commander should display. We all are aware that even opt in emails face the possibility of being blocked each day. It is nothign new. Just because you have a valid opt in email, you should not assume that they will be delivered each and every time. The world of spam and ISPs create a constantly shifting battlefield that many of us need to watch with each and every campaign, trigger and autoresponder.

It can be best said that list hygene is king and a vigalent eye will be the only thing that will help you to win the war on delivery. Set your list features to allow you to automatically unsubscribe addresses that bounce or are in traps. We default our lists to 3 hard bounces to unsubscribe. This means that if you get 3 hard bounces in a row, the person will be unsubscribed from the list.

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This is a great report that came out of Jupiter Research. They have found in a study that targeted email campaigns have a greater affect on the overall marketing effort than most other forms of marketing. Here is the catch from my perspective, campaigns cannot use the shotgun approach to marketing. This means that stop sending the same emails to everyone assuming that everyone reacts to the same call to action. Study your lists, responses and behavoirs and start sending smaller drops to targeted prospects and customers. Look for patterns in larger email drops to focus on people that use a certain link or user paths end at a product or service on the web site. Then drop a focused email with limited options to interact with. From that second touch, drop and even more focused email to those that respond but don’t convert. And keep creating silos that can start predicting what your prospect or customer wants from you.

Marketing is one to one. Not one to many. Use this to win the war.

JupiterResearch Finds Targeted Email Marketing Campaigns Can Generate Nine Times More Revenue Than Broadcast Mailinings

JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation(Nasdaq: JUPM), released the report entitled, “The ROI of EmailRelevance: Improving Campaign Results Through Targeting,” whichquantifies the top and bottom line impact that targeted marketingtactics can have on email campaign performance. According to thereport, using Web analytics to target email campaigns can produce ninetimes the revenues and eighteen times the profits of broadcastmailings.

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I came across this article tonight and thought it was funny that they scrpited it as deliverability is such a hurdle. I mean it is much more of a moving target with so many more variables attached, but not a “hurdle” per sey. More like if you created a giant windmill, forced 60 mile per hour winds at it and threw some sheets of paper into the blades. You might get a few through if you are going it alone, or you could use an ESP that focuses on this aspect everyday to help you slow the wind or even throw a train track tie into the blades.

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I love the fact that AOL is turning around and giving away an H2 and $100,000 that they got as a settlement from a prolific spammer. It reminds me a lot of the great WW2 Movie Kelly’s Heros where they went back behind enemy lines to grab the old german loot stashed behind.

To the conqueors go the spoils.

Here is my big question though… so you need toi sign up to win, and what is AOL going to do with all these email addresses (legally harvested)? They are going to market to you of course.

Why is AOL on the brink of giving away a fully loaded Hummer H2 and nearly $100,000 worth of gold bars and cash–all of which once belonged to an e-mail marketer?

Both AOL members and non-members–all of whom will have a chance to win the goods–can thank the Can-Spam Act.

The law, which has not gone without criticism, not only arms Internet service providers with legal weapons against those who fire off unsolicited e-mail, it also allows courts to seize any property that a convicted spammer has obtained using money made through the offense. Any equipment, software, or technology used for illicit purposes is also fair game.

AOL obtained the goods as part of a settlement earlier this year in the first lawsuit it filed under the Can-Spam Act, in a case involving a then-20-year-old New Hampshire resident.

From Wednesday until Aug. 19, people can sign up online for a chance at winning the goods. A winner will be announced shortly after the enrollment period ends.

http://news.com.com/This+spammers+stash+could+be+yours/2100-7350_3-5826897.html?part=rss&tag=5826897&subj=news

SO the FTC seeded 100 top retailers and of that 89 of them were complaint with honoring the opt out. What I want to know is how where the 11 who did not comply and where they fined, as this is a law and the FTC should have enforced this and not just made it a test.

Opting out is a simple one step process in most cases and should be globally honored. Why did they not make an example out of these retailers?

FTC: Top Retailers Comply With CAN-SPAM Opt-Out

A Federal Trade Commission survey of top online merchants released yesterday found that most were complying with provisions in the CAN-SPAM Act requiring them to honor consumer opt-out requests.
The FTC developed a list of 100 top online retailers, then created three e-mail addresses. The agency registered each address to receive e-mail promotions, offers and newsletters from each of the 100 retailers.

After monitoring the three e-mail addresses for six weeks, the FTC sent opt-out messages to each retailer from each address. According to the FTC, 89 percent ceased e-mails to all three addresses, while 93 percent stopped e-mailing at least some of the accounts.

All the merchants complied with the CAN-SPAM requirement to clearly display opt-out notices in outbound marketing e-mails, the FTC said.

So everyone complains that not enough is being done to slow down spam. I can say that from reports I have read and my own inbox that the amount of junk I get a day has slowed due to the amount of anti spam software we run and training my email client to better recognize what I don’t want.

In reality the volume is down, it will most likely never be stopped, but be something that we learn to live with no matter what efforts ISPs, governments and individuals take. But we will always see stories from the front lines that not enough is being done. Little do many of these writers know that so much has been done and so much more is being done as you read this post.

U.K. Anti-Spam Policy Is Toothless

The U.K. government and ISPs are doing little to tackle spam, according to the annual report from the Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO), according to a VNUnet piece in the E-Commerce Times. Apparently, no action was taken regarding the 600 spam complaints that the ICO had received in the previous 12 months. Thee ICO claimed that it lacks the necessary powers to pursue and prosecute spammers. It advises users to seek advice from their ISPs.

“This problem is not going to go away until the government gives spam laws real teeth. If the Office of Fair Trading can close down a business, why not the ICO? [In the meantime,] I recommend that users choose an ISP with good anti-spam technology in place,” Jamie Cowper, senior consultant at messaging firm Mirapoint, is quoted as saying.