The Email Wars

Spammers continue to harvest email addresses from public spaces on the web, but ISPs using anti-spam technology block the vast majority of spam sent to those addresses, according to the Federal Trade Commission, writes DM News. The FTC studied address harvesting, ISP spam filtering and the use of “masked” email addresses to prevent address harvesting of addresses. Addresses posted in chat rooms, message boards, USENET groups and blogs were much less likely to be harvested.

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Just a quick note to remind you why sending out an email that is 100% an image is wrong. Now for speed and simplicity, great, but for delivery and giving it an actually chance in the inbox, bad news. This is an example of some simple MSN.com/Hotmail image blocking. Love to read it, but I can’t, and the fact that there is not an alt tag for the image or an image name, give me as an end user nada.

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A good article from Clickz.com

The Importance of Expectations
BY Derek Harding, ClickZ.com

Recently, I’ve been working with two major corporations with the same e-mail problem. AOL tightened enforcement of its 10 percent bounce rate and 0.1 percent complaint rate target thresholds. This increases the pressure on marketers to determine why recipients who opted in to receive their mailing were complaining about those messages.

These mailings weren’t sent to the usual suspects: rental, third-party, co-registration, or prior business relationship e-append; they were sent to the house list. All recipients were customers or prospects who explicitly and knowingly opted in to receive e-mail communications. Further, the lists hadn’t been repurposed, that all-too-common process of sending subscribers something other than what they’d signed up for. All recipients had agreed to receive the messages they were getting.

So why were these recipients hitting the “this is spam” button in such high numbers? What was wrong with the process?

Expectations. Both these companies were making some simple, yet common, mistakes.

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Should you e-mail your prospects on Monday or Friday, sometime in between or on the weekend?

Offering new insights into a question that has perplexed marketers since the beginning of the Internet, new data from eROI, an e-mail services firm, the “Q3 2005 Email Statistics” study found that the day of the week was not the only factor — beyond creative execution and offer — in determining e-mail marketing success.

“We decided to take a look at day of the week statistics by list size, and found that was beneficial in determining campaign value,” said Jeff Mills, eROI e-mail analyst.

Read the Article
(After December 11, 2005, this article will only be available to eStat Database subscribers.)

Recipients of business-to-business emails rarely open their messages - they use a preview pane - and don’t download images in emails, according to a new survey by email technology firm EmailLabs, which reports that 69 percent of B2B email newsletter subscribers frequently or always use a small preview pane, 49 percent look only at the first few lines of the preview pane to decide whether to continue reading the message; and 19 percent delete the email if insufficient information is displayed in the pane, reports DM News.

Now almost all of us that use a email client like Outlook, Lotus Notes, etc have a preview pane. This study is not bad news to me, or really new news. It actually helps me to know that I need to make sure that the call the action is above the fold, clear and compelling to take action. If done right, this is actally a good thing.

A little self promotion today. We had some great feedback to a recent case study for a new PSP game launch this past summer. The funny thing is that this site is still rocking and getting between 2K and 5K Unique visitors a day and about a 10% sign and and conversion rate without any additional marketing supporting it.

eROI’s Death Jr. website attracts and captures the gaming crowd; learn how this has boosted the game’s sales.

In the case of Death Jr., a game designed for Sony’s new PlayStation Portable (PSP), unique challenges included marketing the game — and its unique, spooky storyline — to a relatively small base of potential customers. (Only 1.5 million PSPs had sold in the North American market when the game launched.) Additionally, this would be the first Konami title marketed exclusively by the company’s North American operations (previous efforts were managed from Konami’s Asian headquarters).

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The recent settlement of a CAN-SPAM complaint implies liability by companies for the actions of their affiliates, writes ClickZ, pointing to a requirement by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), backed by a U.S. District Court in Nevada, that several porn sites keep detailed records on affiliate marketers, obtaining a name, address and working phone number for each affiliate and sub-affiliate.

Also, seven days before a campaign launches, the affiliates must certify to the defendants how they obtained each email address on their lists, together with details of the message content.

read more…

As an email marketer, I watch everyone else in the space. Many of them do a great job at staying to task, using best practices, and making sure to focus on the number one task of education, resource and self promotion. There are two vendors out there that seem to either sell offers through their lists from either partners or just others that could benefit from reaching their subscribers.

I find it to be a bad practice to cross promote and cheapen the brand message of an Email Service Provider. To me it really is a bad practice to market in this way. Now that being said, newsletter sponsorship or partner spotlight could be a much better method to use in this audience. The reason for this is that if you are continuing to send bascially 3rd party offers during the month on top of your own newsletters and emails, it will eventually hurt your own deliverability and campaign success. I know that it lessens the value to me to get these offers when I expect to be getting something of value for my information and time.

This is also a good example of how GMail blocks images from those that Gmail deems as possible Junk.

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Out team at eROI (okay our CEO) really wanted to get into the holiday spirit and something went terribly wrong. Somehow, he ended up in short shorts looking like John McEnroe in the 70’s without the hair. This video is troubling but strangely amusing - check it out if you get a chance and let him know how you feel about it. It may become a living site with future Office Olympic Events (image chair luge, drunken trike races, garbage can hurdles, or even the dreaded printer deadlifts). But without your vote, it could die on the office floor.

www.wearshortshorts.com

Don’t forget to vote on what Office Olympics event we should do next. The “Drunken Tricycle Race” seems to be leading the pack, but don’t let that influence your decision. Check out the full site (if time allows).

Here is what some people have voted for as the next Office Olympics event:

The first official challenge by legitimate marketers. We actually expected it sooner, but here is the first, of what I anticipate to be many groups joining the challenge.

Utah “Do Not E-Mail” Registry Faces Court Challenge

A TRADE GROUP REPRESENTING MEMBERS of the adult entertainment industry Thursday asked a Utah court to nix a recent law prohibiting e-mail marketers from sending promotions for material considered harmful to minors to e-mail boxes that can be accessed by children under 18.

The trade association, “Free Speech Coalition,” argues that Utah’s law isn’t valid under the federal Can-Spam statute–which supersedes state laws regulating commercial e-mail, except for laws relating to fraud and computer crimes. The group is seeking an order barring Utah from enforcing the law.

The Email Service Provider Coalition, which represents mainstream e-mail marketing companies, also opposes the Utah law and plans to seek permission to file a “friend of the court” brief, said Trevor Hughes, executive director of the Email Service Provider Coalition.

Read Article from MediaPost.com

So we all have opinions of WalMart, Good or Bad. But what I want to talk about is what a great job they do at the opt in stage. This is one of the most important areas to nail even before delivery. If the opt in is clearly defined, expectations set with the consumer, and upon opt in, show show them what to look for and when in the inbox, as well as what actions they need to take.

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Now when you actually get an opt in and a detailed list of when to expect what editions it rocks. Not only do I know which ones I am going to get, but what they each cover. I can quickly go in and update my editions if I find I am not reading one of or the other.

Now with this in place, I am sure to sign up for more editions (instead of just one daily blast) and then regularly change them based on need.

Great email communication strategy and public facing frequency plan.

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I think that opt in email rates are getting killed by co-registration practices. I love email and getting a page like the one below KILLED my desire to complete the process for this Northern California newspaper. I am there to interact with your brand and not that of 10 others.

I know many will say that co-reg is great for exposing your brand and gorwing your list from the efforts of others, but atleast don’t make the form an opt out (checking all the boxes by default). Let me make the concious decision to take a moment to check a box.

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An Except from Bomb-Proof Branding By Seana Mulcahy

Users were asked about spam in 2003, 2004, and 2005. In 2003 approximately 25 percent said spam has reduced their use of email; just over 50 percent said spam has made them lose trust in the Internet, and 70 percent said spam has made being online unpleasant. The numbers peaked in 2004. Surprisingly, the numbers have dipped this year: 20 percent have reduced use of e-mail, 52 percent have lost trust in the Net, and about 68 percent claim the online environment is unpleasant, all due to spam.

Here is one that I love. Really shows that some of these anti-spam blacklists and service providers hammering one another. It is a War of Two Evil. They all are trying to profit from blocking everyone and selling a solution, with ZERO accountability, false positives and no answers to legitimate marketers. Maybe that is what we should do as an industry, sign up for emails from the for profit side of each and just start to report every email as spam and never answer anything. As many subscribers that opt in do just this and these sources will “never reveal” info so it is an ugly circular process.

Or even better.. as email marketers and ESPs why don’t we create our own blacklist and give it to all of our clients, ISPs and others to use. Wouldn’t this just be the same?

It is time for action. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Postini And The On-Again, Off-Again Spam List
By Jim Wagner from InternetNews.com

Anti-spam vendor Postini has looked at spam from both sides now.

The Spamhaus Project, a popular U.K.-based organization that maintains a database of spamming activity, placed two of the San Carlos, Calif., company’s IP addresses on its Spamhaus Block List (SBL) last week after receiving numerous complaints of unsolicited e-mail from the company.

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