The Email Wars

Over the past few months I have personally been under a massive attack from people now using the “Freemium” model that so many small business ESPs have opened up and offered to their “clients”/personally I want to call them users. This is a personal stance post here and should have no reflection on anyone but me, but I am quite tired of the free ESP services. Why? Well they are giving anyone with the ability to upload a list the ability to email me. It opens up the just because you can does not mean you should debate I often have with people new to email marketing (yes there are always people new to it).

I am a firm believer that not everyone should have access to an ESP platform unless they have some skin in the game. Use your gmail, msn, yahoo, personal email to get a personal relationship with me. Free accounts simply allow people to take liberties with email and blatantly goes against all the best practices and rules we all fight so hard to instill and drive.

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I have not come across this horrible spam Frankenstein ever. Now I have seen parts here and there but this one takes the cake and took some time to bake. Yes is is a horrible email and most likely you would not check it out, but here at eROI we take one of the team for you day and day out.

1. Spoofed from Field to be the same as the To Field.

2. Baked in some MSN preference center love to give the pharma spam some legitimacy.

3. For good measure ripped off iContact’s footer and preference center links

A complete rip off trying to legitimize spam. Man will it ever end?

But it’s not done here. What can we do to combat this or anyone else doing something similar? IS there a fix?

I know that all of you are under a increasing barrage of spam and junk lately, if you are not consider yourself lucky. Personally I have had over 700 emails arrive in my junk folder just in the last 24 hours and those are the ones just making it through. Whew. I have seen others talking about it online and in places like Twitter. So things like this email just put me over the edge on why all of a sudden valid emails are being targeted again.

But I will digress a little on that topic and wanted to share with you this Train Wreck of an email. And why is it so bad for me? Well let me show you.

First it is coming from a valid company but being sent from someone spoofing the offer. Actually I think that it is a third party trying to drum up some business for Vista Print.

Next up is the ENORMOUS header text link to show images. Really is that your main concern ahead of the email offer and creative? So you know you are having issues with images being suppressed when someone gets this stuff.

Then we have the box of copy telling you NOT to respond to this email as this is a email address that is not monitored. That is a great tactic to use with email marketing. Hey we sent you this but don’t bother responding as we don’t read the emails you send to us. Nice.

But is ends with my favorite thing. THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT with a whole footer all about Can Spam compliance and how this email is not a violation of this law. Really if you have to state it, then it most likely is unsolicited email and worthy of a complaint.

In the end I think if you need to use all of these things in your email message and cannot just focus on doing the right thing then it can join my Hall of Fame of crap. Please do me a favor and keep your emails to yourself. After all I don’t respond to junk.

So just how many brands and individuals are using the new president as a way to jump into the marketing efforts of the BarackEconomy? I have been on the look out for brands that have started to use it as a way of cashing in on search and tying themselves to the “optimism” in the new president. I also noticed this AM while on a call with FastCo/Inc that they have an article on just this subject as well. Timely.

We have seen JCrew use the Michelle Obama reference to where she buys her clothes not only in email but also in search, which in many cases shows up in the inbox as well with paid terms. Now hitting my inbox is a new flavor or Ben and Jerry’s. What is next… Borders using a list of Top Books Obama would read? (OH WAIT ABE BOOKS IS) Or an email marketing service provider releasing a new Obama version of their software?

I understand that the natural tie in is going to happen. We are seeing a grass roots retail trade shape up on the streets of major cities with beannies and t-shirts. That is to be expected. What I am not ready for is brand marketers in consumer packaged goods to jump on the band wagon. I feel that it is really a bad play. I mean why wasn’t there some Bushio’s or GW Pop Tarts? Oh yeah, he had a bad reputation and not many of us would have bought that junk. Would have sounded like it tasted good, but stuck to the top of your mouth for 8 years.

Getting back on target now… think twice about how you decide to tie your brand to some things in life. I personally feel that some things should remain out of the political realm. Including my pint of ice cream. Or maybe I will just go upload my dog’s photo to use this promo I found to place your pet as the new First Pet. I mean why not just take the insanity to the next level?

I had to use that title for this post as I know that many of you out there are always jaded when it comes to list rental campaigns. Now I am not talking about buying lists, but partnering with other like brands or list managers that have double opt in lists where they have allowed subscribers to opt in for emails from like or relevant brands. 

Now here are 4 reasons why I dislike them (yes I changed my mind from hate).

1. They often will not perform to the expectations. Many brands expect these lists that are so well found and segmented to give them the same reach and performance from their own lists. This will not happen, ever. These are lead generation campaigns and if executed right can drive new subscribers to your lists and even sales/conversions. But don’t expect miracles. 

2. They are not from your brand. And they should not be. They should be sent from the brand that has the relationship and contain your offers. Many times they are sent from that brand and the disconnect with the user is bad for all. They can result in more list attrition from the list owner in the end if done wrong. 

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Well it has been one year since we released KillROI into the wild. He has been infiltrating agencies, high rises, corporate offices, and maybe even your office. He has been sitting, waiting, listening, and silently fighting the war on spam and good emails leaving your desk. 

We have begun to get reports, via photos, from places that he has been deployed. It has been like a secret mole from the Cold War days being activated by a call to action that only he knows. Yes, it is time. The holiday season bring so much email into our collective inboxes and that might have just been the impetus of his awakening. 

I ask you, if you have seen him around your desk, office or in your travels, to capture photos of him like we recently received and send them into us. We need to know of his exploits and his travels. 

If you have not found one yet, there are two ways to find out how to have one deployed. First please visit this site to learn about his battle and help him take on the fight. Then drop me a comment on this post and I will reach into the isolation cell (which has been locked since last December) and see if there are still some rumbling around. If I hear from you with a compelling comment, I will attempt to safely ship one of the remaining soldier of goodness to your clutches.

Also, if you are subscribed to our newsletter, then you will learn of his next exploits around December 17th. So subscribe to get the next installment. Trust me… It will be worth it.

Often brands have a hard time just saying no to email. Even when they ask at a preference center and at purchase. So when you ask for preferences, remember no means no. Even if you have a pre-existing business relationship as they did with him with a gift card, you need to honor your word when it comes to email. Or else you just might find someone posting your act here or on another blog.

A reader named James forwarded an unsolicited email from Circuit City that we had to post because it’s just so chipper about the fact that they’ve resorted to emailing him out of desperation. It cheerfully proclaims, “Now you’ll be the first to hear the latest news,” before informing him that he’d been “chosen” as one of their “best customers” to receive news that they deem relevant to him.

James says:

I’m sure you can surmise that I never signed up for email alerts to anything from Circuit City. I merely use their website to manage my (rarely used) Circuit City card. It’s good to see they still have the customer in mind.

The best part of the email is where they inform James that, in the future, he’ll get advance notice about “grand openings.” Isn’t that sweet?

Well it seems that the battle with the watchdogs is not only on the ESPs and clients but also on the ISPs themselves now days. Interesting take on this and wondering how Microsoft and Verizon are going to handle this. Will they shrug it off? Or will they take it seriously as all of us do? 

Microsoft is listed fifth in the Top 10 list of the worst spam service ISPs compiled by Spamhaus.org.

Spammers are advertising links to sites that “peddle fake pharmacy products, porn, and Nigerian 419 scams” on Microsoft’s Live.com and Livefilestore.com sites because they know that the Microsoft sites won’t get blocked by antispam groups, writes Brian Krebs on his Security Fix Blog at the Washington Post.

Spamhaus has been alerting Microsoft to the problem for some time, but to no avail, Richard Cox, Spamhaus’ chief information officer, told Krebs. Other security companies, including McAfee and Marshal, have also been warning about increases in spam and scams on Microsoft-hosted sites.

Read the full article and the comments >>

Study Finds Some Top Brand Marketers Are Struggling To Provide Adequate Email Unsubscribe Options

Twenty Percent of Marketers Sent Additional Email Messages To Consumers After Confirming The Person Had Unsubscribed

Twenty percent of top brand marketers sent additional emails to subscribers after confirming an unsubscribe request, Return Path discovered with its new research study titled Keeping the Subscriber Experience Positive After “Unsubscribe Me.” Eleven percent of the companies studied emailed subscribers more than 10 days after confirming an unsubscribe request – a violation of the federal CAN-SPAM Act. Marketers risk impacting their overall email reputation with spam complaints if they have a faulty email unsubscribe process.

Return Path, the leading e-mail deliverability and reputation management company, conducted the study by unsubscribing from the email lists of 45 companies from the retail, consumer goods, travel, and media/entertainment industries. Return Path originally subscribed to these email lists to conduct its Subscriber Experiences study.

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I know that the Facebook momentum has gained a ravenous pitch as I see more and more people jumping into it. And not only are they jumping but they are guzzling the addictive life streaming service at a pace that is at times scary. So as the Nigerian email scammers that rose to rapid fame/hatred have found it too. They realize that there is an opportunity to stop using email, as it might be played out, and now are using Facebook to run the same scams. 

Thanks for leaving email to us and jumping on the social media bandwagon. You will not be missed. 

Love to see this kind of news. Helps all of us. Seems that they are figuring that this “Colo” was responsible for close to 75% of the spam we see. Amazing that this is in a 30 story gleaming office tower in San Jose. Good work folks that took this down. 

Amazing how complicated this seemed to be and how organized this was. We know we are not dealing with amateurs but professionals in most of these cases. Love this news. Only helps us and helps our inboxes.

Read the news

As an email marketer and an ESP I am always looking at how other ESPs append the footer of an email. So many people HATE having any other brand in their footer around their email, and heck I don’t blame them. Why would I want someone else’s brand on my email campaign. Email does help with branding no matter how many articles of conversations I have with other people. 

But what struck me about this footer was the addition of “Report Abuse” in it. I had to think about it for a few minutes as it felt as if they are asking someone to press it and cause a delivery issue with that IP address. But then I looked a little closer. In essence it is an internal ESP feedback loop that channels the report back to the ESP and, I assume, channels that as a red flag to either their deliverability team or automatically suppresses that address in their account from ever being sent. 

Now if it works in this way I think it is a great idea. Why not ASK them to keep the report in your ecosystem rather than driving it out to the ISP? Right? If you can keep your abuse reports in your own backyard it might just help with keeping your lists clean and your IP reputation even cleaner. 

I am going to test it in some upcoming campaigns to see if it has that impact.

Good post from the AOL Postmaster. 

Every year there seems to be a topic or a phrase that seems to take over the anti-spam industry.  This year, that topic is reputation.  What is IP reputation?  How do ISPs calculate it, and what do they do with it? 

Well, I can’t begin to answer that question for every ISP out there, but I can give you some idea how AOL calculates IP reputation and what we do with it.  This information is also available on a new page on our website called “IP Reputation, the Whitelist, and Inbox Delivery at AOL”.

If you are new to the idea of IP reputation, I hope this answers some of your questions. 

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I was digging back in to some email delivery best practices this morning when I came across this list from Yahoo in the Postmaster section. Worth a read. It is like the 10 Commandments of email Marketing and Delivery best practices. These should be things that you already know and live by, but a refresher is always nice.

You can get the full Postmaster resources here if you have not read it all

QUESTION: As a sender, what can I do to ensure that my email goes to the right folder?

To ensure that your email gets delivered to the inbox, simply send emails that users want. Our studies have indicated that when users see messages miscategorized, they notify us within hours of delivery. We will quickly react to the user feedback and update our filters automatically.

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