The Email Wars

I am not sure what to think about this idea. I have had messages from other email marketing experts that have started to use this service already. I can understand WHY people might want to use this system, but as an email marketer my thoughts are still out to vote. 

I have set up an account for myself but do not have enough data or experience to tell you WHY to use it. Here is the coverage on it below from last week. 

What still strikes me as odd is that it was created by one of the earlier founders of an Email Service Provider.

“OtherInbox is a service that helps with one of the growing problems of using Web services: e-mail overload. More specifically, services that take your information and sell it to third parties–thus filling up your in-box with decentralized junk.

OtherInbox works by giving you a special address you can use when you sign up for things and it helps you filter them in a central location with tags and layout akin to Apple’s Mail application. Each “subscription” reads like its own in-box.

The service may be most useful for figuring out what services are selling out your e-mail address to other parties, but it’s also good for handling bacn–the messages you may want from a service, but not necessarily filling up your in-box. What makes it special is that users can effectively kill off that special address making the messages bounce back to the people who would be spamming you.”

Return Path’s Q2 Reputation Benchmark Report

Return Path recently released its  Q2 Reputation Benchmark Report. Here is George Bilbrey’s high level take on what they found:

Most of the servers sending email shouldn’t be. Only 20% of the IPs we studied were legitimate, well-configured, static email servers. It’s important to point out that this doesn’t speak at all to the quality of the messages from those servers - lots of horrible spammers know how to configure a mail server. The other 80% of the mail is coming from servers that are either identifiably bad or unidentifiable and probably bad. No wonder ISPs and other large receivers feel besieged. 

(more…)

I am not sure how many of you look at the spam emails you get, but I would wager that you all take a peek from time to time. I could be wrong, but they amuse the hell out of me. Not for the fact that they are so unstoppable but that they are so ridiculous. I saw this one today, shield your eyes if you are afraid of BAD emails, and I had to share it. Sorry if you are offended in any way but I had to tell you why. 

First: Look at the entire email header. The From line is completely inconsistent, the subject line is that of a pop star, the to line is to someone that does not even exist at this honey pot email address we have set up, and what the hell is that URL they spoof it coming from? Wouldn’t this stop you right there? Well maybe you but I have to look sometimes. 

Second: There is an attachment. When is the last time you saw an email marketing campaign that was legit and professionally done with an attachment? Warning… yes. 

(more…)

How often do you get emails spoofing or looking to be from a brand name that you trust? I get them every now and then but this one had me double taking, looking at the headers, and opening it up to code to see what or who it was really from. Now when you go to this length to use a brand like CNN and deliver creative that makes even me think, it has to impact your brand.

(more…)

I wanted to share with you a dialogue from last week that I had with a subscriber to our double opt in newsletter list. We had a campaign go out to subscribers that really had not engaged much with our last few months of newsletters and guide/email marketing study releases. The email chain is posted below in reverse order so that you can see the end and read down to what occurred. 

At eROI we take subscribers seriously and we respect email opt in to the nth degree. When I see people that make changes to a profile or subscription with bogus info or setting us up for a spam trap or complaint I react immediately to see why they would take this action. The below was not an unsubscribe, but an individual making a change to a mailinator.com email address as opposed to just opting out. Why would someone do this? Well read the rest of the post to find out. 

(more…)

Email: A New Target For The DEA

According to AOL Mail’s fourth annual Email Addiction Survey, 46% of email users said they’re hooked on email (up from just 15% last year) and 51% check their email four or more times a day. One in five said they check their email more than 10 times a day.

27% are so overwhelmed by their email that they’ve either declared “email bankruptcy,” deleting (or planning to) all their email messages to start anew. 20% of users said they have over 300 emails in their inboxes! 24% admit they’ve signed up for a new email address to start fresh. 69% of email users said they have multiple email accounts, up from 52% in 2007.

Regina Lewis, AOL Online Consumer Advisor, noted that “We really do live in a 24-7 society and it’s not uncommon to be online and checking email at all hours of the day…”

(more…)

MAWWG released some new best practices for ISPs and ESPs to take a look at in June. I have been meaning to share this if you have not read it already. Worth taking a read if you have not seen it yet from the ISP and ESP side of the businesses. Email Marketers might not find too much in this release. 

Globally-Developed MAAWG Best Practices for Dynamic Address Sharing, Email Forwarding Now Available; Aimed at Botnets, Improving User Experience

Network operators and ISPs from around the world have cooperated on two new best practice papers addressing technical issues that will help block botnet-induced spam and improve the deliverability of consumers’ personal emails. The recommendations for sharing IP address space and for email forwarding were approved at a Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) meeting in Heidelberg, Germany last week and are available today.

(more…)

Let’s think about this expose in the NYT last week about Goodmail. Now I could agree with them in some ways, but rather if someone has a program that 1. qualifies for Goodmail and 2. Wants to pay for delivery then why is there a problem with it? Truly if the individual has opted in for your email programs you should be able to make sure that it is going to get to the inbox. If this means using a pay for delivery system (now it does not work at all ISPs as of now) then go for it. 

(more…)

Do you have some questions for the omnipitent ruler of Yahoo Mail? Well here is your chance. You have a 4-5pm Window on the 30th to fire off your questions to Mark. I will be on the beach about that time just thinking about not working… again. (It is a repetitive process to take me away from work and like any good 12 step program takes repeating things to yourself). 

(more…)

More than 75 percent of all email today is spam, placing a significant strain on your network, budget, and employee productivity. Our objective is to leverage mail security intelligence from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network to help protect your business from spam. By offering up-to-date expert resources, such as the monthly State of Spam Report, this site gives you a central source to turn to for the latest on spam.

Overall: http://www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=state_of_spam

July 2008 PDF http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/other_resources/b-state_of_spam_report_07-2008.en-us.pdf

“For Tracy Mooney, a married mother of three in Naperville, Ill., the decision to abandon cyber-sense and invite e-mail spam into her life for a month by participating in a McAfee experiment was a bit of a lark. The idea of the Spammed Persistently All Month (S.P.A.M.) experiment — which fittingly started on April Fool’s Day — was to have 50 volunteers from around the world answer every spam message and pop-up ad they got. Mooney was game, especially since McAfee was giving a free PC to all participants. She told her story to Network World.”

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/070108-mcafee-spam-experiment.html?hpg1=bn

So with a release a few months back from GoDaddy telling people that they now offer an email marketing platform for GoDaddy Domain owners, they release this… basically if you get a spam complaint and you host your domain with them, they will charge you $200 and $75 to get your domain back. Now everyone (trust me here) deals with a spam complaint every now and then as consumers feel it is easier to mark as spam than it is to unsubscribe. So are they now going to hold brands and companies hostage for pay anytime some marks an email as spam or junk? Or just when they file a formal complaint? I really don’t know but I think this is a bonehead move. Maybe it is just to scare their own customers hwo are using their email marketing service whom host with them as they could be non educated email marketers just happy with paying $7/mo to send emails?

From Deliverability.com

Don’t host domains at GoDaddy if you do email marketing (who doesn’t?)
A reader forwarded this GoDaddy message to me (I have anonymized it) asking for advice. Apparently GoDaddy is now charging for handling spam complaints and has a $200 “spam tax” for clients that do email marketing. If they receive spam complaints against you, they are claiming that they will hold your domain ransom unless you pay $75 to release it.

Basically, GoDaddy is saying that if you do email marketing or have affiliates that send emails linking to your site, they don’t want your business.

http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/06/dont-host-domai.html

Hotmail users getting locked out

Imagine getting an e-mail from a friend or family member with the following subject line: “ITS IMPORTANT YOU GET BACK ME TODAY.”

CNET is aware of a couple of Hotmail users who have recently gotten locked out of their accounts. In one case, someone who had hacked into an account sent a desperate-sounding e-mail asking for money under the account holder’s name.

Microsoft had no direct comment.

Read Article

Hi, My name is Dylan and I work for a company called eROI. We have an ESP product called emailROI. We use it for our own email communications and are quite happy with it. So why in the hell would you send me an offer to get a Vertical Response account? I love these third party list rentals. They never know much about anyone on their list. Just happy with the CPM of an email address, and wham bam thank you mam… here you go Dylan an offer you just can’t refuse.

Wow. When I do a list rentals for clients I make sure to suppress against know addresses of comp, etc. Vertical Response you need to do the same. I know the shot gun approach can work from time to time, but you are not displaying industry leading best practices and most likely attracting clients that will do the same.

Best part about this is they are using my emailROI email address that I stopped using over 4 years ago. And this sender is something that I have never heard from before in my life nor have I got emails from them before. Crazy. Like the line in Animal House, “Pledge him, we need the dues.”

If you do any list rentals or partnering use this as a lesson of what not to do, or call me and I will be happy to walk you through best practices.

View image

How New CAN-SPAM Rules Affect Marketers

The FTC has just announced it has approved four new rule provisions to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. MarketingSherpa’s Senior Reporter Chris Heine discusses the changes with Jeff Mills, Director of Sales and Strategy at eROI. Listen to our podcast to discover how these changes will affect email marketers and what they’ll have to do differently to be in compliance. The provisions are expected to take effect this summer.

http://podcast.marketingyak.com/flash/can_spam/index.html