Chris - Q) How critical is authentication to filtering heuristics?
Deirdre - A) Heuristic Filters work by applying a series of rules to a particular message (message being inclusive of both sender/sending characteristics as well as the actual content and construction of the message). Each rule is assigned a score (positive or negative) typically based on that rule’s historical correlation with spam (these correlations or rule scores can be either positive or negative).  The sum of the scores for all rules hit are then compared against various cut-off total scores that determine what action the receiver should take (e.g. if the sum of the rule scores is greater than 5, mail is placed in the spam folder; if greater than 10, it is black-holed).

Both ISPs and commercial spam filters rely on heuristics as either part of a multi-phase filtering system or as their only filtering system.  However, what can and does differ from one receiver to the next is:  a) what rules are built into the heuristic filter (e.g. some may have a rule for authentication and some may not),  b) the score for the individual rules (e.g. one may have a higher score for the failing authentication rule than another receiver), and finally  c) what the cut-off scores are that determine disposition (e.g. one ISP may say anything above 5 is spam and another may say anything above 7 is spam). That being said, most ISPs and commercial filters check for authentication (SPF and/or DKIM;  SenderID for Hotmail) at some point in their filtering process.

Authentication has historically been used by ISPs to help determine whether a sender is a phisher (or not a phisher).  Now that ISPs are beginning to apply reputation at the authenticated domain level, authentication is also becoming increasingly important in helping ISPs identify whether a message is spam (or more accurately in this case, ‘not’ spam). Remember, authentication on its own says nothing about the quality of the sender but once you apply traditional reputation metrics such as spam complaints and unknown user rates, it can be used as both a phishing and spam delineator. The value of authentication for marketers is three-fold:

1. If you’re a well-known brand, the anti-phishing protection that solutions like DKIM provides is an absolute must. ISPs have upped the ante over the past year in aggressively using these solutions to reject all mail that fails and some – like Gmail – have started to use DKIM to visually indicate to end users that mail that passes is safe.
2. If your want to take advantage of the largest ISPs’ whitelisting and feedback loop programs—which are critical for maintaining a good reputation and inbox delivery—you must be authenticating.
3. Major ISPs such as AOL & Yahoo! are moving to Authenticated-Domain-Reputation and will place precedence on Domain-Reputation over IP reputation. IP reputation will not completely go away, it’ll be just another data point. However, if you change IPs, which happens on occasion, you can keep your reputation as it will be tied to your domain. This gives mailers more flexibility about who they want their provider to be and enables them to ensure that their brand’s reputation is strictly tied to their domain, their name and their actual mailings, instead of being polluted by a previous unscrupulous mailer that used the IP before them or by mailers who share an IP with them.

Chris - Q) Do you anticipate the industry trend towards a recipient engagement model instead of a binary complaint and/or bounce algorithm in the future?  How important is content in this role?
Deirdre - A) We are seeing a huge shift in how ISPs determine reputation and folder disposition.  This shift can be broken into two parts:

Shift 1:  Inclusion of Engagement Metrics into the concept of Spam / Not Spam
It’s no longer just about “explicit negative inputs” like spam complaints and hitting spam traps. ISPs have caught on to marketers who are gaming the spam complaint system by sending large amounts of email to dormant subscribers in order to lower their overall complaint rates.  In response, now many of them are also looking for “explicit positive inputs” and are going beyond explicit to learned preferences.  Engagement metrics like opens, clicks, forwards, add to address book rates, replying to emails, are all now helping ISPs distinguish legitimate marketers from spammers.  The best advice is one that AOL often repeats:   send relevant email to people that want to receive it.

Shift 2:  Customer-specific engagement and preferences ultimately determine folder placement!
Historically, an ISP would compute an IP or (as we’re now seeing) an authenticated-domain’s overall spam complaint rate, unknown user rate, etc.  These ‘aggregated’ metrics would be a primary driver of disposition baring any explicit filters at the customer level.  For example, provided your complaint rate was below X and unknown user rate was below Y at the IP or Domain level, the ISP would place your mail in the inbox.  That is changing!  ISPs are now moving toward customer-level adaptive learning filters and placing explicit and learned customer-level behavior over all other levels of filtering (with the exception of outright Port25 blocks).   This is an incredibly important shift with huge implications for mailers.  It means, for example, that it does not matter if you have 0 complaints and 0 unknown user rates – if customer X has negatively engaged with your mail (e.g.  historically ignored your mail, moved your mail to the spam folder, etc), it will be placed in the spam folder for that customer.  Conversely, if your spam complaint rates and unknown user rates when computed at the IP or Domain level are such that you’re designated as spam, your mail will still be placed in the inbox for those customers who have positively engaged with your email (e.g., opened, clicked, replied, moved you to inbox, personal folders, reported you as not spam, added you their address book, etc).    Effectively this means that IP & Domain-level aggregated reputation metrics are now serving as “default disposition” and are “over-ruled” by learned and explicit preferences and engagement behavior for each individual customer.

When you combine the use of new types of engagement metrics – to include NO engagement (no interaction with mailer), with the precedence given to the customer, this means mailers should:

1. Focus on engagement - which ultimately are many of the same metrics mailer’s use to measure campaign success now BUT means also they need pay a lot more attention to those who are unengaged instead of continuing to mail customers who clearly show no interest in their mail.
2. Recognize that deliverability is no longer black & white – you can no longer simply say you are in the spam folder or in the inbox for a particular mailing at a particular ISP. Instead your deliverability can and will differ from one customer to the next dependent upon that specific customer’s relationship with you.

Chris - Q) Are there any exciting and new innovations on your horizon that you would be able to give us a teaser on?
Deirdre - A) We recently released MailboxIQ – the first and only technology to track email deliverability and platform-usage at the customer-level, across social, mobile, search, software and web-based email platforms. There literally hasn’t been an advance like this in deliverability tracking in over ten years.

In addition to innovating with new platforms like MailboxIQ, Pivotal Veracity remains committed to supporting its clients with the most sophisticated and comprehensive suite of email deliverability, rendering and reputation tools on the market: We’ve made sure to add all the latest platforms to our award-winning eDesign Optimizer, including, most recently, the new MySpace mail and the Palm Pre and Android mobile platforms (we’re the only provider that offers this), and we will continue to roll out additional capabilities designed to help marketers succeed in an increasingly complex but exciting multi-platform digital universe.

Thanks Deirdre for offering your insight into these deliverability issues. Next up in the blog post series, I’ll talk with Whitney Hutchinson, Group Director, Strategy at Razorfish as she addresses multi-channel communication, the definition of an engaged recipient, and new innovations.  Then be on the look out for more posts from leaders from:

• Cloud Mark
• Return Path

Did I miss any questions?  Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments below. We’re listening.

Chris Wheeler
Director of Deliverability at Bronto
@ChrisAWheeler

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• Julie Anne Reda conducted a survey of consumers on their use of social media for the upcoming holiday season. The study speaks to what consumers are looking for from retailers when communicating through social networks.
• Our very own Joe Colopy explains via this video interview why email is still a vital piece to the marketing puzzle. Check out the comments for some great real world email marketing in action feedback as well.
• As you know, I am a big fan of ShopItToMe’s email marketing program, and they just proved again why they rock. Their unsubscribe page is the best I’ve seen from a user experience AND is likely to be a big win with marketers as well. Kudos again ShopItToMe!
• Are you looking for ways to make 2010 the year of resolutions? If so, resolve to look for ways to increase subscriber engagement. James Gurd kicks off the planning with six steps to increase engagement today and all through next year.
• Dylan Boyd reminds us all why it’s vital to keep your list clean and up to date so you are not just emailing into a black hole. Isn’t it time you pushed subscribers to update their addresses and drop the unengaged?

Have you begun developing your marketing New Year’s resolutions? Share your plans in the comments below!

Kelly Lorenz
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto
@KNLorenz

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Today, email has turned into a monumentally powerful marketing tool and communication channel that still rivals the internet and other upcoming social networks, regardless of which side of the “email is dying” debate you fall under. With email marketing, forward to a friend, sharing links, email filters and forwarders, along with major ISPs providing outsourcing solutions (like Google App), the audit trail of an email is sometimes all but impossible to decipher without CSI level forensic header analysis.

What should you care about?
When you place an order to have something delivered with the USPS, UPS or FedEX, that item almost never leaves that company’s chain of custody.  Meaning, if you dropped it off with FedEx, the recipient will most likely receive it with FedEx.  Again, there are exceptions, but the vast majority of the time this is the rule.  When you send an email out, though, it may be going to a Yahoo! domain address, then forwarded on to a Gmail domain address and finally rendered in Outlook 2007.  What can you do to ensure that your mail has the highest rate of making it to its final destination regardless of the cyber hops in the middle?

1. Ask your recipient up front if their email address is still, indeed, the right one to be using. I check over 8 different email accounts on a normal day, and with inbox email aggregators with dynamic collection addresses (such as OtherInbox, I probably have several hundred email address that will get to me somehow.  However, the email address to sign up with your service when I was a fresh college grad and using my Alumni account may no longer be at the top of my list.  So, I appreciate it when companies I do business with ask me if that’s still the one I should have on my account.  If it is, I click through on a prompt when I login.  If not, it takes 2 seconds to change.  I don’t get asked this every time I login, but perhaps, every 6 months or so to ensure the email address is fresh.  Guess what?  My Alumni account is forwarded to my Yahoo! account.  So, I changed it to have my Yahoo! account receive the email directly (and thus avoid any errant filtering on the part of my school).
2. Authenticate outbound email. Period. DKIM was designed not to break when making multiple hops in an email’s path to the final destination.  Unfortunately SPF will because of the technical nature of email headers, but with DKIM enabled mail, if it comes through at Gmail verified and then is forwarded on to AOL, the DKIM signature stays intact and the message has a higher likelihood of being delivered.
3. Here’s the bad part.  Just like you as a sender pushing mail out to a recipient, when email is forwarded to another domain by the recipient domain, the reputation and deliverability of that mail falls back on the ISP doing the forwarding.  For instance, I run my own domain hosted through Gmail.  When you send an email there, it gets forwarded to Yahoo! which is what I consider my central email nervous system.  But, sometimes, email from Gmail gets bulked at Yahoo! because of Gmail’s reputation.  This means I don’t get my mail.  What can you do about it?  Gently remind your subscribers to check their spam folders for mail that may have accidentally fallen prey to a filter somewhere.  In my case, I’ll get email that randomly gets bulked (as opposed to breaking any obvious best sending practices) and have made it a habit to check my spam folder often.
4. Check your content in multiple web clients. Oftentimes, an email sent to a Comcast domain looks fantastic, but when forwarded to an AOL accounts, looks horrible.  Now, like in #3, a lot of this is out of your control if the actual content is changed en route by the ISP.  But, if you ensure that your content looks good in the different clients, you increase your chances that when an ISP doesn’t reach in and play with the HTML when it’s being forwarded along, it will look fine in the end email inbox.
5. Have unique identifiers in your unsubscribe links tying an email address back to a particular sender. If I unsubscribe from my Yahoo! address on an email that was sent to me originally at a Gmail account but was forwarded on, you could end up shooting yourself in the proverbial foot.  I could have any wanted email to my Yahoo! account stop but the Gmail email continue.  Recipients will oftentimes setup multiple email addresses for one account, or across multiple accounts you as an ESP or single sender support, so directly tying that recipient’s unsubscribed email address to their preferences (and not the one that happened to actually do the unsubscribing) is key.

This is pretty technical stuff, folks.  But, in order to stay on top of the original intent of email being free flowing and having as few barriers as possible, you must be cognizant of the challenges in your path.  Reach out to your technical team to ensure you’ve got these points covered.  And remember, an email address is easily disposable.  We, as marketers, tend to see them as having high stickiness.  But, recipients can come and go with fluidity and tracking them along the way with their permission (ultimately their keeping you informed of their moves) keeps you in touch with your customers.

Chris Wheeler
Director of Deliverability
Bronto Software
@ChrisAWheeler

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Consider testing…

• An open incentive - Opens are the gateway to your marketing message. Consider providing an incentive to procure the open. Southwest recently ran a promotion where a subscriber could win simply by opening their marketing messages. When running a promotion like this I would caution you to think carefully about your end goal. While Southwest’s open rate likely spiked, click-through rate may not have improved, or even potentially dropped off.
• A click incentive - Could a teaser call to action increase click-throughs, and ultimately boost sales? Banana Republic took on this challenge with an email centered around a “mystery gift” where subscribers had to click-through to see the gift. You will want to measure your landing page’s bounce, or abandonment, rate to ensure that the payoff for your call to action is not just one big tease.
• Tying in helpful tips with products - Does informational content around how to or ways to use a product provide a lift to your bottom line? Does it help get subscribers over the uncertainty hump? Would explaining the benefits of a product encourage subscribers to picture themselves using your product?
  
• User-generated content - User-generated content encompasses customer reviews, comments in your forum or on Facebook, tweets from followers, and so on. Would seeing what others had to say about a particular product increase the likelihood a subscriber will click-through, spend more time on your product pages and ultimately buy? Julie Waite discusses the benefits and types of product review campaigns in detail in this post. If subscribers see others engaging with your brand are they more likely to as well? Would seeing their name in lights, so to speak, create goodwill and long-term customer value?

• Size, color and importance given to calls to action - Test not only the language used but also the visual treatment of calls to action. Does changing the color from blue to red increase click-throughs, for instance? Do links or buttons provide the bigger draw? This article from Jacob Gube provides examples and recommendations for making your calls to action stand out.
• Pairing high ticket/margin items with low ticket/margin items - Would placing like items, one that’s high margin, next to one that’s low margin boost clicks/conversions? As Dan Ariely discussed in Predictably Irrational, it’s all relative. Placing a product you are looking to move next to a high-priced model of the same type of product (in his example, plasma TVs) could positively impact sales of the lower-priced model.

• Matching products with accessories - Pushing accessories is a best practice in transactional emails when a product has been purchased. In your marketing messages, would matching products with accessories help increase average order size and improve sales of both items? Does the accessory serve as the impulse buy after subscribers decide to buy the main product as in “Might as well get the accessories while I’m at it”?

• Pushing compliments next to a big ticket item - Would pairing products that are typically sold together in an email help increase sales of both products?

Have you tested any of these tips already? Share your experience and thoughts in the comments below.

In the next post in this series, I’ll walk through additional ideas on what to test and provide a wrap up so stay tuned!

Kelly Lorenz
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto
@KNLorenz

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For today’s blog post, I talked with Ethan Arenson, Spam Coordinator at the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) which is responsible for the CAN-SPAM email Act, so let’s dive in with some Q&A with Ethan:

Chris - Q) How important is following CAN-SPAM?  Are there real consequences for not following the requirements?  What are they?
Ethan - A) Those who initiate commercial emails that do not comply with the CAN-SPAM Act can face both civil and criminal penalties, depending on the nature of violation.  The most serious violations of CAN-SPAM – including the unauthorized use of a computer belonging to a third-party to disseminate spam and the use of falsified email header information – can result in imprisonment.  Other violations of CAN-SPAM – including the failure to include an effective opt-out mechanism and the use of deceptive subject lines – subject the violator to civil penalties of up to $16,000 per violative email.

Chris - Q) How critical is authentication in your opinion?
Ethan - A) Domain level email authentication is a promising technological development that has the potential to significantly reduce the incidence of phishing, and other types of email-based scams that rely on forged “from” lines.  While email authentication will not solve the spam problem, it is an important step forward.  The FTC has been a strong advocate for the adoption of email authentication, and has worked closely with private industry to foster its implementation.

Chris - Q) Do you anticipate the industry moving towards a recipient engagement model instead of a binary complaint and/or bounce algorithm in the future affecting the adherence to CAN-SPAM and making it more of a non-issue? Do you think it will reduce spam like content?
Ethan - A) The question of how best to design and implement effective methods to filter spam is one that is better addressed by the ISPs than the FTC.  However, I do not foresee spam filters – even advanced filters that take user interaction into account – rendering CAN-SPAM obsolete at any point in the near future.

To illustrate the point, consider the issue of deceptive subject lines.  To lure consumers into opening their messages, spammers will often use deceptive subject lines designed to grab consumers’ attention – offers of free gifts, or warnings about videos or pictures of the recipient that purportedly have been posted online are commonly seen examples.  Given that these messages are designed to trick users into interacting with them, it seems unlikely that filtering these messages based on the level of user interaction will be successful in keeping them out of users’ inboxes.

CAN-SPAM prohibits deceptive subject lines, and provides for substantial civil penalties for those who initiate messages using such trickery.  By outlawing this type of deceptive conduct, CAN-SPAM creates a financial disincentive for those who seek to dupe spam filters through the use of deceptive subject lines, while providing law enforcement with an important tool to prosecute those who use spam to prey on consumers.

Chris - Q) What further education resources can you share to help email marketers stay on the right side of the law and best practices?
Ethan - A) The FTC provides extensive guidance on how to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act on its dedicated spam website, www.ftc.gov/spam.  A great starting point is the FTC’s publication “The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business.”  This document includes a plain-language description of the requirements of CAN-SPAM, as well as answers to a series of frequently asked questions.

Many thanks to Ethan for his participation. Next up in the blog post series, I’ll talk with Deirdre Baird, President & CEO of Pivotal Veracity as she addresses authentication, recipient engagement, and email marketing tips.  Then be on the look out for more posts from leaders from:

• Razorfish
• Cloud Mark
• Return Path

Did I miss any questions?  Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments below.

Chris Wheeler
Director of Deliverability at Bronto
@ChrisAWheeler

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• Newsflash: Not everyone checks their email every day. In fact, the average elapsed time from send to open was 25.9 hours in August, according to Pivotal Veracity’s Email Engagement Index for Q1-Q3.  Are you sending “Deal of the Day” type email promotions?  If your contacts aren’t checking their email every day, what can you do about that? The Retail Email Blog has a great post on how Newegg is overcoming this challenge.

• Low open rates got you down? Good news from Dela Quist at Email-Worx: the “Nudge Effect” could be the answer to your open rate woes. Check out these great suggestions for creating emails that sell – even unopened.

• If you’re an overworked marketer, take heart: MarketingSherpa has a new chart out that shows the more effort you put into a targeted, relevant campaign, the more effective it is. If you’re wasting large amounts of time on ineffective campaigns, this should make it easier to decide to reduce or put a stop to them.

• This has got to be one of the coolest email ideas ever. We all know vertical scroll, and some of us may have seen a horizontal scroll in email, but have you ever seen both used in conjunction like this email “maze” from the Canadian Tourism Commission?

• If you’re looking to jumpstart your mobile email marketing strategy, you must listen to the latest ReturnOnSubscriber Tip Jar podcast.

Have thoughts or examples to share? Drop us a line in the comments below!

Julie Waite
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto

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Product Review Campaigns

Once you implement review technology on your site, send email campaigns asking your customers to start utilizing it. Be sure to sell them on the idea, and provide clear instructions on how to leave a review. Many online retailers offer an incentive like a chance to win a gift card, free shipping on your next order, etc. Others promote the community feeling or the exclusivity of being part of the reviewing elite.  Check out these great email examples from DSW, Giggle, and CB2.

Triggered Purchase Review Emails

If you have a more sophisticated system, you can set up automatically triggered messages to send to your customers after they have purchased and received their order. Again, incentives and clear instructions and tips for writing a review go a long way. See for example these fantastic emails from Overstock and The Gap.

Using Reviews to Promote Products in Email

Now that you’ve got product reviews, use them! They’re not only handy for online shoppers, but they can increase your clickthrough and conversion rates when they are used in your email content. Petco, REI and Bliss have done a nice job with these and each created their own unique twist (using rating system of stars or paws, and just plain great testimonial quotes).

Using Reviews to Promote Engagement

Reviews help foster a feeling of community, give your customers a voice and bring your website to life. Think outside of the products for a minute, and consider what else your subscribers could review to contribute to the site and keep them coming back. REI launched a Trip Review site for travel buffs, bringing customers together and promoting travel… indirectly boosting branding, site engagement and possibly even sales as customers may need to purchase REI products in preparation for their trip. You can see the email campaign they sent promoting the site here.

There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

A lot of companies worry that providing review functionality will open them up to negative reviews and inhibit shoppers. Contrarily, a fascinating recent study found that even bad reviews boost sales… in fact, having negative reviews sends a message to the customer that they can trust your site. If your reviews were 100% positive, that could trigger doubt in the mind of the consumer.  Additionally, reviews can help you improve your site (e.g. the sweater color was not represented accurately in the photo), as well as the products you sell (e.g. gain a better understanding customer use and expectations).  So what are you waiting for? Get those reviews going!  And if you’re already doing them, please share your thoughts and tips in the comments below.

Julie Waite
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto

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1. Want your customers/subscribers around for the long-haul? Check out Dylan Boyd’s relationship breakdown for long-term tips.

2. Looking in your inbox, you’ll find lots of different variations on the subject line/preheader combination. Darrah McLean evaluates combos on her iPhone and offers her two cents on their effectiveness.

3. Think the young whippersnappers these days don’t care about email? Think again.

4. If you don’t want to offer discounts upon more discounts this holiday season, Mark Grondin offers up some compelling alternatives.

Are you going to offer the straight discounts this holiday season or take a different approach? I’m seeing some clients adding in a free (low-cost) product with a purchase over a certain amount. What else have you seen work?

Kristen Gregory
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto

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Transactional messages deserve a lot of attention and should be re-evaluated on a regular basis. Remember that these messages are illustrating how you do business.  At the end of the day, are you helpful and clear or do people end up confused or frustrated, calling your customer service center? No matter what, make sure you’ve got the basics covered:

• Use a straight-forward subject line and your recognizable brand as the from name. The subject line should confirm the action just taken: “Order confirmation #123″ or “Your account has been canceled” or “Your items have been shipped.” Avoid sending emails from names like Customer Service because readers won’t recognize it and will have a hard time finding the email later when searching for it.
• Include all possible details about what just happened and with whom. People want to know that the actions they took were registered correctly. For a purchase confirmation, this would include billing and shipping names and addresses, the quantity/size/color/product number(s) and description, payment details, gift wrapping and note details, etc.
• Make your customer service contact details clear and prominent. If customers have to dig around for this information, they will get frustrated.
• Proactively offer information on return/cancellation policies or any other restrictions related to their transaction. If your policies are long and detailed, you can always link to them instead of including them in full.
• Tell them what’s next. If you’ll be sending a shipping confirmation once their products have left the warehouse, let them know to expect that. Are you sending a product review request a week after shipment? Say so.
• Link to your privacy policy.

To take your messages to the next level, you need to consider ways that you can strengthen a customer’s engagement and tie to your brand. How can you get them to dig a little deeper, learn a little more, increase their trust, build their loyalty - and in the end, open up their wallets again? Consider the following to continue customer involvement:

• Upsell/Cross-sell. Are there related products, accessories or services that make sense to mention at the bottom or side of the email?
• Offer a coupon/special deal for next purchases or for family and friends. Adding a deadline to coupons can help spur action.
• Ask customers to sign up for promotions or newsletters via email if they haven’t already and include a link to your sign-up page.
  
• Introduce and link customers to other areas of your site (helpful education tools, reward programs) and/or let them know about your social media presence and encourage them to participate.
  
• Help customers make the most of their purchase through how-to guides or inspirational ideas, as suggested by Margaret Farmakis.

Please note: You must respect the transactional nature of the email you’re sending by making that information prominent and not overwhelming your message with marketing. Chris Wheeler, Bronto’s Director of Deliverability, likes to say that the message should pass the “Grandma” or “Mom” test: Would your Mom think this was a marketing piece or a confirmation message of some sort? If she would say marketing or be unsure, you’ve crossed the line and need to dial the promotional content back.

Ultimately, sending messages that provide complete information on a customer’s transaction and secondarily, link to helpful resources and offer additional product suggestions can help customers feel positively about their experience and encourage repeat interactions.

Take a look at your current messages and evaluate what can be improved. What changes are you planning to boost the customer experience? What tweaks have you already seen make a big impact?

I’d love to know.

Kristen Gregory
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto

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• To kick things off, The Email Guide provided a download of the 5 things email marketers mailing to Canadian subscribers need to know about Bill C-27. Al Iverson provided his take on why the bill could be a very good thing while Ken Magill posted a counter argument as to why opt-in shouldn’t be a requirement.
• Alex Williams and Chad White provide tips on how to get started planning, how to smartly increase frequency and stand out during the holiday season. Also, in case you missed it, Bronto hosted a webinar with the 6 holiday email marketing must-haves to create a successful holiday campaign. You can find the archive of the webinar here.
• Will Google Wave, and now Mozilla’s Raindrop, be the death of email? J.D. Falk doesn’t think so, but find out what he believes the impact of these two new players will have on email marketing.
• In today’s world it’s becoming more vital to stand out in the inbox and engage with your subscribers. What better way to do this than provide relevant and targeted content? Dylan Boyd walks through all the reasons why a preference center matters and Stephanie Miller compliments that post with some concrete, monetary reasons to optimize your preference center.
• Linda Bustos reviews case studies and provides advice on how to optimize the above the fold section of websites. Could her advice warrant testing for email as well?
• Are you looking for some subject line inspiration to pack a powerful inbox punch? Janine Popick provides 50 subject lines she feels hit the mark.

What do you think the impact will be of Bill C-27? Are you in favor of or against the (potentially) new regulations? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Kelly Lorenz
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto
@KNLorenz

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1. Best of the Blogosphere: Week of 9/28 This week there is ample advice flowing on how...
2. Best of the Blogosphere: Week of 10/5 This week we’re talking about the impact of social media...
3. New Feature: Best of the Blogosphere We here at Bronto take pride in being experts in...