Bronto Blog

Imagine the following (very real) scenario:

Your boss sends you a file that includes 50,000 email addresses. You import the list into your account (merging it with the rest of your house file) and "blast away." Within minutes your IP address is blocked at several major ISPs.

What went wrong? All 50,000 email addresses are customers who've purchased in the past and opted-in. Upon sign up, you included a link to your privacy policy. You even have another file that lists the date and IP address associated with each opt-in. So, what happened?

On the surface, it appears that you've done it all by the book. You've satisfied the law (read: CAN-SPAM). You're not a spammer. Why did this happen, if these are your customers?

Upon analyzing these subscribers, you uncover the following information about the 50,000 emails in the file:

• 50% purchased over a year ago, but haven't received an email since that first purchase.
• 25% purchased in the past 6 months, but haven't received an email since that first purchase.
• 25% are repeat buyers (their last purchase < 1 month ago), but haven't received an email in 6 months Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first in a series of three posts written by our partners at Return Path on issues affecting email deliverability. Want more deliverability information? You can check out their blog, the Email Marketing Water Cooler and sign up for real-time alerts when new content is published.

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JupiterResearch recently released a report on email service providers that found that marketers are focused on deliverability when choosing a vendor. While it’s important to work with a top-quality vendor that has the infrastructure in place to get email through to the inbox, most of the reason your email gets blocked is based on reputation factors that are completely outside the control of ESPs.

There are 5 factors that make up your sender reputation:

1. Complaints: Your complaint rate is the most important element of your sending reputation. ISPs collect complaints in a number of ways, the most well known is the "this is spam" button. But email recipients can also complain by writing to their ISP directly (e.g., abuse@yahoo.com) or by using a third-party service like SpamCop.
2. Unknown User Rate: Sending large volumes of undeliverable email into a system suggests that you might be "guessing" at email addresses in an attempt to spam or that you have poor list management practices. Either way it's a red flag to ISPs. Read the rest of this entry »