Bronto Blog

The post Email Address Shelf Life generated several interesting comments. One in particular struck me as worthy of responding with a new post. Linda Bustos, a reader and fellow blogger asked:

Would staggering the deployment or "blast" help? Could you segment out the different subscriber types you described? (ie send the first batch to the most recent time lags, then send to the next time group etc)?

After the hair on my arms returned to its normal, dormant state (the word "blast" makes me cringe), I thought about Linda's question. My gut response was, "Sure. That would be a reasonable strategy." In fact, I've worked with clients in the past helping them implement this approach. I have always cautioned clients that "you must be very careful with this strategy." The key is sending to small segments - very targeted - and being diligent about tracking the key metrics. When your open rates, click-throughs, and conversions begin to slip while complaints, unsubscribes, and hard bounces rise…it's time to call it quits.

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Our latest Bronto poll question asked, “Have you ever used the SPAM button in Yahoo! to mark all messages as SPAM even if they were not?" We uncovered that 46% stated they have not used the spam button to delete messages in mass. You can see below that users can easily select all messages and then deem them as spam with the click of a button.

However, 21% did in fact admit that yes they have clicked the spam button and knowingly marked messages that were not spam as spam. (Our poll also found that currently 38% don’t use Yahoo! as their email provider). You can see below the message that a user receives after they mark a message spam, clearly indicating their actions and assuring that Yahoo!'s spam guard will improve through their actions.

The option consumers are given within Yahoo! to deem messages as spam does indeed affect the deliverability of email marketing campaigns – thus consumers should take this option seriously. Consumers need to accurately use the tools Yahoo! has given them in order to receive the messages they want. My motto is “play fair” – don’t tamper a sender’s reputation by bad consumer behavior.

Kimberly Snyder
Account Manager at Bronto

In the final post in a 3-part series (see first and second) written by our partners at Return Path, Dan Deneweth continues the discussion 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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Spammers have negatively influenced email in lots of ways, with one of the most visible being the need for image suppression. There is no question that the average consumer prefers pretty, graphically-enhanced email over the boring, plain text versions. But there is also no question that the average consumer prefers that pictures with "adult" themes don't accidentally pop up while at the office or in front of impressionable kids. The ISPs have combated this problem by suppressing graphics — essentially treating all images as potentially problematic. (Thank you, Mr. Spam.) Despite how widespread this practice has become, few marketers really think about how image suppression affects their email program. They should. Why? Four reasons:

1. Image suppression messes up your tracking: Open rates are calculated when an invisible graphic pings your servers. No graphic, no ping, no open. Data from DoubleClick and others suggests that an overall decline in open rates is due to the rise in image suppression. Knowing this when analyzing your data is important.
2. Image suppression can make your email unreadable: Depending on how your email is designed, your message without images might look very bad or it might be completely unintelligible. Through the design process consider what the email will look like without graphics. You may not be able to make it look great, but you can at least make it readable.
3. Image suppression limits your response rates: When someone can't see your email, or read your email, they are less likely to interact with it. How much money do you leave on the table because your best offer is in a graphic that doesn't display?
4. Image suppression can hurt deliverability: When subscribers don’t recognize an email because images are blocked, they may inadvertently mark it as spam. Also, the lack of responses (reason #3) and tracking (reason #2) can lead to poor marketing decisions, hurting the relevance and value of your program.

Our recommendation is to design for life without images. You can design a very attractive HTML message with no images at all. Most importantly, don’t use images in place of text. Instead, think of images as the spice in your message – a little bit goes a long way. It’s also crucial to use a safety link at the top of your message include hyperlinked copy that says, “Can’t read this email? Click here to view in your browser.”

Spend a little time on your email design and you can create great messages that will be readable in a variety of environments.

Dan Deneweth, Sr. Director, Sender Score Product Management, Return Path

In the second of three posts (see first) written by our partners at Return Path, Stephanie Miller discusses 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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In our previous post, we explained what sender reputation is. By far the biggest factor that affects your sender reputation is complaints. While there are a number of issues that can cause subscribers to complain, a big one is lack of relevance. In other words, your email is not seen as valuable and it’s very tempting to just hit “this is spam” and make it go away.How do you make your email relevant to your subscribers? Focus on them. How can your email make them thinner, richer, happier, more successful? How can you make their life easier? How does your email help them?

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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 »