E-consultancy interview: e-mail delivery, spam, blacklists

In our continuing series of interviews...

We’ve asked two e-mail marketing experts the questions we often hear asked about e-mail delivery, spam and ISP blacklisting. Do feel free to reply / ask for further information and explanations or post your own opinions.

There’s quite a lot of text here but a lot of it is good, so worth persevering….

[NB I’ve also attached a file version of this content which you can download / print - it’s at the bottom of the post...]

Question 1
There is research and anecdotal evidence that up to 40% of legitimate commercial e-mails that are sent never even arrive, let along get opened – are the numbers really this high in your experience? Is this getting worse?

Ken Takahashi - Senior Director, Email Operations & ISP Relations - DoubleClick, Inc., www.doubleclick.com/emea
If 40% of your legitimate email goes missing, I’d say you have a serious problem at hand.  Research can always be skewed to make people feel a certain way.  I tend not to look at the numbers too much but rather the opportunity hidden within the findings.  Part of my job is to ensure that all new clients have a good understanding of what my team does.  With that, I get to hear horror stories when it comes to deliverability.  One of my new clients had no ability to get their emails through to AOL, which represented 34% of their customer file.  My team was able to help them re-establish delivery into AOL as soon as they transitioned to DoubleClick’s DARTmail (http://emea.doubleclick.com/uk/products/email_marketing/).

I’d say there are three types of email marketers out there:
1)       marketers that use their in-house systems to deploy messages
2)       marketers that use lower cost providers to handle their outbound deployments
3)       marketers that partner with industry leading innovations, technology and operations like my company (www.doubleclick.com/emea).  Part of that includes having relationships with the world’s top ISPs.

It is clear that sending high volumes of email without professional expertise causes delivery issues for the marketer.  We see most marketers in this position spending less time ’marketing’ and more time in the cat and mouse chase of blocking and unblocking.  Marketers using lower cost providers need to understand that you are only as good as the company they keep.  If your provider attracts a lot of suspect clients on their roster, well that’s what the ISPs think about your provider.  Remember, your provider can get blocked faster than you can. 

At DoubleClick, we look at two metrics.  The first encompasses bounce rates, click-thru rates and HTML open rates.  DoubleClick clients have enjoyed consistently high click-thru and HTML open rates while maintaining low bounce rates.  The second metric is calculated by seeding (of testing) email addresses from the world’s most popular email domains.  DoubleClick clients have experienced little to no issues through this methodology as well.  In the event that there are delivery issues, DoubleClick notifies the client and works to correct the isolated issues.

David Godden, Client Service Director, Bluestreak, http://www.bluestreak.com
It is impossible to gauge a precise figure for legitimate email failing to get to the recipient or whether the mail was opened (other than HTML open records, which are notoriously vague). It is, however, certainly obvious that more legitimate emails are, for myriad of reasons, not getting to their destination.

Many factors are responsible such as email churn, natural aging factors of email addresses, failure of the sender to keep interest in the subject matter fresh, etc. But the most prominent is the plethora of new and upgraded email SPAM filters. Many “false positives” are being seen and only through diligent monitoring and feedback is it possible to get visibility of the problem and thereby apply a solution.

Question 2
What are the obstacles along the way towards an e-mail being delivered (ISPs, corporate filters, user’s spam filtering etc.)? What can you do at each stage to try and make sure your e-mail gets through?

Ken Takahashi - Senior Director, Email Operations & ISP Relations - DoubleClick, Inc., www.doubleclick.com/emea
There are a number of different ways your emails can be prevented from reaching its intended recipients.  I will highlight it here but you can glance through a recent presentation I gave in London at DoubleClick’s annual Insight event for a more in-depth analysis: (http://emea.doubleclick.com/WEB_ADMIN/insightPresentations/Ken%20Takahashi.pdf).
1)       Blacklisting/Blocklisting Influence: a list of known IP addresses that are a source of spam
2)       ISP or Network Level Applications: internal applications at an ISP or corporation
3)       Desktop or Client Level Applications: software or settings on an email system

Depending on the blacklist, ISP, or software, each system out there has a number of different nuances that make email delivery challenging.

At DoubleClick, we focus a good amount of our time on the blacklisting and ISP/Network level.  Not only do these have the greatest impact to your deliverability, but DoubleClick prides itself on handling issues revolving around these solutions.  DoubleClick assigns over 10 professional to deal with issues relating to email delivery on a global basis.  We don’t assign so many individuals because we have so many clients.  We assign so many people because that delivery world is so complex and diverse around the world.  It takes no more people to properly ensure delivery for one client or 100.

DoubleClick works with our clients on the software level since most of these solutions are content based.  Since our clients control their content, they must take the lead on correcting issues revolving around content.

David Godden, Client Service Director, Bluestreak, http://www.bluestreak.com
In the B2B space, corporate filter setups are definitely more stringent now than those of 2 or 3 years ago. Often a company, sending perfectly acceptable content, will be blocked by the very company sending the emails. It is a matter of constantly keeping abreast of the situation; not always easy for a busy marketer who doesn’t have time to consider such pitfalls. This is further exacerbated by the sheer number of permutations when setting up the filter restrictions, at a company level, for content of emails. In some cases, nothing other than emails from known senders, under a certain kb in size, in plain only text with no attachments will get through – not many marketers stand a chance of getting through that!

For the B2C sender, things are not any better. With AOL 9.0 and other new such email releases, “smart” automated SPAM blockers can be set up so only emails from known individuals/companies can make its way into the inbox. This, therefore, becomes an education issue for all users to ensure legitimate emails, that the users has opted in to receive, get through – not an easy message to get across to a large audience.

Question 3
There’s also a lot of talk about black listing and white listing. What do these terms actually mean? How do you avoiding getting blacklisted, how do you know if you have been blacklisted and how can you get yourself un-blacklisted?

Ken Takahashi - Senior Director, Email Operations & ISP Relations - DoubleClick, Inc., www.doubleclick.com/emea
Blacklists and whitelists are tools that ISPs and mail administrators use to help in the decision making criteria when it comes to what email they allow in their network.
Blacklists are a list of IP addresses that are known sources of spam (known is defined by the administrator of the list).  Blacklists can be either public or private. 

The most common blacklists are listed publicly, typically administered by one or two individuals.  Contrary to popular belief, most are not ‘companies’ rather created out of necessity or as a hobby.  These organizations are not government sanctioned nor answer to any authority.  They are simply the opinions of the publisher of the list.  All blacklists are not the same.  There are a few that are run very meticulously and there are also many that are run very haphazardly.  For instance, there is one blacklist that lists the entire IP address range for China (not very exact, I’d say).

Conversely, whitelists are a list of IP addresses that are a trusted source of email.  However, these lists are not public.  Each ISP or email administrator keep a file of IP addresses that they feel are a good source of email.  For example, most major ISPs whitelist emails originating from DoubleClick because of the type of emails we send.  Over the years, the ISPs realize who we are and what companies we are representing.  Although we send high volumes of email on our clients’ behalf, they trust us to be legitimate senders.  It all goes back to the ‘company you keep’ I mentioned in question 1.

David Godden, Client Service Director, Bluestreak, http://www.bluestreak.com
“Listing” typically refers to a list of IP addresses from which mail is sent.  “White Listing” refers to a list of IP addresses that are considered good email citizens and should not be blocked.  “Black Listing” is, of course, the opposite; a list of IP addresses from which mail will not be accepted.

Very few ISPs carry White Lists – AOL and Yahoo do; Hotmail does not.
Blacklists are much more popular.  In addition to Black Lists maintained by ISPs there are many “anti-spam” groups that maintain their own lists.  ISPs can then subscribe to these lists.

Unfortunately, many of the Black Lists offer no process for getting off.  In some cases, an email vendor can find a human willing to listen.  Other lists have absolutely no way to communicate to them.

Question 4
We see a trend towards integrating not just online marketing activities but integrating online with offline marketing. Is there any advice or tips you can give about how e-mail should be used in conjunction with other forms of online or offline marketing? For example, e-mail combined with direct mail?

Ken Takahashi - Senior Director, Email Operations & ISP Relations - DoubleClick, Inc., www.doubleclick.com/emea
This is where DoubleClick shines.  DoubleClick does not simply offer online marketing resources.  We offer an integrated approach to marketing (http://emea.doubleclick.com/uk/customer_solutions/).  Although your marketing organization may be segmented by online and offline, your customers view you as one entity.  Whether or not they spoke to your customer service agent on the telephone, shop on your website, respond to an email offer, or bring in a coupon from your direct mail drop, they are interacting with your company.  So why am I getting different offers from different channels?  If your customer loves email communications, hates direct mail and will only shop online … how much money are you wasting?

The key here is to communicate the way your customer chooses to be communicated with.  Market to them in a way that is convenient and targeted to them, not convenient and easy for you.

David Godden, Client Service Director, Bluestreak, http://www.bluestreak.com
Bluestreak has always been advocates of using a mix of off- and online marketing methods. The two should be seen as combining efforts to get the marketers message across and are certainly not mutually exclusive.

For example, online subscriptions are a hot topic at the moment. Sending out large numbers of printed reminders is expensive. By trying to entice users to subscribe / re-subscribe online saves a lot of time and money. The money saved can be used to either spend on more offline branding campaigns or online database building exercises such as referral programs or online offers.

We have seen many success stories where companies use offline methods to build interest in products and offers, and entice the person to go online to complete a questionnaire, enter a competition or survey for some form of incentive.

Other methods we have seen used successfully include sending emails teasers in the build up to a TV program or live event and printing off vouchers sent via email to bring along to restaurants and bars for money off offers.

Question 5
And finally… we all know about the rising tide of spam. There are all sorts of suggested solutions to this. What’s your own view on how best to protect users and legitimate e-mailers so that the efficacy and credibility of e-mail as a channel is not undermined?

Ken Takahashi - Senior Director, Email Operations & ISP Relations - DoubleClick, Inc., www.doubleclick.com/emea
I hate the saying “there is no silver bullet to spam”, but there truly is no better way of describing it.  It is a problem that has more variables than can be computed.  The easiest way to look at this is to break it down into a few steps.  I recently wrote an article for TRUSTe that describes the approach I recommend (http://truste.org/partners/newsletter/february2004.html#knowledge). 

Simply put:
1) Follow the market: Make sure you are following and keeping up with the latest consumer driven tools.  For example, did you know that asking your customer to add your FROM address in their address book bypasses almost every single consumer application out there?  There are some challenges associated to that but it begs the question, how much does your customer value your emails?

2) Predict the market: For the past 3 to 6 months, every major solution being proposed (such as Caller ID, SPF, Domain Keys, BondedSender) all revolve around one constant theme - your IP address.  Without getting ultra-technical, IP addresses are internet addresses where certain machines connect to the internet.  Depending on your email program, you can be mailing from 1 IP address or 250 different IP addresses.  That (or those) IP address(es) may be dedicated to you or shared amongst hundreds of different email marketers.  If all future solutions are based on IP address it’s about time you make sure that all of your email are going out of the least amount of IP addresses and these addresses have to be specific to your email only.  DoubleClick just finished providing all North American clients this technology and will be rolling this our across Europe in the next few months.

3) The last approach is just as important as the other but far less technical.  Marketers should be marketing (and not worrying about delivery).  After meeting with so many prospects over the past year, I noticed that they are moving resources away from marketing and moving them towards delivery efforts.  While the resources move, the quality of the targeted offer has degraded.  Scary as it seems, most marketers are just blasting messages to the same list over and over.  How are we to target based on user driven data when resources are moving towards non-marketing efforts?  At the end of the day, if you can send targeted messages to the right audience, no one will complain about your emails.  If no one complains about your emails, no one will block your emails.  If no one blocks your emails, you can focus on building the next ‘best offer’ for your customers.

David Godden, Client Service Director, Bluestreak, http://www.bluestreak.com
Pure opt in to receive information via email certainly sees the least number of problems from both complaints and SPAM issues. Where a person unwittingly opts in to receive 3rd party information (or just forgets they have done so) this leads to the most complaints. Bluestreak has always stressed the importance of using in-house lists where a genuine dialogue can be built with the individuals over time, giving the recipient confidence in any communication and dealings. Although bought lists are a means to an end, receipt of 3rd party emails (even with a clear indication of who sent the emails and why they are receiving it) still is instantly seen by many as SPAM.

Reputation systems, such as Bonded Sender from IronPort, are also becoming popular. By having your messages “bonded”, they will almost always bypass all of the filtering mechanisms.

SPAM filters provided by AOL, Hotmail, etc are well intended, but as mentioned, many legitimate emails are being blocked by automated tools. There has certainly been a knee jerk reaction to the problem of SPAM over the last few years which costs the industry an enormous amount of money each day. There will always be SPAM, just as there will always be junk mail, but through use of education, filtering tools, in house lists and relevant communications, the situation will improve.