Email Marketing

Hi All

Is there anyone out there who can tell me what the preferreed email standard for Gmail, AOL and Yahoo so that the email sent does not go into Bulk./Junk box.

For example, does gmail prefer all text in the email and no graphics or one simple graphic at the bottom. Can you be a bit more creative with AOL , i.e. include more graphics etc.

What does Hotmail prefer more text to graphics??

Basically currently running some tests on the above, but openrates would suggest that email being sent to customer list is potentially going into bulk (classed as spam??) . However, the email marketing package I am using (one of the top 5 suppliers) is tellign that the email has a really low spam score.

Thanks
Jason

Hi Jason,
The spam score you are getting from your supplier sounds like it is a Spam Assassin score - this is an open source spam filter which all major email marketing providers offer.

Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and Gmail do not utilise this filter so you may well see your email still land in the junk mail folder. They have their own filters which are far more complicated than simply looking at text vs image ratio or keywords although this does have some bearing.

More important nowadays is showing you are a trusted sender. This means:

1) Where a whitelist exists make sure your IP address is on here

2) Maintain a low bounce rate at each of the ISP's - the ISP argument is if they are telling you the address does not exist then act on it! Only spammers ignore messages

3) Make sure your email provider has a feedback loop set-up at AOL and Hotmail - anyone reporting your email as spam should then automatically get unsubscribed from your list

4) Do you have a dedicated IP address? This is important not because of worries about blacklisting from another user of the IP address getting complaints but reduces the volume of email going through from the IP address when you are sending which makes a big difference

5) Have you set-up a sender ID record for your company? This is basically a record you publish of IP addresses that can send email out on your behalf. You need to do this and include your suppliers IP addresses. Hotmail and Yahoo are using this more and more

At Emailcenter we provide our users with a number of tools to enable you to test and monitor your campaigns at the major B2C domains including:

• Inbox Seeding - test before you send the email how each domain will classify your email. Will it be placed in the inbox, junk folder or completely rejected?
• Domain reports - monitor bounce, open and click-thru rates at each of the major ISPs individually to ensure there are no problems at any of these.

Running the email through the spam assassin filter like you currently do is no longer enough and you need to make sure you look at the five points above. Content can still be important at the likes of Hotmail/AOL etc. Here are our general tips for things to look at:

1) Subject line - text in here is rated far more important than anything in your body message. Make this as non-salesy as possible if you are struggling with deliverability
2) Image/Text ratio - Yahoo in particular does not like a HTML email which is simply a whole image sliced up into a number of images with image maps for links
3) Unsubscribe text - if you are having problems getting the email through alter how this is phrased

Regards
Sean Duffy
Emailcenter UK
www.emailcenteruk.com

On 15:35:58 14 November 2006 Rocket wrote:

 

Hi All

Is there anyone out there who can tell me what the preferreed email standard for Gmail, AOL and Yahoo so that the email sent does not go into Bulk./Junk box.

For example, does gmail prefer all text in the email and no graphics or one simple graphic at the bottom. Can you be a bit more creative with AOL , i.e. include more graphics etc.

What does Hotmail prefer more text to graphics??

Basically currently running some tests on the above, but openrates would suggest that email being sent to customer list is potentially going into bulk (classed as spam??) . However, the email marketing package I am using (one of the top 5 suppliers) is tellign that the email has a really low spam score.

Thanks
Jason