A wise man once said, “The only constant is change.” This couldn’t be more true for the world of email. Back in the good old days, email deliverability was often determined by your subject line or spammy words used in your content. Change one or two words and “Poof!” you’re in the inbox.  Now things aren’t so simple. ISP’s no longer rely on any one single factor in determining if your email is spam or a legitimate email. 

If you put some planning into your sending patterns and communicate consistently, you will find your deliverability to be greatly improved. For more tips on building relationships with ISP’s, click here.

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Deliverability is always a concern for email marketers.  We do everything we can to get into our subscriber’s inboxes, including setting up authentication records, tweaking our creative and subject lines, and being diligent about maintaining a good reputation on our IP address.

Having your subscribers add your From Email Address to their whitelist is the most coveted of deliverability actions. However, it’s often the hardest to acheive. It’s become a best practice to include a request to your subscribers to whitelist your address in your emails.  However, are you sure your subscribers know how to do this? Many probably do not.

That’s why we developed our “How to Whitelist” page. You can now link to this page from your Publicaster emails and your recipients will have access to whitelisting instructions for the major ISPs.

Check out this new resource here, and feel free to use it in your Publicaster emails. Your subscribers will appreciate the help!

So you think that your emails will be successfully delivered if your sender reputation has been carefully built over time, you use a permission based email list and you have exhaustively tested until you know your email renders across multiple email clients?  Don’t be too too hasty.  According to Marketing Sherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008 AOL, Gmail and Roadrunner tend to give 100% consideration to sender reputation, while MSN/Hotmail only gives 32% to sender reputation.  The remaining 68% consideration for MSN/Hotmail is given to content. 

Just because your message makes it through to a users inbox does not mean it may not get reported as spam, so how that message is perceived is very important.  Readers are so cautious these days that any email that is suspect can and does get reported as SPAM.  Even though your email has passed all the SPAM tests you can run and has gotten past the email client content filters, it’s the ultimate action the end user takes that can that can make content filters adjust their rules.  If enough readers perceive your email as SPAM and report it as such, then the content filter rules adjust based on the content and your deliverability can ultimately be affected.  Even if the content is valid and relevant, perception of the email is key.  Stefan Pollard expounds on this very issue in his most recent ClickZ article, Why Content Is Still an Issue.  He gives a very detailed example of how content filter rules change based on readers actions.

It is imperative to be diligent in creating the content of your email.  Make sure that you understand what triggers a SPAM report, should your emails get reported as SPAM.  By understanding this you can take action to correct what might be causing the user to report the email as SPAM.  The most basic rules still apply when trying to create an email that your reader will not report as SPAM: a branded “from” line, an accurate and concise subject line, design for preview pane and blocked images, respectful frequency based on user preferences, the ability to let a reader unsubscribe easily, SPAM check performed before you send, and if possible the use of a deliverability monitoring service.

Contact your Account Manger if you have any questions concerning your content. 

Many of our clients have signed up for our Delivery Assurance Solutions program and seen significant improvements in their email program.  One we’re particularly excited about is the success Caribbean Tours & Cruises has seen.  They diligently use both the Campaign Preview and Mailbox Monitor tools to tweak and improve their emails for maximum deliverability.  Recently, they hit the 97.9% mark for their Inbox Deliverability!  That is often unheard of in the email industry, and certainly something to be proud of.

Check out our case study to read more.

If you are interested to learn more about how our Delivery Assurance Solutions can help your email program, click here.

This week we ran the first in our new series of informative webinars. Each event will cover a topic relating to your email experience.

Our first event was all about deliverability, authentication, and our new Sender Score Monitor program. We had such a great turnout that we will be running an encore presentation on Wednesday, March 26th at 3:30pm EST. We will show you how to:

• See Your Email Campaigns Render Across 17 Email Clients
• Monitor Your Email Delivery across the Major ISP’s
• Get WhiteListed as a Legitimate Email Marketer

Don’t miss out, click here to register!

A clean list of quality, opt-in subscribers is worth its weight in gold in the email world. Keeping your list current and free of invalid email addresses will ultimately lead to improved email deliverability. Managing your bounces is one way to do this. Read on for the steps you can take to keep your list clean and up-to-date.

Get more great email marketing tips and ideas by subscribing to our monthly e-newsletter, Factory Direct.

Deliverability has been a hot topic lately. There are a few things that can be done to improve your overall deliverability, specifically setting up SPF, SenderID and Domain Keys. The water has been muddied regarding these topics and an in-depth discussion is well beyond what will be discussed below. However, I would like to hit on some of the key points of why they are totally worth your time to setup. With just a few simple DNS entries, we have seen deliverability to certain ISPs improve from 10 – 20%.

As you all know, it is a constant struggle for legitimate email marketers to separate themselves from the droves of evil spammers. ISPs try their best to differentiate SPAM from email that their users want to receive (remember, ISPs view SPAM as email their users don’t want). However, given the volume of email ISPs receive and lengths spammers go through to disguise their content, it is very difficult for the ISPs to get it perfect.

I would like to tell you that all ISPs got together in a giant love fest and agreed on a way to prove a certain piece of email was actually sent by you. That would make all our lives much much easier. However, it’s not the case.

Instead, three basic methods (SPF, SenderID and Domain Keys) were adopted to help you communicate to the ISPs that the email is in fact from you. The only thing they all have in common is that they require a simple TXT entry into a DNS server. Think of a DNS as the phonebook of the internet. If you own a domain name (ex. mydomainname.com), all the information the geeks need to do stuff is contained in the DNS. If you own a domain name, then you have a DNS server.

Let’s take a quick look at how each of the different techniques tries to accomplish their task.

First, let’s go over SPF/SenderID. For the the sake of this conversation SPF and SenderID are the same, as SenderID is merely Microsoft’s verison of SPF.

When you send an email from Publicaster, you specify in your campaign the Friendly From Address, which is the email address recipients will see the email came from. Publicaster then takes this information, puts it into the raw email message and sends it off to the ISP. Once your email comes into the mail server for an ISP, four things occur:

1. The ISP looks at the email which is sent from our email server and determines that it came from Publicaster. This information is stored in the inner workings of how email is transferred from server to server.

2. The ISP determines that the email is supposed to be from the Friendly From Address.

3. Next, the ISP looks to your DNS server and basically asks the question, “Is Publicaster allowed to send email on your behalf?”

4. Then your DNS server responds back with a Yes, No or Maybe. What you want is to make sure of is that the answer is Yes!

The third method, Domain Keys, tries to do the same thing as SPF, but it requires that your email have an electronic signature. No need to worry, Publicaster handles all that for you. With Domain Keys, rather than just looking at the Friendly From Address on which to base its decision, the ISP takes the signature contained in the email and pulls from your DNS another special entry. Some mathematical hocus pocus is performed and the ISP can tell if this message is from a legitimate source.

Now I have painted some really broad strokes here, but the common theme is that two simple entries need to be made into the DNS server for the domain you are using to send mail. Once made, the deliverability should improve dramatically.

Blue Sky Factory can help you through this process as one of the services we perform for you. Email bsfsupport@blueskyfactory.com or contact your account manager and we will get you all setup and walk you through any DNS modifications.

Over the next few months, I will talk some more about the technical why and how of Domain Keys and SPF. I will also try to start some discussions on IP reputation and why it’s as important as content.

In our continuing efforts to provide our clients with the best email marketing tools in the industry, Blue Sky Factory has partnered with Return Path to offer the Sender Score Monitor Program. This invaluable service allows you to identify and minimize deliverability trouble before ever hitting the “send” button, helping to ensure maximum performance from your email lists. Interested in what this new program can do for you and your emails? Read more here.

Want to be the first to know about future Blue Sky Factory annoucements? Sign up to receive Factory Direct, our monthly company e-newsletter.

Earlier this week Bulldog Solutions hosted a great webinar on email deliverability for lead generation. Expert panelists for the event included Stephanie Miller from Return Path, Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity, and Ryan Rutan from National Instruments. The presentation included questions from the audience, pre-submitted and live, about all facets of email deliverability, including:

• The email marketing landscape
• Mobile viewing of emails
• Strategies for getting into the Inbox
• Standard metrics
• Creative message considerations

You can check out the webcast of this event with the original slides and recording by clicking here.

Wendy Roth writes a great piece for iMedia Connection on the core metrics every email marketer should measure. She states some of the clear and obvious ones, but also discusses some that are very important and often are overlooked. The top 7 metrics to watch on Wendy’s list are:

• Delivery
• Opens
• Clickthroughs
• Funnel navigation
• Conversions
• Unsubscribes
• Spam complaints

These are all key metrics in measuring the true performance of your campaigns and more imporantly giving you the data you need to accurately tweak and optimize your efforts. One of the metrics that stood out to me was “funnel navigation” which essentially is the path that your customers will hopefully take to the point of converting. As Wendy mentions, its important to keep an eye on where your users are going off the click and hopefully to the point of acting on whatever your conversion event is, a sale, an RSVP, a lead, etc.

Here is a graphic used in Wendy’s article that helps visually show the funnel navigation process:

Its very important to watch where your recipients are going once they click. We always advise on the path of least resistance, meaning make your funnel navigation path as short and as sweet as possible. Guide your customers to where you want them, clearly and concisely. Watch what works and change what doesn’t.

Check out the complete “In Focus” series by Wendy Roth “Email Marketing: What to Measure”