This guest post was written by Tom Kulzer, the CEO of Aweber. If you don’t already know about Aweber, you need to check them out. Well worth the minimal cost to take advantage of their rock solid email management system and their industry high deliverability rates. Check them out here: Aweber.
Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.
Permission
Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.
Subscriber Addresses
When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.
List Maintenance
Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.
Message Format
Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.
Content
Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.
Website URL:
Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.
Words/phrases:
Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.
Images:
Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.
Attachments:
With viruses running rampant and spreading through the usage of malicious email attachments, many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.
CAN-SPAM Compliance
The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.
Reputation
Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:
- http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
- http://www.bondedsender.com
- http://www.habeas.com
Relationships & Whitelisting
Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.
Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.
Check out Aweber today: Aweber.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:20 am
These are great tips, thanks for sharing them. Its always good to know to send out emails without looking too spammy and it getting put in the spam folder.
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:50 am
I have never had success with sending out emails. With all of the spam filters and other problems out there. Plus all it takes is one person crying spam sometimes to get you in trouble with your ISP. Even if they opted into your list. I know there is value in it I just got away from it a few years ago and sort of had a bad taste in my mouth about it ever since.
I would say about half of the newsletters that I subscribe to actually get kicked into my spam box. While I can go and get them out and whitelist them, I don't think the average user ever even checks their spam folders.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 am
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August 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 am
These is a very nice article
I like it!
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I've never really had a problem with sending out emails, but that's probably since I never mass-mail anybody.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 pm
According to me the first thing to be taken care of is the e-mail Subject line. An attractive subject line creates an interest in the reader to open the mail.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
a great idea that shared to us, thanks for this post man…
August 24th, 2009 at 9:01 am
I use Aweber for a blog I run and it is really good, the reporting is very comprehensive and really make it easier to improve your open rates.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:09 am
thanks for sharing these great tips.nice post.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:58 am
thanks again for more great tips. I use phplist which does a lot of the opt in conformation process I still have trouble when it sends out as I think I need to do some of the things mentioned to improve my chances.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for the heads up and tips. I will try these out. Aweber just rocks!
August 25th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
This is an extremely intriguing topic for me. I have tried a couple of the email delivery tracking software packages. Well, it turns out that they use an invisible embedded tracking image to determine email status. Ironically, with email systems like Gmail, it is the existence of this very tracking device(web beacon) that causes the email to be blocked. It was very disappointing to discover this as I thought the programs had promise. Anyway, I don't think there's any substitute for opt-in and whitelisting email addresses.
August 30th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I'm a huge fan of AWeber for sending out my customer newsletters. and haven't found many other email systems that are as effective. CAN-SPAM has certainly changed the entire landscape for email campaigns and rightfully so.
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Good advice.
Whenever I send it to my e-mail list I always try to avoid using HTML in the message. I think it's a lot more likely to get flagged as spam.
People also know that if you have a relationship with them then they are much more likely to purchase whatever it is that you are advertising.
September 5th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
AWeber offers users unsubscribe options only for the lists they are subscribed to.
There are a couple of settings you can play with in AWeber to control what unsubscribe options users see but it’s not a very in-depth area of the system – I think you can only choose to make either “unsubscribe from everything you are on” or “only unsubscribe from this list” options…if that makes sense.
Hope that helps!
September 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Good suggestion for email deliverability. Thanks for good information.
September 16th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
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September 18th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Your blog is so informative
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
great tips. many time i faced some issue over deliver ability of my imp emails.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:10 am
great tips. many time i faced some issue over deliver ability of my imp emails. thanks.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Great tips, will be helpful while emailing. All tips are very well defined.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Great collection of tips regarding Email Delivery. Some time I face so many problems in delivering mails, but now it sort out. Thanks for the useful tips.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Please recommend me an email marketing reputable service or company, that offers the automated messages in spanish.
Thanks!
November 14th, 2009 at 6:28 am
Before some time my mails were not delivered. They shown failure notice. Now I got that we must follow the tips so that email deliverable problem never come to you. Thanks for the tips Ryan.
November 17th, 2009 at 6:52 am
To Maintain the emails while opting for an option of Email Marketing, is very important because it take longer time but if we manage the email then it will be so easy for us!!
November 17th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Well I like the blog very much. Its really amazing information. Its really works for me.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:28 am
You are right in the age of spam seems very hard to increase out subscriber inbox. Mostly you have solved this problem by this guest post. Great post.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Content, CAN-SPAM Compliance, Message Format, Permission etc are very useful tips tips for mail deliverable problems.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:40 am
Informative blog,provide a good idea of what spam is and how they affect the e-mails we send.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
The mentioned tips are extremely too good. many time i faced some complications over deliver ability of my imp emails.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:42 am
i like this post!
December 24th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Great tips keep them comming
December 26th, 2009 at 5:04 am
I use aweber before. HTML format has a higher CTR but it's easy to flagged spam and gmail is hiding image. Text is better I guess
December 29th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Nice informative post man! definitely bookmarked
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January 16th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
I’m on board!