E-Mail Deliverabilitys Future: Total Transparency

Whats been the greatest boost to e-mail deliverability since the Internet bubble burst in 2000? The growing transparency throughout the e-mail industry. Its helped dispel much of the uncertainty that plagued e-mail marketing in the early days.

We previously illustrated how e-mail marketing and e-newsletter publishing have evolved from batch-and-blast simplicity to a more complex, trustworthy marketing channel. These six developments illustrate how transparency contributed to that evolution.

Authentication Systems Establish Identities

Transparency means recipients know you are who you claim to be. In e-mails early days, spam was the first factor to undermine recipient confidence in e-mail as a marketing channel. Address spoofing was right behind.

Today, you must prove your identity all along the delivery chain. Authentication systems check to see either if you are who you claim to be (SPF and SenderID) or that youre an authorized sender (DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM). ISPs are beginning to use authentication systems to either block or pass along e-mail.

Some authentication systems operate invisibly. Others, including DKIM, may include a visible notice in the message (e.g., Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by CompanyX.com). Authentication systems can also originate with the end user, such as a recipients challenge-response program that requires unknown senders to authenticate themselves before an e-mail is delivered.

Authentication hasnt solved the spam and phishing problems, but the transparency they foster should help make legitimate senders stand out better.

Reputation Vendors Expose Systems ISPs Use to Block, Filter, or Deliver E-Mail

Transparency occurs here because the workings of these previously closed systems are now open to e-mail senders through the efforts of reputation venders, such as SenderBase and TrustedSource. Your IP address reputation is no longer a mystery. Either of these sites can show you how the world views your e-mail patterns.

Often, your only clue your e-mail wasnt delivered is a cryptic, coded e-mail bounce message from an ISP or recipient server. More often, nothing comes back at all. Now, more e-mail broadcast solutions are incorporating delivery monitoring that uses seed addresses to track whether and where e-mail is delivered. This also adds to transparency.

ISPs, Vendors, and E-Mail Industry Trade Groups Offer Best-Practices Policies

E-mailers who follow these policies are more likely to have a greater number of their e-mail messages delivered. They include e-mail bounce and address management, delivery volume, opt-in practices, content triggers, and IP address integrity, among other factors.

These policies also reinforce the idea that transparency extends to the e-mailers own program. In this context, transparency means the senders subscription process clearly explains what the subscriber is signing up for, what e-mail hell receive, how often hell receive it, what the sender will or will not do with the address, and how to unsubscribe.

This creates the atmosphere of trustworthiness an ISP looks for (via accreditation services) in determining whether to block, filter, or pass on e-mail.

Postmaster Pages and Relay Feedback Legitimize Commercial E-Mailers

AOL sets the industry standard for transparency. Its information-rich site details every aspect of sending bulk mail to its customers. AOL also was a leader in establishing feedback loops that return rejected messages to their senders along with the reason for the rejection.

This means senders must monitor spam complaints, bounced e-mail messages, and reply-to e-mails more closely, but all these are essential steps if you send e-mail to the major ISPs. They also contribute to the transparency that makes e-mail sending more accountable.

Find more information here:

• Road Runner
  
  
• United Online (NetZero, Juno)
  
  
• Yahoo!
  
  
• MSN/Hotmail
  
  
• Outblaze

E-Mail Senders and Receivers Work Together to Reduce Spam

A truce in the standoff between ISPs and permission e-mailers was declared in 2003, when a small group of e-mail senders and receivers sat down together to air grievances and share concerns.

Out of that meeting came industry working groups and trade associations, including the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, which tackles e-mail spam and fraud issues, and the Email Sender and Provider Coalition, made up of ISPs, e-mail service providers, agencies, and senders who review concerns, develop solutions, advocate for the industry, and promote responsible practices.

ISPs Filter Out Bad E-Mail and Filter In Permission E-Mail.

The détente between e-mail senders and ISPs helped blunt a previous bias against bulk e-mail, a stance ISPs took in the 90s to stave off a rising flood of junk e-mail.

Permission e-mailers were able to show how simplistic content filters or restrictive server settings blocked requested e-mail, both commercial messages and transactional messages. These e-mailers are the ones who have demonstrated theyre willing to work within an ISPs requirements.

ISPs are also learning to identify and trust e-mail sent from clients of third-party authentication systems, reputation vendors, and e-mail certification agencies that guarantee their legitimacy. This guaranteed e-mail now bypasses regular server-level filters and is delivered to the inbox as requested.

Transparency, both in e-mail sending and delivery, has helped banish some of the mystery and uncertainty that once prevented marketers from understanding how to use e-mail effectively.

If youre still in the dark about why your e-mail isnt delivered, or even if you dont think you have a delivery problem, you need to come into the light. You can start by taking our survey on e-mail deliverability issues. Well report results in a future ClickZ column.

Until next time, keep on deliverin.

Want more e-mail marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our e-mail columns, organized by topic.