Dec
29
By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman
Last year I thought it would be easier to make a list of things that WOULDN'T happen in 2008. Well, that turns out to be 60% true. Below see my original list of "unpredictions" as published on January 2, 2008 alongside an accounting of how I fared.
1. Email won't die! Despite at least 38 articles which will be published during 2008 predicting the imminent demise of our beloved channel, there will be more people using it, more companies using it, and more emails sent in 2008 than in 2007.
Thumbs up: Email certainly didn't die. It remains a strong, vibrant and interesting channel.
2. Multichannel retailers won't send out more email per subscriber in 2008 than they did in 2007. The best ones have already gotten the idea that less is more - or at least that less CAN BE more if segmentation, targeting, and user preference centers are done properly.
Thumbs down: Segmentation didn't increase appreciably this year. Too many email marketers continued ...
Categories: Email Deliverability | News
Dec
23
Our new episode of Reputation Radio is available now on iTunes.
In this special abbreviated episode we interview Bonnie Malone about the Unsubscribe Experiences study (which you can download here). We've shortened our 'cast to just one segment for this week -- give it quick listen then get out and start your holidays early. And don't forget to subscribe!
Do you have a question or an idea for our podcast? ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
17
By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman
As I've been saying these days, our primary goal here at Return Path is to make the email channel safe for legitimate use by consumers, commercial senders and Internet Service Providers. That is why we set out to revamp our Sender Score.org reputation portal. Sender Score.org provides everyone (senders AND receivers of email) with access to their Sender Score.
We invented the Sender Score reputation measure which gives nearly every IP on the planet a score based on the metrics that distinguish legitimate email from spam: volume, complaint rates, unknown user rates, infrastructure, spam trap hits and content. Scores are based on data contributed by ISPs and other receivers of large volume email.
By using Return Path's Sender Score reputation measure and blacklist information compiled through our cooperative reputation network, there is now a level playing field for all email senders to have access to data that ISPs and other email receivers can use to determine whether to accept or reject email.
Not only does the site have an improved design and navigation
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
16
By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman
Authentication is an important component in creating a better and more secure email universe. Unfortunately, just say the word "authentication" and most email marketers' eyes glaze over. It sounds technical. It sounds boring. It sounds hard.
And yet it's important. While there aren't any ISPs today that are blocking email solely because the server isn't authenticated, it is absolutely one of the factors that influences deliverability. Unauthenticated servers are more suspicious. Over time we believe it will become an increasingly important factor and it is even possible that some receivers will outright block any email that isn't authenticated.
Because of this the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) made a smart (and bold!) statement when they required all member companies to authenticate their email. They knew it was the right stand to take for the industry.
Of course creating the requirement did not make it easier and the DMA knew that it would need to provide members with educational resources and innovative tools and services to get the job done. If legitimate companies aren't authenticating their email it is almost certainly because they need help, not because they don't think it's important.
Which is why last summer Return Path announced a partnership between the DMA and Return Path to create a registry to help DMA member companies verify the authentication of their email streams. The goal of this registry is to help DMA members quickly and easily determine whether or not their mailing IPs are authenticated. If they aren't in compliance, the registry gives DMA members the information they need to fulfill the authentication requirement.
And it is now live! ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
11
Our new episode of Reputation Radio is available now on iTunes.
In this episode we interview Ken Takahashi about mobile marketing in the Asia Pacific region and the implications for U.S. marketers as mobile continues to grow here. Then, in our Cool Email Idea segment ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
06
By J.D. Falk
Director of Product Management, Receiver Products
After more than a decade of fits and starts, fear and doubt, lies and lobbying, legislative attention towards spam now seems to arrive in regular waves. Our friend Dennis Dayman reports on deliverability.com that a new law has taken effect in Israel, requiring (in short) opt-in -- and so according to the International Herald Tribune, Israeli marketers were rushing to re-confirm questionable subscriptions before the deadline this past Monday. In Canada, Internet law expert Michael Geist lambasted his government for continuing to fail to pass any anti-spam legislation, four years after he and the National Task Force on Spam -- which also included our own Neil Schwartzman -- strongly urged them to take immediate action. And this week at the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, I've heard representatives from more than a dozen governments from all over the world discussing not whether "cyber crime" legislation is necessary, but rather how it should be formulated to fit their local legal standards and culture.
Even in the United States, with both foes and supporters of the incoming administration waiting to learn what President Obama and his staff will do, there are clear signs that ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
02
Raymond Gannon
Business Development Manager
As we continue to grow internationally at Return Path, we have joined ETIS, the global IT Association for Telecommunications. ETIS is a European organization which brings together the major telecommunications providers in Europe to share best-practices, create benchmarking data and form discussion groups on important technology issues.
I'm excited to be a part of this group and I believe that our participation ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
01
By Stephanie Miller
Global Markets Catalyst
My esteemed colleague J.D. Falk highlighted the results of a test done by our friends at MailChimp that shows that emailing to an old file caused complaints and unsubscribe to spike dramatically, and for opens and click rates to drop dramatically. No surprise, right?
Yet, if I was a marketer only focused on results, I'd look at this data another way. I'd say, "Hey - I got 7,688 clicks on the 'bad' list and only 6,925 clicks on the 'good' list. I doubled my bounty! So mailing the bad list was totally worth it! Let's do that again. Party on!"
How many of us have found ourselves struggling with this sort of situation? We know the best practice is to not email old files. We know the best practice is to refrain from emailing that extra campaign this week. However, at the same time we are under pressure to drive short term revenue. "The numbers are down, just send another email campaign." And it works - the extra email campaign drives revenue.
In this case, not following best practices generated a lot of traffic. The MailChimp study doesn't say if the old file clicks converted at the same rate, but let's assume that they were at least comparable. There was some gold in that there old file. Of course there was a lot of shiny rocks, too. ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability | Response
Nov
26
By J.D. Falk
Director of Product Management, Receiver Products
Over the past 35 years, scientific research has found that human beings and chimpanzees share approximately 94% of our DNA, the basic structures that define how we grow and evolve. This study caused a bit of a shock when it was released: our collective belief that we're vastly different from and superior to our hairier, dumber cousins was shaken.
But some research is less surprising, nearly as evident to we thinking beings as the use of tools. Earlier this week, our supremely intelligent partners Mail Chimp published the results of a study showing that mailing to an old or inactive list leads inexorably to complaints, unknown users, spamtraps -- all the ingredients of the kind of deliverability problem that'll cause the monkey in the mirror to jump up and down angrily. ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Nov
21
Earlier this year we mentioned that Yahoo! would be joining Sender Score Certified. Well the time has arrived!
During the first week of January, Yahoo! will begin using Sender Score Certified status in their filtering decisions. This means that Sender Score Certified members will receive preferential treatment in reaching the inbox at Yahoo! Mail. This new benefit comes in addition to the long standing benefits at Hotmail, Cloudmark, IronPort, Road Runner, Cox, SpamAssassin, Barracuda, and dozens of other email networks worldwide. This is extremely exciting news for all of our Sender Score Certified members.
In fact, current members will begin ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
