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Email Deliverability
Tips
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 thru 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.
by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO) -
Back
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Source: http://aweber.com
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