When the script doesn't work

DJ asks in the comments of Friday’s post:

As Seth said, great reminder. For those that have great processes/channels in place, I’ve found incredible success. However, sometimes I’ve found my answer on Twitter (i.e., @godaddyguy). Also, there have been times where I’ve gone through the script (i.e., shaw.ca) and have never heard back. What then?

This is the reason ISP relations folks get paid the big bucks, DJ! To sort these kinds of problems out.
Generally, if I’m having problems getting a response from an ISP, and a client is having problems delivering mail I sit down with the client to have a discussion about how important that domain is. We look at data including percentage of addresses on the list affected by the block and the monetary value of those addresses on the list. If the client decides that this is a block worth getting lifted then we try to determine the type of block. Content based blocks are different than URL based blocks are different than IP based blocks.
If we decide the block is probably content or URL based then we start making changes to the email to see if that resolves the issue. Most of these kinds of blocks are “bucket” blocks and tweaking things can often keep the bucket from overflowing. Senders have quite a bit of control over what is happening for this type of block, and usually can restart email delivery without contacting the ISPs just by changing how they send email.
If the block is IP based, that’s a little harder to resolve without ISP involvement, but if the block is IP based and the ISP does not respond to requests for help, then that itself is a very telling piece of data. It usually means that something the sender has done has convinced the ISP that the sender is a spammer. The ISP isn’t interested in resolving the issue. If the ISP is large, this can be a problem for the sender and may take enlisting the help of a 3rd party to act as an independent negotiation. If the ISP (or domain) is small, the sender may find it easier to write off those recipients and just ignore the block.
My client base is a mix of issues. Some of them get advice from me and blocks get resolved without having to contact the ISP at all. For those who have hard blocks and ISPs won’t talk to them, most of my time is spent collecting data from the ISPs and providing the client with a roadmap to externally visible changes. Once the changes are implemented, then I approach the ISP on their behalf. Usually, if there are real changes in sending, the ISPs are much more likely to listen, whether I’m using their scripts or using a backchannel.

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Email and the Obama Campaign

Late in the summer there were people talking about the spam coming from Senator Obama’s presidential campaign. At that time, most of the discussion was focused on the open subscription form on their website and that there were some individuals who had been fraudulently signed up and were now receiving email from the campaign.
Last week, the Senator’s campaign again became a topic of discussion among some anti-spam groups. The maintainer of one of the more respected public blocklists and members of his family received mail from Senator Obama’s presidential campaign at their personal addresses. Because the mail was unsolicited and met the qualifications for listing, the sending IP addresses were listed on the blocklist. In response, the campaign’s ESP started moving the Senator’s mail to other IP addresses, resulting in those IPs also being listed on the blocklist as well.
I talked with the blocklist maintainer and I believe that his address, and those of his family members, were added to the Senator’s mailing list as the result of an email append. All of them are registered Democrats and they all live in a battleground state.
This may have made for good campaign strategy, not being an expert I cannot comment on that. It is, however, very poor email marketing strategy.
First, the campaign decided to appropriate permission to send email. There is not ever permission associated with an email append. Just because you have a name and a street address does not mean that you have permission to send email. In very, very limited circumstances, an opt-in append (click here to continue receiving email) may be acceptable. However, that is not how appending is normally done.
There is no pretense of permission to send email. Just because someone is registered to a particular party does not mean they want to receive email from that party.
Second, when the campaign started seeing delivery problems they started sending off different IP addresses. Moving IPs around is out and out spammer behavior, no questions asked.
Now, I know this is a very hotly contested election and I know that some people believe that any method of getting the word out is good. I also expect that there may have been some positive reaction from recipients. The overall reaction, based on the IPs changing, may not have been so positive.
Do I really believe that Senator Obama is a evil and willful spammer? No, not really. But that does not change the fact that the Obama campaign seems to be sending email without the permission of the recipient and seem to be attempting to evade blocks by moving IP addresses.
From a marketing perspective, the campaign may be using email effectively and doing everything right. But from an email delivery perspective, they are getting many, many of the basics wrong and are looking like spammers in the process.
Other news and blogs that talk about spam from the Obama campaign:

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Information you should know

MailChimp is using microformats technology to allow recipients to add senders to their address book from the subscription page. All senders should tell recipients what address mail is coming from at the point of subscription and encourage recipients to add the senders to their address books. This new technology simplifies that for the recipient.
Denise Cox posts about a recent conference she attended in London looking at what makes email valuable. She has many good suggestions on how to improve your ROI, but captures the essence of getting a good ROI on mail in 3 sentences.

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McCain Campaign Spamming

As I mentioned in my post on spam from the Obama campaign, there have been reports of spam coming from the McCain campaign. However, the McCain campaign does not seem to be sending the volume of mail that the Obama campaign is, and so they are not as visible.
A recent post over at Denialism Blog shows that the McCain campaign has some of the same problems as the Obama campaign. Chris talks about the unsubscribe options he is presented when trying to stop the spam he is receiving. He suggests the campaign adds another option:

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