Palpable ennui

Put any group of senders together and the conversation invariably turns to discussions of how to get email delivered to the Inbox. There is an underlying flavor to most of these conversations that is quite sad. Many senders seem to believe that the delivery of their email is outside of their control and that since the ISPs are difficult to reach that senders are stuck. The ennui is palpable.
I am here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth!
Senders are not passive victims of the evil ISPs. In 99% of cases, delivery problems are fully under the control of the sender.
Mail being deferred? Mail being blocked? Mail being delivered to the bulk folder? Senders do NOT NEED TO CALL THE ISP to fix most of these. Tickets do not need to be opened nor do personal contacts need to be employed. You can resolve the vast majority of problems with data you already have.

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Personal Contacts at ISPs: Part 2

I’ve talked quite a bit recently about working with ISPs and personal contacts. Today I have an example of what not to do.
One of my ISP friends informed me that another blogger published correspondence from an individual at that ISP, including the individual’s full contact information. The correspondence wasn’t a big deal, the blogger was assigned an IP address by their ISP that was previously used by a spammer. The ISP had a block on the address and he was contacting them to get the block removed. It was totally a misunderstanding on the blogger’s part and the blogger removed the info when the ISP contacted him. Still, once something is out on the net, it’s out there forever.
Don’t do that. Really. When someone at an ISP helps you, don’t go publishing their information on a blog somewhere. They will find out, even if it’s just because their mailbox explodes or their phone starts ringing off the hook with multiple calls about an “emergency” situation. It hurts the person who helped you, who now has to deal with a major increase in volume and work load, and they’re never going to help you again.
This also hurts the rest of us, as ISP employees retreat farther and farther away from contact with senders. Even those of us who are careful with contact information may find it hard to get responses when others in the field are spreading info around.
I know some ISPs can be difficult to get any information from. That’s part of my reason for publishing the ISP information page was to help people find the right contact information. I think it’s extremely important for delivery professionals to understand that you don’t need a personal contact at an ISP to resolve most issues. What you do need is a deep understanding of SMTP, a smattering of knowledge about DNS and HTTP, a firm grasp of privacy issues and an understanding of the dynamics of email.

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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?

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Results based email marketing

Two articles showed up in my RSS feed in the last 24 articles that touched on different aspects of the same issue. Senders should improve their email marketing program even when they are working well.
Stephanie Miller over at ReturnPath addresses the lost revenue from current programs.

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