Is it really permission?

There’s a great post over on the AOL Postmaster blog talking about sending wanted mail versus sending mail to people who have <a href=”https://web.archive.org/web/20100210070640/http://postmaster-blog.aol.com:80/2009/12/03/p/>grudgingly given permission to receive it.

Engagement comes when users REQUEST mail, not just concede to receive it. […] Bottom line… Permission isn’t enough. Our best practices document says “Ensure that you are only sending mail to users who specifically requested it.” Look at your opt-in process. Are people really requesting your mail? If not, I’d bet you aren’t seeing the inbox delivery you’d like to see.

Requiring folks to give addresses in order to see content and get into restricted places on a website does not make for an engaged group of recipients. Many senders started doing this to force folks who didn’t want mail from the sender to give them an address. It was “permission” after a fashion. This kind of permission does come with low complaint rates, but low complaints are no longer sufficient for good, inbox delivery.

Engaged recipients come from sending mail recipients actually want to receive. If recipients feel coerced into submitting their email address, they are not actually asking for that mail and they don’t really want it. They are unengaged. Lack of engagement hurts reputation and delivery.

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Permission Based Emails? Are you sure?

Yesterday I wrote about the ReturnPath study showing 21% of permission based email does not make it to the inbox. There are a number of reasons I can think of for this result, but I think one of the major ones is that not all the mail they are monitoring is permission based. I have no doubt that all of the RP customers say that the mail they’re sending is permission based, I also have no doubt that not all of the mail is.
Everyone who sends mail sends permission based email. Really! Just ask them!
In 10 years of professionally working with senders I have yet to find a marketer that says anything other than all their email is permission based. Every email marketer, from those who buy email addresses to those who do fully confirmed verified opt-in with a cherry on top will claim all their email is permission based. And some of the mailers I’ve worked with in the past have been listed on ROKSO. None of these mailers will ever admit that they are not sending permission based email.
Going back to ReturnPath’s data we don’t really know what permission based email means in this context and so we don’t know if the mail is legitimately or illegitimately blocked. My guess is that some significant percentage of the 20% of email to the probe accounts that doesn’t make it to the inbox is missing because the sender does not have clear recipient permission.
When even spammers describe their email as permission based email marketing, what value does the term have?

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What Mark Said

Mark Brownlow skewers the arguments from opt-out proponents. A definite must read.

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Sending too much mail

Not having policies restricting the amount of mail any customer or recipient receives may lead to higher spam complaint rates and blocking warns the DMA Email Marketing Council.
HT: Box of Meat

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