Typical ESPs

Yesterday, I gave examples of good ESPs and the benefits that their customers receive from their high standards and standards enforcement. Today I’ll be talking about typical ESPs and the things they say and do.
A few caveats before I get started. Most of these quotes are composite quotes. I am not quoting one particular person or ESP, rather, the statement is representative of a common view point. None of these quotes is a one off, all of these quotes have been said by more than one person. These where chosen as a representation of some of the attitudes and policies that leads ISPs and filtering companies to throw up their hands at the ESPs.

  • Consent is paramount to us […] well, yes we do allow customers to purchase lists and do epending.
  • We know the customer is spamming, but they’re too big and too valuable to disconnect.
  • We rotate IP addresses so when there is a block, we can switch to an unblocked IP.
  • We know people are putting addresses that don’t belong to them into the subscription form, but as long as the client is making money, we aren’t going to stop them or make them confirm permission.
  • Our mail is CAN SPAM compliant.
  • Complaints are low, so our customers can’t be spamming.
  • We honor all unsubscribes.
  • They’re a reputable brand, they can’t be spamming.
  • We do not allow advertising scams or viagra mail.
  • Our customers assure us the mail is opt-in.

ESPs are struggling in a crowded and competitive field to maintain standards as high as they can while not losing high value customers. If they set standards too high, their customers will flock to competitors with lower standards. ESPs in the typical category are not all bad, though. In many cases, particularly with the very large brands, they do act as forces of good on senders. The ESPs educate senders and force them to adhere to better practices than the senders would do on their own. The presence of ESPs results in less spam and unwanted email in the ecosystem and in recipients’ inboxes.
Also, many of the individuals working for the typical ESP spend a lot of time working with customers and with management to improve standards and decrease the bad mail coming through their network. They are a dedicated group of people and their actions do have a positive effect over all.

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What makes a good ESP?

There are a number of things that make a responsible ESP, including setting and enforcing standards higher than those set by the ISPs.
One of the responsible ESPs is Mailchimp. (Full disclaimer, I do consult for Mailchimp.) This ESP focuses on businesses with small to medium sized lists. They screen new customers for source of permission as well as mail content.
As well as putting a human in the loop and identifying problem customers manually, they have also developed an automated process that predicts the likelihood that a certain customer will violate their standards. This process is very similar to the reputation process in place at many ISPs. Customers that are flagged as potential problems are reviewed by staff members who contact the customer for further clarification.
What’s the benefit of this process? A good reputation, a clean customer base and positive notice by the ISPs. In fact,  just recently I was contacted by one of the very large consumer ISPs, confirming that Mailchimp is one of my clients. He informed me that he’d noticed a few of the Mailchimp IPs had a really high reputation but weren’t whitelisted. He asked me to send him all of their IPs so he could make sure all their IPs were whitelisted.
Proactive auditing of customers and predictive modeling of mailing results is working for Mailchimp and their customers.
Some ESPs have aggressive cancellation policies, which helps them police their networks and their customers. I often encounter former customers of these ESPs, either as direct clients or as customers of my ESP clients. In one case, I was asking around about a new client at their old ESP. “They tell me they left you under their own power and there was no spam issue involved, can you comment?” The policy person would not comment specifically about that client, but did comment that “95% of our former customers were disconnected for cause.”
These are two examples of ESPs that are working hard to minimize the amount of unwanted mail going through their network. They have invested time and energy into tools and staff to monitor the network. Staff is empowered to make decisions about customers and management believes no customer is “to big to disconnect.”
Tomorrow we’ll look at typical ESPs and their normal practices.

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