Delivery resources

I’m working on a few projects designed to help provide mentoring for other delivery people and to bridge the communication gap between the various groups active in email. One of those projects is collecting, linking to, and publishing more delivery resources. Some will be linked to directly from the blog, others will be linked to from the wiki. While I’m reasonably familiar with what’s out there, it is impossible for me to know about all the useful resources available. So I ask you readers:

  • What are your favorite delivery resources?
  • What are your most used delivery resources?
  • What types of things would you like to be available but haven’t found?
  • What resources do you make available and would like included?

Speaking of the wiki, we had an invasion by a bunch of botnets putting up garbage spam links. We tried a few things to stop it, but the only thing that worked was prohibiting anonymous editing. I am still looking at other measures (and if anyone out there has dealt with this before and has some ideas, I’m all ears) but for right now you have to register and be confirmed before you can edit anything. Blame the spammers (I do).
Please list your resources or helpful links in the comments and I’ll pull them together and put them up for everyone to share.

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A very young industry

Last week I saw a tweet that quoted Joel Book, Director of eMarketing Education at Exacttarget as saying

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You must be present to win

Guest post by Phil Schott
I often have the pleasure of putting my four year-old son to bed at night and I’m usually exhausted afterward. It’s a never-ending string of questions and admonishments that goes something like this,
“Daddy, is it a stay-at-home day tomorrow?
“No, Joe, tomorrow is a go-to-school day, it’s Tuesday. Joe, stop talking and go to sleep and please stop picking your nose.”
“Daddy, how long until the Easter bunny comes?”
“A few weeks. Now, go to sleep and stop picking your nose, Josef.”
“Dude, what did I say about picking your nose?”
“Sorry daddy, I can’t help it. It’s my job.”
“Daddy, When’s it going to be my birthday?”
“Joe, you’re not going to live to see your birthday if you don’t stop picking your nose and go to sleep.”
Lather, rinse, repeat for about 10-30 minutes every night. Same questions, same answers, always picking his nose.
In retrospect it seems funny and maybe sweet, but it never does at the time and the thought of doing it all over again tomorrow night makes me want to run out screaming.
However, I realize that if not me, who? Who’s going to tell Joe to stop picking his nose? Who’s going to answer his questions? I have to. It’s my job. If I want to be his dad, that’s what I’ve got to do. If not, then I don’t get to be his dad, I don’t get to be part of his life, and I don’t get to be part of my family.
There are folks in our industry just like Joe and me–those who never seem to get it, those who ask questions over and over, and those who tire of answering the same questions.
I’d like to thank those who answer those questions over and over. Folks like Al Iverson, JD Falk, Mickey Chandler, Greg Kraios, Ken Magill, Laura Atkins, Steve Atkins, Karen Balle, Annalivia Ford, and many others who deserve to be on this list.
I’ve only been in deliverability for a few years and I’d be nowhere if these folks hadn’t answered my dumb questions, posted their thoughts, shared their knowledge, and told me to stop picking my nose on occasion.
It pains me though to read from time to time the ranting of those in our industry who want to decry the dumb marketer, give up, and take their ball home. It’s a shame, but that’s their right and their decision. However, they then don’t get to be part of the community. They lose the effectiveness to tell a dumb marketer to stop picking his nose. They become a washed-up, has been, curmudgeon with no voice. Like with my four year-old son, if I want to be a part of the deliverability community I’ve got to stick it out and deal with it. You have to be present to win.
In her post, A very young industry, Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise quotes ExactTarget’s Joel Book as stating that less than 20% of those in email marketing have more than two years experience. Yes, it’s an industry full of four year-olds. If you’re one of those in the know are you going to bemoan this fact that’s beyond your control or are you going to work to make the community you’ve helped build a better place? You absolutely can choose to move on. We will miss you and I wish you the best of luck. But either keep helping out as you’ve expertly done or get out of the way. Don’t take cheap shots at those trying to do the right thing and trying to do some good work.
For those of you tired of answering the same inane questions you’re fooling yourself if you think the folks who really need to hear your message are reading. They’re not. And they’re going to keep on asking their inane questions until somebody helps them out. I choose to help them out. I choose to be part of the community. I choose to be present.
A big part of the issue is how daunting it can be to ask for help without the risk of appearing the fool. There are far too many folks in this business of deliverability who are more interested in proving how smart they are and selectively sharing knowledge than they are in helping raise the overall level of consciousness and enlightenment.
If you want the idiots and fools to go away then help them become something more. Help them like no one helped you when you started out. With much effort, time, and frustration, I could pick through five years of your blog posts to find the one bit of information I need, or you could give me the URL to the post that will reveal all. I’m not asking you to spoon feed me, I’m just asking for a little help. There’s no books on this stuff and you can’t go to school to get your BA in deliverability. All we’ve got is each other.
Phil Schott has been handling delivery and compliance for a major ESP for the last 3 and a half years.

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The coming changes

Yesterday I talked about how I’m hearing warnings of a coming paradigm shift in the email industry. While these changes will affect all sender, ESPs in particular are going to need to change how they interact with both ISPs and their customers.
Currently, ESPs are able to act as “routine conveyers.” The traffic going across their network is generated by their customers and the ESP only handles technical issues. Responsible ESPs do enforce standards on their customers and expect mailings to meet certain targets. They monitor complaints and unknown users, they monitor blocks and reputation. If customers get out of line, then the ESP steps in and forces their customer to improve their practices. If the customer refuses, then the ESP disconnects them.
Currently standards for email are mostly dictated by the ISPs. Many ESPs take the stance that if any mail that is not blocked by the ISPs then it is acceptable. But just because a certain customer isn’t blocked doesn’t mean they’re sending mail that is wanted by the recipients.
It seems this reactive approach to customer policing may no longer be enough. In fact, one of the large spam filter providers has recently offered their customers the ability to block mail from all ESPs with a single click. This may become a more common response if the ESPs don’t start proactively policing their networks.
Why is this happening? ISPs and filtering companies are seeing increasing percentages of spam coming out of ESP netspace. Current processes for policing customers are extremely reactive and there are many ESPs that are allowing their customers to send measurable percentages of spam. This situation is untenable for the filtering companies or the ISPs and they’re sending out warnings that the ESPs need to stop letting so much spam leave their networks.
Unsurprisingly, there are many members of the ESP community that don’t like this and think the ISPs are overreacting and being overly mean. They do not think the ISPs or filtering companies should be blocking all an ESPs customers just because some of the customers are sending unwanted mail. Paraphrased, some of the things I’ve heard include:

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