Delivery and marketing, another view

In addition to posting some of my thoughts about how delivery and marketing have different and possible contradictory constraints, I asked folks on the Only Influencers list what they thought. They had some different perspectives, primarily being marketers. One person even welcomed me to the dark side.
The general response from the marketing side of things appeared to be that ISPs need to stop actually filtering marketing email. That would resolve the problems from the marketers perspective. I don’t necessarily think that will help. I believe if marketers had unfettered access to the inbox, most inboxes would be totally un-useable.
My thinking triggered other folks to consider delivery and marketing and what drives both. George Bilbrey, from Return Path, posted an article in Mediapost looking at why good delivery is an important part of a good marketing strategy.
George points out many marketers really do act as if delivery is separate and detrimental to good marketing.

I hear this with my clients and I hear this on discussion lists.  They think that the practices that drive high inbox placement rates are antithetical to return on their email marketing investment.

Exactly. I hear a lot of contempt for delivery consultants and good delivery practices from a lot of marketers. They claim our methods and our recommendations come from not understanding marketing. They flat out tell me that “we’re” manufacturing delivery problems by pointing out mail that users don’t want has poor delivery.
There are thousands of companies that have never heard of Return Path, or Word to the Wise, who don’t understand why their perfectly crafted marketing isn’t getting to the inbox. It’s because they don’t understand email and delivery. They want to do what works elsewhere, and those models don’t always map onto email.
And that’s why companies like Word to the Wise and Return Path exist.

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Goodmail alternatives

A number of Goodmail customers are scrambling to identify alternatives now that Goodmail is shutting down. There are two companies in the field offering similar services.
Return Path offers Return Path Certified. A number of large ISPs accept Return Path certification, including Yahoo, Hotmail and Comcast. IP addresses that are certified are not guaranteed to reach the inbox, but there are some delivery benefits to being certified. For instance, Hotmail lifts hourly delivery limits for certified IPs. Return Path closely monitors certified IPs and will remove certification from IP addresses that do not meet their standards. They are offering an expedited application process and managed transition to former Goodmail customers.
SuretyMail offers accreditation to senders. SpamAssassin does use SuretyMail as a factor in their scores. Mail from accredited IPs receives lower SpamAssassin scores. I don’t have much direct experience with SuretyMail, so I can’t talk too knowledgeably about their processes. A former customer has written, however, about their experience with SuretyMail. They are offering a half off application fee for former Goodmail customers.
The other option for senders is to find a good delivery consultant. As I said yesterday, a large number of senders are not certified or accredited and experience 95+% inbox delivery rates. Many of my customers, for instance, see 100% inbox without certification. There are certain market segments where certification makes a difference. But for senders who are sending mail that users actually want to receive and are engaged with, certification isn’t always necessary.

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Return Path acquires OtherInbox

This morning Return Path announced they have acquired OtherInbox.
OtherInbox is a service that allows subscribers to create tagged email addresses and organize incoming mail. Acquiring OIB gives Return Path access to recipient behaviour that only the ISPs had previously.
According to the press release, Return Path will be using engagement data from OIB as another factor for Return Path Certification. I think this can only improve the scoring and reflect a more modern measure of wanted mail.
Congratulations to Return Path and OtherInbox.

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Email marketing OF THE FUTURE!

ISPs are continually developing tools for their users. Some of the newer tools are automatic filters that help users organize the volumes of mail they’re getting. Gmail released Priority Inbox over a year ago. Hotmail announced new filters as part of Wave 5 back in October.
All of these announcements cause much consternation in the email marketing industry. Just today there was a long discussion on the Only Influencers list about the new Hotmail filtering. There was even some discussion about why the ISPs were doing this.
I think it’s pretty simple why they’re creating new tools: users are asking for them. The core of these new filters is ISPs reacting to consumer demand. They wouldn’t put the energy into development if their users didn’t want it. And many users do and will use priority inbox or the new Hotmail filtering.
Some people are concerned that marketing email will be less effective if mail is not in the inbox.

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