Return Path have an interesting post up about content filtering. I like the model of 3 different kinds of filters, in fact it’s one I’ve been using with clients for over 18 months. Spamfiltering isn’t really about one number or one filter result, it’s a complex interaction of lots of different heuristics designed to answer the question: do recipients want this kind of mail?
A colleague of mine was dealing with a client who is experiencing some difficulty delivering to the bulk folder. Said client spent much of a one hour phone call repeating “This is not how a free society works!!”
After the call my colleague commented, “I refuse to get ranty about filter systems.”
I know that filters, and the people who write and maintain them, are a frequent scapegoat for senders. The filters are always the problem, not anything the senders do.
Now, I’ll be the last person who will claim spam filters are perfect, they’re not. Filters sometimes do unexpected things, sometimes they do boneheaded things, sometimes they are broken.
We can’t forget, though, that filters perform a vital role in protecting users from malicious emails. Phishing emails, scams, fake products, viruses are a constant threat. Many end users don’t need to worry about this because filters are so good. But an unfiltered account can get thousands of scams and spams a day (ask me how I know).
Most of us in the delivery space can tell when a filter is working as intended and when there’s an underlying problem. And when the filter is working as intended there’s not a lot of use complaining about them. Ranting about filtering systems often delays a resolution. Senders that focus on what they can control tend to have more success reaching the inbox than those senders that focus on ranting about filtering systems.
Tilting at windmills doesn’t get the mail through.
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.
Much like every other day, I got some spam today. Here’s a lightly edited copy of it.
Let’s go through it and see what they did that makes it clear that it’s spam, which companies helped them out, and what you should avoid doing to avoid looking like these spammers…