ESPC meeting

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending my first ESPC semi-annual meeting. I was scheduled to talk on a panel  about list hygiene with a couple vendors. Because some folks didn’t make it, I also sat on the panel talking about blocklists.
It was a fun day. I got to meet and talk with some colleagues I haven’t seen in an age. And I met some new faces and had interesting interactions.
One bonus from the day is I really got the chance to talk with some of the list hygiene vendors that were on the panel with me. Afterwards, we spent a good hour just discussing the space and the players in it. I learned a lot from that conversation. Previously, I’d kept the list hygiene vendors at arms length. My experiences with them and with their products weren’t very positive. My experience has primarily been with clients who have used these services and not gotten what they thought they were paying for. I have also seen some internet-abusive behavior from a few. Many years ago a few of the companies approached me for deliverability advice as they were running into consistent blocking.
All of these things led me to the conclusion that it was a part of the email space I didn’t want much to do with.
Yesterday, though, I learned that there were vendors in the space that focused very much on being a net benefit to the overall network. Both Webbula and Kickbox, who were on the panel with me, have policies and processes designed to make it unattractive for spammers to sign up for their services. We did agree there were problems with some of the vendors in the space, but I realized that some is not all.
It was a good meeting, I’m glad I went.

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Back from Vegas

Had a wonderful time at the Email Innovations conference last week. Got a chance to see some familiar faces and meet a lot of new ones.
There is so much new and interesting and exciting stuff going on in the world of email. I think we’re hitting another period for real growth and innovation that’s going to change what we see in our inboxes and how we use email.
 

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Upcoming events for Laura

speakingIconForBlogWe’re more than halfway through April. Good: Taxes are finished. Bad: Wait? We’re well into Q2? How time files. With that realization, it seems like it’s a good time to share some of the places and events I’ll be at in May.
Salesforce Connections in Atlanta, GA. May 10 – 12. I’m a panelist for Deliverability Unplugged: How to Stay out of Email Jail and Other Best Practices on May 11.  I’m sharing the panel with Mickey Chandler from SFMC and Melinda Plemel from Return Path. The session will be moderated by Rebecca McAdams from Forrester Research. Bring questions. I don’t think you really want to just listen to us show you slides, so come bearing questions.
As an aside, Salesforce is offering a discount of 50% off registration for Connections16 through April 22 if you use the promo code EQUALITY. Good on Salesforce for this.
Email Innovations Summit in Las Vegas, NV. May 17 – 18. Understanding your IT Department: What Non-Technical Brand Managers Need to Know about Email Security, DMARC , ISPs and Delivery. I’ve been working on this talk and, wow, there’s a lot of info I want to share. It should be a fun session, so stop by.
You can get a 15% discount off the cost of registration for Innovations by using my speaker code SPKATK

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October 2016: The Month in Email

We’ve returned from London, where I spoke at the Email Innovations Summit and enjoyed a bit of vacation. My wrap-up post also mentions an article I wrote for the Only Influencers site, which looks at questions I get asked frequently: “Why does spam make it to the inbox and our legitimate marketing email doesn’t? Should we just copy their tactics?”
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In industry news, Yahoo caught our attention for two surprising moves: disabling forwarding and — much more disturbing — creating software for intelligence agencies to search customer email.
Some legal updates this month: The Second Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling that companies are in fact liable for the activities of their affiliates, including spam and fraudulent claims. This is important, as we often see spammers and cybercriminals use affiliates to distance themselves from these activities. We also saw another fine assessed for a violation of CASL, and noted with appreciation the transparency and thoughtful process that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) demonstrates in explaining their actions.
Another excellent report is the one created by the Exploratorium to explain their recent experience with being phished. It’s a good piece to share with your organization, in that it reminds us that these cybercriminals are exploiting not just our technology but our trust-based connections to our friends and colleagues. It’s important to raise awareness about social engineering as a part of information security. And speaking of email security, we were delighted to note that André Leduc received the 2016 J.D. Falk award this month at M3AAWG for his excellent work on this topic. It’s a fitting legacy to our friend, J.D., who died five years ago this month. We miss him.
Finally, we’d be remiss in observing Halloween without a post about zombies. Feel free to read it aloud in your spookiest voice.

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