Still with the Microsoft problems

We took a quick trip to Dublin last week. I had every intention of blogging while on the trip, but… oops. I did get to meet with some clients, and had a great dinner while discussing email and delivery.

Coming back, I see a lot of folks still reporting delivery problems to Microsoft properties. I’ve been operating under the assumption this was temporary as kinks were worked out after the migration. I’m still pretty convinced not all of the problems are intentional. Even the best tested code can have issues that only show up under real load with real users. Reading between-some-lines tells me that the tech team is hard at work identifying and fixing issues. There will be changes and things will continue to improve.
With all that being said, I think it’s important to realize that delivering to the new system is not the same as delivering to the old system. This is a major overhaul of their email handling code, representing multiple years worth of planning and development inside Microsoft. It’s very likely that not all of the current delivery problems are the result of deployment. Some of the problems are likely a result of new standards and thresholds for reaching the inbox. What worked a year ago to get into the inbox just doesn’t any more.

What can we do?

The first step is always acceptance.
Accept that …
… the delivery problems aren’t a mistake on Microsoft’s part.
… more difficulty reaching the inbox is not an accident.
… Microsoft may not ever tell us exactly what to do.
In fact, this new round of problems at Microsoft feels a lot like deliverability in the mid-2000s. All we can see is delivery is bad. There is no guidance from postmaster pages or public statements. We’re getting little to no feedback from the ISPs. The support channels seem to be returning messages unrelated to the questions we’ve asked. It’s 2005 delivery all over again!
In many ways we’re luckier now, as we have history and experience to draw on, as well as working relationships with folks inside the ISPs. I have every confidence that the live.com postmaster pages will be updated at some point. Senders will continue testing and figure out how to send mail that makes it to the inbox and that information will get shared through the industry. Microsoft will get to a point where their end is stable and tests give us consistent responses and we can develop meaningful models.
We’re going to have to listen to the ISPs, and not just to what they say on the surface. ISP employees are typically limited to what they can say publicly, but many of them indicate investigative pathways in their responses to questions. As well, there are now trusted intermediaries to disseminate information that will help improve the overall email ecosystem.

It’s not just Microsoft

As I’ve said before, I think we’re going to see changes to more places than Microsoft. AOL addresses are moving to the Yahoo MXs as of February 1, and that opens up a huge number of questions about delivery to AOL. Some of these changes are the result of GDPR, others just a normal service cycle. Whatever the reason, we’re back to having to work out what the black box is hiding. That means we’re going to have to pay attention to what our stats are telling us. More than that, though, we’re going to have to think about what new information we can collect and how to use it to improve delivery.
All in all, deliverability is changing and we’re all going to need to adapt.
 

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Thinking about deliverability

I was chatting with folks over on one of the email slack channels today. The discussion was about an ESP not wanting to implement a particular change as it would hurt deliverability. It led me down a path of thinking about how we think of deliverability and how that informs how we approach email.
The biggest problem I see is the black and white thinking.
There’s an underlying belief in the deliverability, receiving, and filtering communities  that the only way to affect sending behavior is to block (or threaten to block) mail.

This was true back in the ancient times (the late 90’s). We didn’t have sophisticated tools and fast CPUs. There weren’t a lot of ways to handle bad mail other than to block. Now the landscape is different. We have many more tools and the computing capacity to quickly sort large streams of data.
At most places these days, blocking is an escalation, not a warning shot. Many places rate limit and bulk folder questionable mail as a first strike against problem mail. Sometimes the mail is bad enough to result in a block. Other times, it’s not bad enough to block, so it disappears into the bulk folder.
There’s a corresponding belief in the sending community that if their behavior doesn’t result in blocking then they’re acting acceptably. This isn’t true either. There are a lot of things you can do (or not do) that don’t help delivery, but will actively harm delivery. Likewise, there are things you can do that don’t actively harm delivery, but will help. All of these things add up to reaching the inbox.

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Looking forward

I had a number of very good talks with folks at the Email Innovations Summit earlier this week. I’m still digesting it all. It’s clear that getting to the inbox isn’t a solved problem. Around a decade ago I figured that the explosion of complaint feedback loops would make my job obsolete. That more data would mean anyone could manage delivery. That’s not the case for a couple reasons. The biggest is that filters don’t look just at complaints and there aren’t FBLs for all the other factors.
For whatever reason, many companies are still struggling with delivery.
Even more interesting is how changes in filters and inboxes are making it harder to measure delivery.   In some ways I feel like we’re losing ground on inbox measurement. Filters changes and will keep changing, both to address emerging threats and to meet the needs and wants of subscribers. Gone are the days where  Panels have their problems. Seed lists have their problems.  There’s a longer blog post here, but it’s nearly the weekend and I’ve had a long week.
Hope you have something great planned.

 

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Happy 2018

This is the time of year when everyone starts posting their predictions for the coming year. Despite over a decade of blogging and close to 2500 blog posts, I have’t consistently written prediction articles here. Many years I don’t see big changes on the horizon, so there’s not a lot to comment on. Incremental changes are status quo, nothing earth shattering there. But I’ve been thinking about what might be on the horizon in 2018 and how that will affect email marketing.

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