Details matter

I field a lot of delivery questions on various online fora. Often people try and anonymise what they’re asking about by abstracting out the question. The problem is that there are very few answers we can give in the abstract.

Outline of a head with a gear inside it.

What are some examples of these types of questions?

  • Should you always remove an address that hard bounces? Well, in general, yes. But there are a small number of cases where the hard bounce is a mistake on the part of the receiver and you shouldn’t remove that address.
  • Should you send email to recipients who haven’t engaged in 3 years. Well, in general, no. But I’ve seen and managed campaigns to recipients much older than that. What are you really trying to do?
  • If we limit our sending to people who’ve opted in to email, we’ll solve our spamtrap problem, right? Well, first, why do you think you have a spamtrap problem? If you’re Spamhaus listed, there’s a lot more you need to do. If you’re seeing one or two traps at the commercial sensor networks, then what’s your overall deliverability look like?
  • Why would our mail suddenly start to go to bulk? Overall, it wouldn’t. What did you change? Did your website get compromised? Have you linked to a new image server? Did you publish a DMARC record? Did you mention a domain with a bad reputation?
  • If we change the from address of our mail will it affect our deliverability? It can, but what from domain you’re talking about, what you’re changing it from and what you’re changing it to all matter before anyone can actually answer the question.

Deliverability is not a science. There are no hard and fast rules. Even the rules I wish were true, like only send opt-in mail, aren’t really hard and fast. A lot of folks get decent delivery using purchased or otherwise non-opt-in lists. I don’t like it, but I acknowledge it.

In order to get good deliverability advice for a situation the full situation needs to be described. History, specifics, IPs, and domains all matter. Where your email addresses came from and how you’ve maintained your database matters. It all matters. Abstracting out a question just means you get an abstract and generic answer, and that doesn’t help anyone.

Microsoft and SPF
Opting out of “service” messages

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M3AAWG has published a new version of the Senders Best Common Practices document and the contains a lot of new information since the original publication in 2008. The new document covers how to vet ESP customers, considerations when selecting a dedicated or share IP to send mail, and includes best practices on a number of technical processes.
The Senders Best Common Practices document is targeted at deliverability teams and email marketers. Any company that is sending marketing emails, using an Email Service Provider, or provides an email enabled platform, it’s always good to go back and periodically review your system to ensure nothing was missed and to stay up-to-date on all new recommendations.
A few of the recommendations include the use of the List-Unsubscribe header, publishing a clear WHOIS for domains used for sending mail, and how to process non-delivery report messages.
The List-Unsubscribe header provides an additional way for users to opt-out of email messages. Gmail and Outlook.com both use the presence of the list-unsubscribe header to provide a one-click button to allow the user to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Often enough, if a user cannot find an opt-out link, they’re marking the message as spam. Allowing a recipient to unsubscribe easily is critical to maintaining good delivery reputation.
A WHOIS is query to determine who is the registered user or assignee of a domain name. During a session at the most recent M3AAWG meeting, it was announced that spammers throw away 19 million domains per year. When a postmaster or abuse desk receive a complaint, they’ll often query to see who owns the domain the email was sent from or who owns the domains used in the hyperlinks. If the WHOIS record is out of date or set to private, this limits the ability for the postmaster or abuse desk to reach out to the owner of the domain.
Processing non-deliver reports is critical to maintaining a high delivery reputation. Many ESPs have an acceptable-use-policy that includes a bounce rate. Mailjet recommends a bounce rate of less than 8% and Mandrill recommends less than 5%. If a system is not in place to remove the hard bounces from your mailing list, the sender’s reputation will quickly deteriorate.
The Senders Best Common Practices document can be downloaded at M3AAWG.org.
 

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Are seed lists still relevant?

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The individual recipient preferences can be explicit or implicit. Users who add a sender to their address book, or block a sender, or create a specific filter for an email are stating an explicit preference. Additionally, ISPs monitor some user behavior to determine how wanted an email is. A recipient who moves an email from the bulk folder to the inbox is stating a preference. A person who hits “this-is-spam” is stating a preference. Other actions are also measured to give a user specific reputation for a mail.
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