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How useful are feedback loops

Things are extremely busy here and blogging is going to be light for a few weeks. I’ll be reposting some older blog posts that are still relevant for today’s email senders.
Today’s post is a repost from November 2008. I look at the whys and hows of FBLs, address some of the objections people had to them and discuss how senders should deal with FBL mail.
There has been a very long, ongoing discussion on one of my mailing lists about whether or not feedback loops are a net good or a net harm. I believe, overall, they are a net good, but there are people who believe they are not. The biggest objection is that the lawyer mandated redaction of the To: address combined with the fact that some users use the “this is spam” button to delete unwanted email, makes it difficult for some FBL recipients to sort out the real issues from the cruft.
Redaction can be a problem for some senders, particularly for the small mailing list hosted as a hobby or contribution to the community. In order to effectively deal with FBL emails, a sender needs to have tools on the email sending side and on the FBL receiving side. This is often more overhead than the volunteer list maintainer wants to handle. Unfortunately, these senders are a minority and therefore their issues are often not addressed by the ISPs.
Some of the objections and complaints about “broken” or “useless” FBLs come from people who do not really have any history for the FBLs, where they are, what they were designed for and who their target audience is. A bit of history may help explain why things are how they are.
The First FBL
The “this is spam” button evolved from the “notify AOL” button. This button was a way email recipients could notify AOL staff about any number of problems, including threats, viruses and other unwanted emails. As time went on, this was changed to “this is spam” to encourage users to report more spam so the AOL would have the data to make delivery decisions. Eventually, AOL made the decision to share that data with some senders and ISPs. The lawyers made the decision to redact the “To:” address, but not make any other changes to the message because they believe they should not be sharing subscriber email addresses with third parties. As some people correctly point out, the lawyers are not interested in hearing from non lawyers about changing this. It is possible that another lawyer may be able to put together a position paper and convince them this stance is overly cautious. I am pretty sure, though, that no one without a legal degree will be given any audience from them.
Given the success of the AOL FBL and the demand from both ESPs and ISPs for FBLs, other ISPs started offering FBLs as well. Many of them also redacted the To: address, either just following AOL’s lead or under advice of their own counsel.
That means, as senders, we are in a situation where we really cannot make the ISPs change what they’re doing. We can either adapt our own mailing practices to cope with them or we can forego the data provided by the FBL. One of the challenges in choosing to shun the whitelist at AOL that in order to qualify for whitelisting, you have to accept a FBL. For ISPs, who want to whitelist their outgoing MTAs, but have customers sending mail, maybe running small mailing lists, or who are forwarding mail to their ISP account, this can be a problem. However, any ISP needs some sort of abuse desk automation, and this automation should be able to handle FBLs. This can also be a problem for small ESPs or companies doing in-house email marketing. They buy something off the shelf to handle mail (or install mailman) that does not do VERP or otherwise enter the specific address in the email. When faced with a redacted email they cannot do anything with the complaint.
What does the FBL email tell the FBL recipient?
This really depends on what role the FBL recipient plays in the mail transport system. Bandwidth and network service providers use the FBL as an aggregate tool. They really only deal with FBL complaints if there is a change in complaint volume about an IP, they don’t treat each complaint as a valuable source of information. Typically what happens is that an ISP abuse desk notices a spike in complaints. After investigation, they may discover that a customer machine is compromised. They then notify the customer, the customer patches or disconnects the machine and the problem is fixed.
ESPs tend treat the FBL as an unsubscribe mechanism as well as a way to monitor customers. A few FBL complaints are not necessarily a sign that the sender is spamming, but once a threshold is reached the ESP delivery / abuse team addresses the issue. Spammers can get FBLs and often use them as a way to clean lists of complainants. Some really dirty spammers even suppress those complainants from all their lists.
Is a FBL useful?
This is really something that someone else cannot tell you. Some companies find FBLs to be extremely useful, even after they have had to make investments in software (either off the shelf like our Abacus software, or something custom written internally) to send mail that will survive the FBL redaction process and to handle the actual FBL email. Some companies find the FBLs to be more trouble than they are worth. The question, however, is really one only the sender can answer.
Overall, I think FBLs are more helpful than they are harmful. They do require investment on both sides of the transaction, but does encourage senders and receivers to cooperate with one another.

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Why don't users want that mail?

Things are extremely busy here and blogging is going to be light for a few weeks. I’ll be reposting some older blog posts that are still relevant for today’s email senders.
Today’s post is a repost from July 2009. I discuss why recipients complain about mail and how senders can lower the complaint rates. While this addresses complaint rates directly, the same series of questions can be used to investigate almost any change in performance. 

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Clarification on monetizing complaints

There has been quite an interesting discussion in the comment stream of my earlier post about monetizing the complaint stream. I’ve found all the perspectives and comments quite interesting.
There is one thing multiple people have brought up that I don’t necessarily see as a problem. They assert that this idea will only work if all ESPs do it because customers can just say, “Well, Other ESP will let us do this and not charge us.”  I don’t quite understand why this is an issue. Customers already do this.  In fact, sometimes the assertion is actually true.
There are ESPs that let customers spam. There will always be ESPs that let customers spam. This is not new. Changing a pricing model isn’t going to change this.
As I was envisioning the monetization process, ESPs who wanted to do this could actually offer multiple tier pricing. The customer can choose a lower price point for their overall mail program, while assuming the cost of their recipients complaining. Or the customer can choose a higher price point and let the ESP absorb the cost of handling complaints. In either case, the customer would still have to meet the ESP’s standards for complaints and comply with their TOS.
Clearly I’m seeing the idea and industry differently than a lot of my readers. I’m interested to hear the thought process behind this so I can better understand the objection.
 
 
 

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Typo traps

People make all sorts of claims about typo traps. One claim that showed up recently was that Spamhaus has just started using typo traps. I asked my Facebook network when people started using typos to detect incoming spam.
Two different colleagues mentioned using typos, both on the left hand side and the right hand side, back in ’98 and ’99.
The point is, typo traps are absolutely nothing new. They are, in fact, as old as spam filtering itself. And as one of trap maintainers remind me, not all of them even look like typos. It’s not as simple as hotmial.com or gmial.com.
I really think that focusing on traps is paying attention to the wrong thing.
The traps are not the issue. The underlying issue is that people are signing up addresses that don’t belong to them. Sometimes those are addresses that are spamtraps. Sometimes those are simply addresses that belong to someone else. Those addresses don’t belong to customers, they belong to random people who may never have heard of the sender. Sending mail to those people is sending spam.
Just trying to remove traps from your address lists isn’t going to solve the underlying problem. Instead, focus on improving your data process to keep from sending mail to random strangers.

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Monetizing the complaint stream

What if ESPs (and ISPs, for that matter) started charging users for every complaint generated? Think of it like peak pricing for electricity. In California, businesses can opt for discounted power, with the agreement that they are the first companies shut off if electrical demand exceeds supply. What if ESPs and ISPs offered discounted hosting rates to bulk senders who agreed to pay per complaint?
I see pricing scheme something like this.

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Facts about engagement

It is reality that ISPs look at the population of recipients that a mail stream is going to.
It is reality that they evaluate the activity of that population.
It is reality that ISPs treat senders that are sending to a significant number of email addresses that have not been logged into or accessed recently negatively.
If you’re having delivery problems, looking at the recipients and their activity is part of troubleshooting the issue and identifying a path back to the inbox.
You can use web and purchase data as a measurement of engagement IF you have, at some point, directly linked the email address and the user.
If you don’t have something that demonstrates a direct link between the person and the address, then it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not that email address belongs to who you think it belongs to.
Happy Friday everyone. It’s been a week.

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CASL is more privacy law than anti-spam law

Michael Geist, a law professor in Canada, writes about the new CASL law, why it’s necessary and why it’s more about privacy and consumer protection than just about spam.

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Don't wait to address delivery problems

One of the worst ways to deal with blocking issues is to ignore them and hope your mail magically moves from the bulk folder back into the inbox. While this does happen as ISPs and filter companies update their filters, it’s not that common and it’s usually the result of a sender actually cleaning up their sending processes and improving the quality of the mail they send.
Do not ignore blocks. What I generally tell people is that it takes at least as long to repair a bad reputation as it took to get that bad reputation in the first place. If you wait months before actually addressing delivery problems, you’re not going to make a change and have the filters react in hours.
This doesn’t mean that every block is a business crisis. Blocks happen and they do go up and down based on thresholds and automatic monitoring scripts and content. But if a block happens consistently for 4 or 5 days in a row it is time to look at what you’re doing. Don’t just focus on the sidelines and little stuff, either. Look at your marketing program and the mail you’re sending.

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The DMA: Email marketing or spam?

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a webinar from the DMA. As is my normal process I used a tagged address. I don’t remember any notification that I would be signing up for mail, and I generally do look for those kinds of things. I also know a lot of webinars are used to drive sales processes and I prefer not to waste sales time if I’m not actually looking to purchase.
In recent weeks I have gotten an ongoing stream of marketing messages from the DMA. I’ve tried to opt-out, but the DMA don’t actually want me to opt-out. Each marketing message is a different type of message from a different list. Each list must be opted out of individually.
First it was Conferences, then it was Education, then it was Awards, then Events. I’m trying to figure out what’s next and how many more times the DMA is going to get to spam me before I just turn that address into a spam trap.
And before you tell me that I can’t make an address a spam trap, think about that a little bit. I never opted this mail in to receive anything but the webinar confirmation. I’ve dutifully opted out each and every time the DMA has mailed me. I’ve even tried to opt-out of all mail. Unfortunately, the DMA has placed the “opt-out of all mail” behind a registration wall, one I cannot get to as I do not have (or want) a DMA account.
DMASignOn
The DMA is sending me mail I did not request and do not want. They have made it impossible for me to determine how much mail I will get. They have made it difficult for me to opt-out of all their mail.
This is an example of bad email marketing. I’m sure that the DMA will tell me this is all permission based email. I disagree. This is an example of the DMA taking permission. This is not an example of a sender asking for permission. I didn’t give permission to be added to all these DMA lists, and I have no way to actually revoke the permission that they took from me.
I signed up for a second webinar with this email address, one related to CASL. The irony is that the DMA’s behavior here is a violation of a number of points of CASL. First, there was no clear opt-in notice on the website. Second, CASL requires parity between opt-in and opt-out. If I opt-in once then I should be able to opt-out once. CASL puts an end to this opt-in once, opt-out dozens of times process.
I wish I could say I was disappointed in the DMA. But I’m barely surprised. Their track record is poor and they have typically fallen on the side of “I have consent until you force me to acknowledge that I don’t.” In this case, the DMA is demonstrating that quite clearly. They will keep spamming and spamming and spamming. I have no doubt were I to actually register an account, they would continue to spam me with “account notifications” that I was unable to opt-out of because they are transactional, membership messages.

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Happy 4th of July

We’re off to eat hot dogs and ice cream and watch fireworks with KarlTheFog.
Have you met KarlTheFog? We visited him earlier this month and I took some pictures.

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