Recent Posts

Best time to send email: analysis and discussion

Mark Brownlow (who I don’t think is here in Ams, much to my disappointment) wrote a long assessment of how to determine what is the best time to send email. He walks through the questions and the data that a sender should evaluate when making the decision when to best send email.
I have previously posted about my views on the best time to send email. There is no one best time to send email. In fact, my experience leads me to believe if someone said the best time to send email is at 4pm on Tuesday afternoon then 4pm on Tuesday afternoon would rapidly become the absolute worst time to send email.
It should come as no surprise, then, that I really like Mark’s #4 recommendation.

Yahoo fixed erroneous rejection problem

Yahoo announced over the weekend that they fixed their rejection problem. It may take some time to filter out to all their MTAs, but they do believe the issue is resolved.

Tragic mistakes in appending

Last week, Chief Marketer ran an article listing the Top 10 E-mail Appending Mistakes to Avoid. While the article has some good information, I think it missed the mark. In most cases the first mistake companies make when deciding to do an appending run on a customer list is: to append the list.
There is no permission with an appended list. None. Theoretically, senders can kinda get around the lack of permission by sending one email asking users to opt-in. However, every company I’ve ever suggested that to has recoiled in shock and horror. Their protests are all eerily similar.

CAN SPAM Checklist

Mickey has done a comprehensive checklist looking at all the things you should do to comply with CAN SPAM.

Introducing the "No email 'till Monday"

Ever have that day? That day full of delivery problems, ISP problems, headaches and turmoil? That week where you want to just forget email ever existed? Ever have that day extend for a week?
So have we all. In honor of that kind of day, we introduce the “No email ’till Monday”.
Fill a shaker with ice. Then add:
6 fl ounces light rum
4 fl ounces pineapple juice
2 fl ounces cointreau
heavy dash blood orange bitters.
Shake. Pour into 2 cocktail glasses and garnish with a pineapple slice.
Serves 2 (or one if it’s been a really *really* bad week)

We have made this with both light rum and pineapple flavored rum. The pineapple lends a sweeter taste to the drink, but there is a nice burnt sugar edge to the drink with the straight light rum.
I’m headed out on Monday to Amsterdam for a family wedding and MAAWG so blogging will be light for the next 2 weeks. I have some posts stacked up and the people I meet and talk with at MAAWG always trigger new thoughts about email, delivery and spam so do check back while I’m gone.
Those of you who are going to be at MAAWG be sure to stop by my session on Wednesday afternoon and add your perspective to the discussion.

Yahoo delivery problems

Over the last week or so a number of people have mentioned problems with delivery to Yahoo. It seems that some emails are being erroneously rejected. Earlier this week, Yahoo posted a message to the Yahoo Postmaster announcement list saying they were aware of the problem and were working on fixing it.

Another perspective on the Politico article

Yesterday, I talked about the delivery advice that could be gleaned from the Politico article The best e-mail lists in politics. While there are some good practices and attitudes expressed in the article, there are problems with how some of the political lists are being handled.
For instance, Ken Magill signed up for any number of political lists during the last election cycle and has been chronicling the email he has received from the various campaigns. Yesterday he posted about the mail he has received at the address he gave Secretary Clinton’s campaign and how far and wide the list is being shared. He points out a couple truths missed by the Politico article.

Delivery advice from Politico

Politico published an article Sunday looking at the best e-mail lists in politics. Their criteria for choosing the winner focused on list size and recipient engagement, measured by amount of money raised and recipient response to issues. Despite not being a delivery focused article or even mentioning delivery at all, this article is all about delivery.
How can an article be about delivery without ever mentioning the word? By actually looking at the effectiveness of the overall campaign and measuring how the lists actually perform. In the article, Politico used a number of criteria to evaluate different email lists and programs.

ReturnPath customers?

Someone posted the following question about ReturnPath in the comments:

Useful links: May 21

Dave Romerstein over at Cloudmark continues his series on blocked email. While he’s not saying anything different than many of us have already said, his perspective is well worth a read.