Recent Posts

Don’t break the (RFC) rules

• steve
• Apr 28, 2023

• Delivery Improvement , Technical

It looks like Microsoft are getting pickier about email address syntax, rejecting mail that uses illegal address formats. That might be what’s causing that “550 5.6.0 CAT.InvalidContent.Exception: DataSourceOperationException, proxyAddress: prefix not supported – ; cannot handle content of message” rejection.

Life of an Email

• steve
• Oct 19, 2022

• Delivery Improvement , Technical

I’m repeating the presentation I gave at M3AAWG in London for the Certified Senders Alliance.

It’s all about how to send an email by hand, and how knowing the mechanics of how an email is sent can help us diagnose email delivery issues.

We’re starting in about five hours from when I post this.

Register at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2268789893122531343

Gmail Program for Election Mail

• laura
• Sep 15, 2022

• Industry

A few months ago, Google made a splash in the political press and the email marketing space when they asked the FEC the following question:

Confidential to ESPs

• laura
• Jul 28, 2022

• Industry

Dear Colleagues at ESPs,

We have a problem. More specifically, YOU have a problem. You have a spam problem. One that you’re not taking care of in any way, shape or form.

When best practices don’t work

• laura
• Jul 6, 2022

• Best Practices , Industry

I started out with the best intentions to get back into the swing of things with blogging more regularly. But between MAAWG recovery, COVID recovery and life it’s not worked out that way.

Sending email

• steve
• Jun 14, 2022

• Delivery Improvement , Technical

I did a class at M3AAWG teaching the basic mechanics of sending an email, both really by hand using dig and netcat, and using SWAKS. No slides, but if you’re interested in the script I’ve posted a very rough copy of my working notes here.

The gang is trickling in

• laura
• Jun 13, 2022

• Industry

It’s been a few years since we’ve actually made it to a MAAWG. We missed much of 2018 and 2019 due to our international move. Then 2020 San Francisco conflicted with a personal engagement. Then, well, pandemic hit and it’s been virtual and then we were moving and … wow, it’s been busy!

ESPs need to step up their compliance game

• laura
• Jun 6, 2022

• Best Practices , Industry

I don’t send a lot of spam complaints generally. Mostly I block and move on. There are some companies, though, that I offer the professional courtesy of sending a complaint or a report to their abuse@ address. Former clients, friends and colleagues generally get that courtesy.

Stop with the incorrect SPF advice

• laura
• Jun 3, 2022

• Faq , Technical

Another day, another ESP telling a client to publish a SPF include for the wrong domain. It shouldn’t annoy me, really. It’s mostly harmless and it’s just an extra DNS look up for most companies. Heck, we followed Mailchimp’s advice and added their include to our bare root domain and it’s not really a huge deal for companies with only a couple SaaS providers. Still, it’s an incorrect recommendation and it does cause problems for some senders who are using multiple SaaS providers and Google.

Message not compliant with the RFCs

• laura
• May 30, 2022

• Industry

Every once in a while we’ll see a rejection from Yahoo that says RFCs 554 5.0.0 Message not accepted due to failed RFC compliance. What does that mean and what can we do about it?