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| For Web Designers | 2023-05-10 06:50:25 UTC | Mail Delivery Problems? |
Saturday, March 03 2018Way back in part three I promised a part four that would describe some of the fallacies that keep people being spammers. I finally got my round tuit, more than five years later. Way back in Blacklisted! Part One I addressed four common delusions of the ostensibly legitimate businessman who manages to avoid seeing himself as the spammer the rest of the world knows him to be. This is not a reiteration of that list. [ / e-commerce / bulkmail] permanent link Comments: 0 Trackbacks: 0 Wednesday, March 20 2013Some time ago I wrote the first three of what was to be a four part series, and eventually I'll get around to part four. Today, though, I just want to do a little follow-up so we can all see how well getting our stuff in order can work. If you've read those prior articles, you might remember this image from August of last year:  What's happened since then? This:  The bulk mail is still going out as two campaigns per week, but we've trimmed out about a quarter of the recipient addresses. Whereas it was a list of over 40,000 addresses a year ago, it's about 31,500 addresses today. None of them spamtraps, all of them deliverable. And with a Sender Score of 99, it's probably a safe bet that those messages are not being automatically filtered as bulk by the mail service providers, so they're actually getting in front of human users. I'm going to call it a win now. [ / e-commerce / bulkmail] permanent link Comments: 0 Trackbacks: 0 Thursday, August 16 2012Wherein we think about ways to get your mailing lists clean and keep them clean. First let us define the characteristics of a clean mailing list:
If you've read Part Two then most of those are pretty obviously vitally necessary. Those of my clients who've had the greatest problems with blacklisting are those who've employed downright lousy bulk mailing programs, and most of them were of the mindset that throwing mail at as many people as possible was the key to increased sales. It's not, but it seems plausible enough. [ / e-commerce / bulkmail] permanent link Comments: 0 Trackbacks: 0 Monday, August 06 2012In our previous installment we established that being SMTP blacklisted sucks and that if you've been blacklisted you probably deserved it. I promised to explain to you how those SMTP blacklists work, and being a man of my word here is that explanation. SMTP blacklists serve two very important purposes. The first is to keep spam out of the inboxes of human users who don't wish to be bothered by it. The second purpose is to conserve the resources of the email service provider so the spam doesn't consume any more network, processing, and storage capacities than are absolutely necessary. Those resources are, after all, costly, finite, and better used for purposes other than the delivery of mail no one wants to see anyway. Modern SMTP blacklists collect and collate data from many sources, some of which you may never have considered. When you send email of any kind, whether bulk or individual, you are providing information to them. Always. Always, always, always. You decide what that information will be but not how they will use it, so it behooves you to take care about what that information says about you/your mail server/your domain name. [ / e-commerce / bulkmail] permanent link Comments: 0 Trackbacks: 0 Saturday, August 04 2012So, you ran a bulk email campaign that got your mail server blacklisted, eh? I don't envy you, fellow space traveler, don't envy you at all. SMTP blacklisting is unpleasant, and it can be costly. I'd like to share some hard won wisdom with you. It's wisdom that you're going to come to eventually one way or another, at least in part, so you might just as well take the easy way and take heed of my words. You've already started on the course of learning the hard way -- you're smarter than to pursue that course all the way to the bitter end, aren't you? Before we get into the meat of it, a brief aside: In this article I may make you uncomfortable by challenging your self perception or your concept of fairness. Know that I intend no insult or offense, and that I speak plainly only because I believe I would be doing you a disservice if I were to do otherwise. It's time to confront this SMTP blacklisting problem head on, solve it once and for all, and never have to deal with it again. That's what we both want, and the only way we're going to get it is to observe reality as it is rather than as we wish for it to be. No matter how you choose to come to the wisdom I'm sharing with you, you are going to be uncomfortable at times. You might as well get it out of the way right now and then get on with solving the problem. We can, between us, solve your problem. The top four things that I always hear from those whose servers are or have recently been blacklisted:
First things first: Let us review the definition of spam as it is accepted by most technically savvy individuals. Spam is unsolicited bulk email, typically though not strictly commercial in nature. This is the definition used by those who make the internet work. Please make note of the fact that this definition does not address how the sender came into possession of the email addresses in his list. The second thing: The only thing being CAN-SPAM compliant gets you is freedom from prosecution in the United States for the bulk email you send. It does not obligate anyone anywhere to conduct or receive your internet communications. Let us now apply the previous two paragraphs to the Top Four things that I hear from those whose servers have been blacklisted. "I only send email to those with whom I have... a business relationship...", every time I've heard it, has meant that the speaker has sent bulk email to everyone whose email address he's acquired in the conduct of his business and most of them did not give their express consent to receive that bulk mail. Hmmm. Lack of express consent. Didn't ask or agree. Synonym: Unsolicited. Unsolicited bulk email, the very definition of spam. "People can opt out..." That's what blacklisting is. It's those recipients of your unsolicited bulk email acting en masse to opt out in a way that does not leave you the option to disregard their will. In my experience, for every spam complaint sent there will be two to four opt-out requests, so overall most people do have a sense of fair play. But those who fire the spam complaint instead? They have evidence that you have no regard for the rules so they have no reason to believe that you will keep your word that opting out will stop your bulk mail. They didn't break the rules. You did. Rules? But "all of my promotional mail is CAN-SPAM compliant". Again, all that gets you is freedom from legal prosecution and does not obligate anyone to conduct or receive your communications. The rules for gaining access to another's network are whatever they say they are, and most publish their rules for the world to see. The one rule that's most prevalent is Do Not Spam Our Users. Unsolicited bulk mail is spam, and you've sent it to their users. Of course they've blacklisted you. "I am not a spammer!" Unless all of those people who receive your bulk email have asked you to send it to them, yes, you are. And yes, that blacklisting was an appropriate response whether you like it or not. People don't like receiving unsolicited bulk email. They react badly to it, and almost everyone I've ever discussed the matter with has told me the same thing: If some online vendor spams me once, I will never go back again. It's a simple enough concept, one that most of us employ without even thinking about it: Do not reward bad behavior. Tangentially: Some years ago I was in a position that required me to attend lots and lots of seminars, several of them being on the topic of how customers behave. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% of the customers who have a problem with your company will never give you the opportunity to make it right. They just go away. Then they tell nine or ten of their friends about their bad experience -- and these days, some number of those friends are likely to be social media sites where tens, hundreds, or thousands will view the complaint. When sending unsolicited bulk email, that's the fire you're playing with. In Part Two, we'll go into how blacklists decide what is and is not spam and who is and is not a spammer. If you've got a dirty mailing list, you're a spammer even if unwittingly so. We can fix this problem. Stay tuned. [ / e-commerce / bulkmail] permanent link Comments: 0 Trackbacks: 0 |
  
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return(1.2014);