Shows
Everything Email MarketingMicrosoft Inboxes to Start Rejecting Emails that Fail DMARC (Season 3 Episode 3)Microsoft will start honoring p=reject DMARC policies for incoming email which does not pass a DMARC check when the associated DMARC record designates a policy of p=reject. This affects inbound messages at Microsoft Outlook email addresses, Microsoft Hotmail email addresses, Microsoft Live email addresses, and MSN email addresses.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/microsoft-inbox-properties-to-start-honoring-p-reject-dmarc/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability i...
2023-03-3103 min
Everything Email MarketingThis One-Click Unsubscribe Law is the #1 Email Law that People Get Horribly Wrong (Episode 1)The one-click unsubscribe law (sometimes referred to as the “one-step unsubscribe rule”) is part of CAN-SPAM. The CAN-SPAM unsubscribe rules include that a recipient be able to effectuate their opt-out with a one-click unsubscribe, whether that is by replying to the email or by visiting a single web page. The one-click unsubscribe law is part of our Federal law, and so applies to any and all mailing lists and mailing list email. In this episode we walk you through the requirements, and how to not be in violation of this very clear law.
Prefer to read it? You c...
2023-01-0904 min
Everything Email MarketingGeneric Business Email Addresses: Sometimes They are Still PII (Season 2 Episode 84)By now everybody knows that business email addresses that go directly to one individual, such as jo********@ex*****.com, are considered personal data (personally identifiable information, or PII) for the purposes of GDPR and, increasingly, email privacy laws in other countries. But what about generic business email addresses, such as in**@ex*****.com, sa***@ex*****.com, or co*****@ex*****.com (also known as ‘role account’ account email addresses)? The conventional wisdom is that those are not considered personal data, and so are fair game to spam add to your mailing list without prior consent. But not always, there’s a catc...
2022-11-2903 minEverything Email MarketingGoogle Gives Gmail Mass Email Services the Boot (Season 2 Episode 83)Users of mass email services such as Gmass, Woodpecker, Lemlist and others, that have been using Gmail’s API to send bulk email that tricked recipients into thinking that they were receiving personal one-to-one emails, have been put on notice today by Google: “Applications that use multiple accounts to abuse Google policies, bypass Gmail account limitation, circumvent filters and spam, or otherwise subvert restrictions are prohibited from accessing Gmail API scopes.”
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/google-gives-gmail-mass-email-services-the-boot/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provide...
2022-11-1903 minEverything Email Marketing4 New State Personal Data Privacy Laws Require Email Opt-in in 2023 (Season 2 Episode 82)As we have always predicted they would, the shortcomings of the CAN-SPAM Act have given rise to new state email opt-in laws and email consent laws, in the form of their new personal data privacy laws. The new Connecticut privacy law, along with new privacy laws in Colorado, Virginia, and Utah, all require consent before you can send targeted advertising to someone whose personal data you have acquired.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/state-email-opt-in-consent-laws/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get t...
2022-11-1806 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You Shouldn't Say You Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act (Season 2 Episode 81)One of the many things that we explain to people in our Email Deliverability Handbook is that while you must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, you shouldn’t say that you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. This advice may seem counter-intuitive, however here’s why.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/dont-say-you-comply-can-spam-act/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help you get to th...
2022-11-1702 minEverything Email MarketingDon't Use a Do Not Reply Email Address! The Importance of Using a Real Email Address (Season 2 Episode 80)“Never use a ‘do not reply’ email address” is something that we seem to have been saying for years (because we have). Today we are repeating it, hot on the heels of a real-life example, a retail mini-saga that unfolded for us with a large, well-known online retailer. The saga could have been easily downgraded to a minor glitch, had it not been for the fact that we kept receiving what seemed to be quite urgent, even strident, emails, all from a “do not reply” email address, and with no other way to respond to the email (no alternate email addres...
2022-11-1603 minEverything Email MarketingSpam Complaints = Getting Junkfoldered and Maybe Even Blocked (Co-reg Makes it Even Worse) (Season 2 Episode 79)You’d think that by now people would understand that spam complaints impact your deliverability, both to the inbox and, ultimately, even to the inbox provider themselves. Yet we regularly get questions and comments, both in the course of our business day, and in casual conversation, which make clear that there is something that people just aren’t grokking, so here it is, put as plainly and clearly as we can put it: If you get too many spam complaints your email is going to start going to the junk folder and may eventually be blocked.
Prefer to r...
2022-11-1504 minEverything Email MarketingWhy ISP Whitelist and ISP Email Delivery Requirements are Not All the Same (Season 2 Episode 78)ISP email delivery requirements and ISP whitelist requirements differ from ISP to ISP. In fact one of the most frustrating things for commercial and volume email senders is that different ISPs have different standards for what they require in order to ensure that your email gets delivered.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/isp-whitelist-isp-email-delivery-requirements/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help y...
2022-11-1107 minEverything Email MarketingA Surprising Answer to "Why are My Emails Going to Spam?" (Season 2 Episode 77)We are often asked “Why are my emails going to spam?” And while we know, and you may know, that there are obvious missteps to avoid when ensuring that your email is not marked as spam, there are some commonly overlooked practices, or lack thereof, that can still cause a legitimate email to be marked as spam.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/are-your-welcome-messages-helping-you-avoid-spam/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliv...
2022-11-1003 minEverything Email MarketingTransactional Email vs Marketing Email: Court Rules Logo, 7 Words Transmuted Confirmation to Promotional Email (Season 2 Episode 76)Here’s one way to tell transactional email vs marketing email: have a court slap you for putting what it says is advertising or marketing content in your opt-in confirmation email. This court decision happened inside the EU, however it is also a cautionary tale for anyone in the U.S., or Canada, or really anywhere that has national email marketing laws.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/transactional-email-vs-marketing-email/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the...
2022-11-0904 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Find and View Email Headers in AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and More! (Season 2 Episode 75)What are email headers? Email headers are that part of your email that contain the date, the subject, the information about who sent the email and to whom it was sent. (See our email headers example below.) Often you will be asked to provide “full headers” to a mailing organization, particularly if you are reporting spam, or a problem with email. That is so that you can help them to identify exactly who sent you the spam, and how they did it. Someone who is skilled at reading headers can usually see through even the most crafty attempt to fals...
2022-11-0802 minEverything Email MarketingWhy Spam Filters are an Email Sender's Friend (Season 2 Episode 74)Many email senders rage against the machine – the spam filtering machine, that is, and specifically spam filters for email. And it’s easy to understand why: legitimate email getting caught and misidentified as spam, also known as false positives, can play all sorts of havoc for an email sender. But consider this: what would the email world look like if the email receivers (ISPs and inbox providers) didn’t use spam filters?
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/why-spam-filters-are-your-friends/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is prov...
2022-11-0402 minEverything Email MarketingLoyal Subscriber Dropped For Failing to View Images (Season 2 Episode 73)We’ve talked before about things that can artificially suppress open rates, and the dangers inherent in not being aware of the issues. And of course we’ve talked about the importance of continuing to monitor your open rates, even after iOS 15, because hey, the inbox providers continue to monitor them. Now we’re going to share with you a real-life story about how a business gave a loyal subscriber the boot because that subscriber was reading email without loading images, and so the business assumed they were inactive. Don’t make this mistake.
Prefer to read it inste...
2022-11-0203 minEverything Email MarketingHaving a Sense of Entitlement Will Not Help Your Email Get Delivered (Season 2 Episode 72)Every once in a while a sender comes to us with a sense of entitlement, or even righteous indignation, about how this inbox provider or that ISP should, or must, or even has to, accept their email. Whether because it’s “requested” or opt-in or because it “complies with CAN-SPAM”, the sender gets all in our face about how a given ISP has a responsibility, and a duty, and an obligation to accept their email. Sometimes they even rant that it’s required by {CAN-SPAM| tort law | the 1st Amendment | insert your favorite rant here}.
Prefer to read it inst...
2022-11-0202 minEverything Email Marketing3 Things That Can Artificially Suppress Your Email Open Rates (Season 2 Episode 71)We’re always thinking about ways that we can boost our customers’ deliverability and email reputation to previously unheard of heights. And, as we’ve mentioned recently, open rates are still important, not withstanding what some might say. That’s because ISPs and inbox providers still look at your open rates to see if people are really interested in receiving and reading your email. As ESP MailChimp puts it, “Open and click rates can give you a good idea of how your campaigns are performing with a particular audience. If an open rate is strong, it usually means your subject li...
2022-10-2804 minEverything Email MarketingWhy ISPs Won't Give You the Email Address of People Who Make Spam Complaints Against You (Season 2 Episode 70)Getting spam complaints and not knowing who made a particular email spam complaint is really frustrating. We get it. A common complaint that we hear, particularly from email senders who are signed up for feedback loops from ISPs, is “why won’t the ISPs let us know who is complaining and clicking “this is spam” on our email, so that we can unsubscribe them?” This is frustrating for senders who are following all best email marketing practices, including confirmed opt-in, because it means that someone who confirmed their consent to receive the email still complained that it was spam!
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2022-10-2703 minEverything Email Marketing5 Tips to Improve Your Email Deliverability (as Featured in B-to-B Online) (Season 2 Episode 69)Back in 2009 we had the pleasure of working with journalist Karen Bannen on an article that she was doing about email deliverability for B-to-B Online. Karen interviewed both our CEO Anne Mitchell, and R. Dave Lewis (CMO of Message Systems at the time) for the piece, in which she distilled down to their essence 5 ways to improve your email deliverability.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/5-tips-to-improve-your-email-deliverability-featured-in-btob-online/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder o...
2022-10-2605 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Check if Your Email is Blacklisted on an Email Blacklist (Season 2 Episode 68)“Am I blacklisted?” “What is a good IP blacklist checker?” “How can I find out if my email is being blocked?” These are common, frustrating, and perplexing questions. First, let’s clear up blocklist vs blacklist: these lists are more properly called “blocklists”, not “blacklists”. This is because they are lists which are used to block email spam, not to blacklist people. However we recognize that many people, and even some services, use the more common “blacklist”. (Don’t be common!) Anyways, often people want to determine whether their email server (the computer from which their email is sent) is listed on a blocklist. Bu...
2022-10-2202 minEverything Email MarketingWhat is a Click-Through Rate For Email and Why You Need to Monitor Yours (Season 2 Episode 67)It’s really important to understand what is a click-through rate, what is a good click-through rate, and why you need to monitor your own email click-through rate (also expressed as “CTR”). Click-through rate and open rate are the two metrics that are the twin canaries in the coal mine when it comes to email deliverability. When you monitor these two rates, you can be tipped off to deliverability issues that are brewing and nip them in the bud before they become serious problems, such as your email going to the spam folder or being rejected or blocked. (And this i...
2022-10-2005 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Avoid Emails Going to Spam: Do People Mistake Your Email for Spam (Season 2 Episode 66)Wondering how to avoid emails going to spam? Here’s a very basic thing to remember: one of the main reasons that people may mistake your email for spam is because, in fact, the content of your email makes your email look like spam. Remember that old saw, that “content is king”? Well, content can also be the joker, where the joke is on you. Because if your content is garish or gaudy, or full of lots of big images and little text, then instead of getting the royal treatment, it may go straight to the spam folder.
Pref...
2022-10-1905 minEverything Email MarketingEmail Response Time Expectations: When a Prospect or Customers Sends Email - Answer It! (Season 2 Episode 65)Customer service email response time expectations are such that a lead or customer expects to get an email reply to an email inquiry within minutes or, at worst, a few hours. That means that if you are taking more than a few hours to respond to a customer’s email, and especially to a lead or prospect’s email, you are both tarnishing your company’s reputation, and losing out on business – in fact, you are effectively turning business away. Instead, answer it immediately, or at least as soon as you can, even if it’s just to acknowledge it and say...
2022-10-1704 minEverything Email Marketing3 Ways that You Can Improve Email Deliverability Rates for Free (Season 2 Episode 64)Improving email deliverability rates is both an art and a science, and to really get results you need to have some expertise in both. And of course, that’s one of the reasons that many companies pay someone to do it for them, be it an in-house email deliverability expert, an outside company such as ours, or a combination of both. But there are some fairly simple things that you can do on your own to help monitor and improve email deliverability, no experience needed! Here are three things that you can do that can make a big difference to...
2022-10-1503 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Share Google Postmaster Tools Data With Somebody Else (Season 2 Episode 63)If you are already using Google’s Gmail Postmaster Tools, guess what! You can share your Google Postmaster Tools data with others! (If you aren’t already signed up for Gmail Postmaster Tools, see our tutorial on how to sign up for Google’s Gmail Postmaster Tools.) There are any number of reasons that you might want to give someone else access to your data; here at SuretyMail we use it to review our customers’ inboxing versus spam-foldering at Gmail so that we can help them fix anything that may be causing them to not achieve the best inboxing possible...
2022-10-1402 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Sign Up For Google Postmaster Tools and the Gmail FBL (Season 2 Episode 62)While Google’s Gmail Feedback Loop (Gmail FBL) is intended primarily for high volume senders and ESPs, Google offers their Google Postmaster Tools (PMT) to everyone. Here are how to sign up for Google Postmaster Tools and the Gmail Feedback Loop.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/how-to-sign-up-for-google-gmail-postmaster-tools/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help you get to the inbox go to...
2022-10-1310 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You Need an Email Retention Policy, What it Should Be, and What Can Happen if You Don't Have One (Season 2, Episode 61)If you are in business online you must have an email retention policy (ERP), and your email archive must follow it (email archive meaning the storage of your email). If you either send or receive email in the course of business (and you probably do if you’re reading this) then it’s imperative to have a written email retention policy, which includes your email archiving policy. And at least as important, you need to follow it religiously.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/why-you-need-an-email-retention-and-archiving-policy-and-what-it-should-be/
The...
2022-10-1205 minEverything Email MarketingWhen Email Deliverability Issues Turn Dangerous and Put Others at Risk (Season 2 Episode 60)We all know that email delivery problems are costly, and can damage your email reputation. But sometimes email deliverability issues can actually create dangerous situations. As more and more people rely on email for delivery of vital information, and less on the post office and phone calls, this is is something about which everyone, and services and agencies in particular, need to be aware.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/when-email-deliverability-issues-turn-dangerous/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by I...
2022-10-1106 minEverything Email MarketingWhy Setting Subscriber Expectations is Critical to Email Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 59)Here’s one of those things that impacts email deliverability which can be so subtle, and yet so critical. It can bite you in the back without your realizing it, and then six months later you wonder why you have gangrene in your knees; it can be that difficult to connect the dots. That is until someone points it out to you, and then you have that forehead-slapping moment: of course! And that thing is that setting and meeting subscriber expectations will have a direct and demonstrable impact on your email deliverability (not to mention your email’s effectiveness).
2022-10-0803 minEverything Email MarketingThe Top 5 Cadence Mistakes Email Marketers Make When They Schedule Email Campaigns (Season 2 Episode 58)Email cadence and how you schedule email to be sent is of crucial importance to both your email ROI and your email deliverability! Yet in all of the focus that email marketers, newsletter publishers, and other volume email senders put on tweaking their content, format, and other aspects of their email to help maximize deliverability and ROI, they often overlook the scheduling of their mailings, by which we mean when they send their mailings, and how often they send them. Yet this can have a seriously negative impact on your deliverability! Here then, are the top 5 mistakes that email...
2022-10-0705 minEverything Email MarketingWhy "Recommend a Friend" Email Schemes Are Not a Friend to Your Email Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 57)Recommend a Friend email, Refer a Friend, Tell a Friend (TAF), Share with a Friend, Forward to a Friend requests, whatever you want to call them, they can negatively impact your email deliverability and online reputation. Generally Tell a Friend links or words encouraging people to Refer a Friend or to share your email with a friend don’t really generate much quality traffic, but they sure can bring deliverability trouble. In fact, there are a couple of different ways that exhorting your readers to “tell a friend” can cause you problems.
Prefer to read it instead of lis...
2022-10-0504 minEverything Email MarketingDo I Have to Put My Real Physical Address in My Email to be CAN-SPAM Compliant or Can I Use a P.O. Box? (Season 2 Episode 56)Exactly what is a CAN-SPAM physical address? The CAN-SPAM Act, which is the U.S.’ Federal email marketing law, requires that you include your physical mailing address in each and every bulk mailing, such as an email newsletter, email marketing, or other email to a mailing list. For some reason this requirement confuses people – maybe because it’s so straight-forward, and people are used to complex, convoluted, and contradictory (the Three Cs of legislative drafting) language when it comes to the law. So what exactly does this mean in the context of CAN-SPAM?
Prefer to read it instea...
2022-10-0503 minEverything Email MarketingMake SMS Spammers Pay You by Threatening to Report Their Text Message Spam (Season 2 Episode 55)Wondering how to report text message spam?
Even better, get that SMS spammer to settle with you for good money, no lawyer needed!
It's true. Just the very threat of having you report their SMS spam will make them cough up the money rather than rick a court ordering them to pay much more.
That's because under Federal law you can collect up to $1500 for every single message that they send you!
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay-you-for-having-sent-you-spam/
Th...
2022-10-0405 minEverything Email MarketingHow Out of Office Messages Can Hurt Your Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 54)Did you know that an automated out of office message (OOO messages) or autoresponder vacation message can hurt your email deliverability? In fact, there are a few different ways that those automatic out of office messages can hurt your email delivery, and for that reason, we advise you not to use them at all or, if you must, to use them very, very carefully.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/how-vacation-reply-messages-can-hurt-your-deliverability/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by I...
2022-09-3004 minEverything Email MarketingCheck Your Reverse DNS With Our Free Reverse IP Lookup Tool (Season 2 Episode 53)Our reverse DNS tool allows you to do a reverse DNS lookup on any IP address and see the reverse DNS (rDNS) value, i.e. you can see what domain sits at that IP address (this is why it is sometimes referred to as a “reverse IP lookup tool”). Reasons that you may want to do a reverse DNS lookup are many, however in the context of email you want to be sure that the IP address through which you send email is associated with your sending domain.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do th...
2022-09-2902 minEverything Email MarketingRetailers: Why You Need to Ask Before Adding a Customer to Your B2C Email Marketing List (Season 2 Episode 52)Do you need to get consent from your customers before adding them to your B2C email marketing list? Building your B2C email list with consent is very important to your bottom line. (B2C stands for “business to consumer” or “business to customer”.) There are many examples of when you can do something, but perhaps shouldn’t, and nowhere is this more evident than in what is permitted by the CAN-SPAM Federal email marketing law. For the purposes of this article in particular we are going to be talking about adding a customer’s email address to your marketi...
2022-09-2904 minEverything Email MarketingDMARC Email Authentication and How to Set Up a DMARC Policy and DMARC Record (Season 2 Episode 51)Do you know what your DMARC policy is, or if you even have a DMARC record? Of the authentication mechanisms (DMARC, SPF, DKIM) SPF and DKIM are important resources to authenticate different aspects of your email flow, but it’s important to have a DMARC record stating your DMARC policy as well. This is because your DMARC policy (contained in your DMARC record which is a text record within your DNS records) tells email receivers what they should do with email that claims to be from you but that fails SPF and/or DKIM.
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2022-09-2706 minEverything Email Marketing3 Reasons to Not Use a NoReply Email Address in Your EmailDo not use a noreply email address in the email you send out; just don’t do it. Don’t send out email with a noreply email address as the ‘from’ email address, don’t send out email from an address that can’t accept replies, just don’t go near any type of noreply email address at all. Here’s why. Besides being the opposite of best practices, think about what happens if you reply to a noreply email. When someone to whom you send email doesn’t notice the noreply email address from which you sent the email, they will r...
2022-09-2705 minEverything Email MarketingDKIM: The Most Confusing of the 3 Authentication Mechanisms Explained in Plain English (Season 2 Episode 49)Of the current email authentication mechanisms, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, DKIM seems to be the most confusing for people (this is why we offer a human-powered DKIM checker, contact us for a free DKIM check). What is a DKIM selector? What are the DKIM tags? How does one create a DKIM record? Is there a good DKIM record generator? Here is a plain English explanation of DKIM, and a breakdown of the anatomy of a DKIM record.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/dkim-explained-how-to-set-up-and-use-domainkeys-identified-mail-effectively/
T...
2022-09-2607 minEverything Email MarketingWhat Those SMTP Error Codes Mean and Why You Should Care (Season 2 Episode 48)SMTP codes can be so confusing, especially those SMTP response codes and SMTP error codes like the dreaded SMTP error 550. These are often returned in bounced email, such as “550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable” or “550 5 2 1 mail from refused spam site.” They are in response to SMTP commands that have ‘gone wrong’ between your email server that sent the email, and the receiving email server that is unable to deliver it (or refuses to deliver it) for some reason. But what exactly do they mean? Why should you care and what should you do? And why do we say that SMTP er...
2022-09-2207 minEverything Email MarketingWhich Copyright Date Should You Use on a Website? Odds are Good That You Have it Wrong (Season 2 Episode 47)“Which copyright date should be on a website?” someone asked us recently. People are often confused about which date they should use as their copyright date on a website. In fact, a whole lot of sites have the wrong copyright date on their website. As an Internet policy institute, and because our CEO is an Internet policy lawyer, we often get questions unrelated to our core offering of email sender certification and deliverability services, and we are happy to answer them if we can. The answer to this one is actually really easy, and will make perfect sense to you...
2022-09-2204 minEverything Email MarketingWhich Really is Better: Plain Text Email vs HTML? The Answer May Surprise You (Season 2 Episode 46)You may be surprised to learn who comes out the winner in the plain text email vs HTML match. Whether you go plain text email or HTML can impact many things, including deliverability and engagement, which of course are the most important rates for your email campaigns. Digital marketing solutions provider Vendasta actually conducted research on which gets not just better deliverability, but better traction in terms of response when it comes to HTML vs plain text emails, and what they found may seem counter-intuitive. (In case you’re not sure whether the email you are sending is HTML em...
2022-09-2106 minEverything Email MarketingThe 6 Steps to a Successful Re-Engagement Campaign (Includes Case Study) (Season 2 Episode 45)If you are looking for re-engagement campaign examples, look no further. Properly conducting an email re-engagement campaign, and following re-engagement campaign best practices, is critical to your email deliverability. One misstep and all of your email can start going to the spam folder, if not being outright blocked as “spam”. In our knowledge article about How to Revive, Warm Up, and Re-Engage an Old Mailing List without Getting Into Trouble we highlight six points that are key to conducting an effective re-engagement campaign. These include removing non-openers, making sure your that authentication is set up correctly, minimal formatting, compelling subj...
2022-09-2009 minEverything Email MarketingPlacing Advertising in Email Confirmation Messages Can Get You into Trouble (Season 2 Episode 44)Email address confirmation messages are those messages that email senders who use best practices send to people who sign up for their mailing lists. The purpose of the email confirmation message is to confirm that the person actually wants to be on, and consents to being put on, your mailing list before they get added to the mailing list. The problem is, some email senders see confirmation messages as a place to slip in a little advertising.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/email-confirmation-messages-are-not-the-place-for-advertising/
T...
2022-09-1702 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Reduce Spam Email: Remove Your Personal Information from the Internet at Places Like Crunchbase, Zoominfo, & Apollo.io (Season 2 Episode 43)The best spam email blocker is not getting spammed in the first place. Here’s how to prevent spam email (or at least reduce the amount of spam you are getting) by removing your personal information from the Internet. You may already know this, but here in the United States, where the privacy laws are so lax, it’s perfectly legal for a company to scrape all of your contact information and then sell access to it. ZoomInfo, Spokeo, Crunchbase, Apollo.io, and RocketReach all do this, as do many others. And removing your data from those databases can help...
2022-09-1607 minEverything Email MarketingGmail “Skip the Spam Filter” Program for Political Campaigns Opens for Business (Season 2 Episode 42)Google’s Gmail Verified Sender Pilot Program for political campaigns is up and running, and political campaigns can now apply to be part of Google’s program which allows certified and verified political campaign email to bypass the spam filter and be delivered directly to Gmail users’ inboxes, but only once unless the user doesn’t click on the big red “I don’t want this” message that will accompany it.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/gmail-verified-sender-pilot-program-for-political-campaigns-opens-for-business/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get...
2022-09-1505 minEverything Email MarketingWhy Email Open Rates are Still Important (Season 2 Episode 41)Do you have any idea what your open rates are for your mailings? If your answer is “no”, well, you should, and we’re going to tell you why. If your answer is “what’s an open rate?”, then, well, you probably have bigger problems than just not knowing what an open rate is, let alone what yours are. Either way, you could be (in fact likely are) having serious email deliverability problems, and not even know it. (And yes, you still need to monitor your open rates even after iOS 15.)
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it...
2022-09-1405 minEverything Email MarketingWhy Email Open Rates Are Still Important in a Post iOS 15 World (Season 2 Episode 40)After iOS 15 email marketing was changed forever, and email open rates are no longer important, right? Wrong. Since the moment that iOS 15 was a gleam in Tim Cook’s eye, self-styled email marketing experts began advising that you could start ignoring open rates because, and we quote, “they are no longer accurate” and “they are artificially inflated by iOS 15.” To paraphrase a beloved children’s story, this is terrible, horrible, no good, very bad advice.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/email-open-rates-are-still-important-after-ios-15/
The Everything Email Marketi...
2022-09-1006 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You Need to be Doing Your Own Email Delivery Monitoring (Season 2 Episode 39)Are you doing email delivery monitoring? We sure hope so, because inbox delivery monitoring is one of two critical ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your email campaigns (the other is tracking your open rates and click-through rates, which is another discussion for another day).
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/all-about-email-delivery-monitoring/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can h...
2022-09-0903 minEverything Email MarketingSMS Marketing Best Practices and Laws You Must Follow (Season 2 Episode 38)SMS marketing, also known as mobile marketing or text message marketing, is really popular, and so we get a lot of questions about SMS marketing best practices and SMS marketing law. These are really important questions, because the laws around SMS marketing are very strict, and very clear, and allow someone that you message to sue you directly. This is also why you have to be really careful when selecting SMS marketing platforms and SMS marketing services, and why you have to be sure you are working with an SMS marketing service that helps you adhere to the law.
2022-09-0805 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Get Whitelisted: Email Whitelists, Whitelisting, and Certification 101 (Season 2 Episode 37)Confused about what is an email whitelist, what is email whitelisting, what is email certification, and how to get whitelisted or certified? Email marketers and businesses spend time, energy, and money creating great email content and campaigns to inform customers and subscribers about products, services, and other information. This is a valuable way to connect with customers and subscribers when done right. But how many of those emails that you are sending are actually being delivered to the inbox, and how many are going to the spam folder where they are never seen? If you’re concerned about this (and...
2022-09-0304 minEverything Email MarketingWhat is Email Authentication SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and Why It's Important Explained in Plain English (Season 2 Episode 36)If you are asking “What is SPF?” or “What is DKIM?” or “What is DMARC”, or generally “What is email authentication” and “Why do I need it”, well, you are far from alone. There is a lot of confusion around email authentication, so here is a plain English, simple explanation of what each email authentication is, and what it does.
First, SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework, DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail, and DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance. But, in the immortal words of the movie Airplane, that’s not important right now. What is important...
2022-09-0205 minEverything Email MarketingHere's How to Stay Out of the Gmail Promotions Tab (Season 2 Episode 35)People spend a lot of time worrying about how to keep their email from going to the Gmail promotions folder (technically the Gmail promotions tab), and how to get their Gmail promotions to the inbox. So what we are about to tell you may surprise you: Google and Gmail actually think that they are doing you a favor by putting your email in the Promotions tab and, similarly, they think that they are doing their users (the people you are sending your email to) a favor by putting your email in the promotions tab.
Prefer to read...
2022-09-0108 minEverything Email Marketing2 Ways that Email Disclaimer Language Can Hurt Your Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 34)Disclaimers. Whether in email, print marketing, or contracts, who reads them? We’ll tell you who reads email disclaimer language: spam filters. Email senders often put disclaimer language at the bottom of an email saying something like “You are receiving this email because you opted in and requested to receive it.” Of course how often do you think a user sees a message that starts with “You have received this message because” and thinks “Oh! That’s right, I did ask for this, so I won’t mark it as spam!”? Less often than you might hope.
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2022-08-3003 minEverything Email MarketingYour Ratio of Text to Images in Email Marketing Can Hurt Your Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 33)One of the things that spam filters look at is the ratio of text to images in email marketing. Did you know that? While it’s easy to embed images in email, it’s not always to your advantage. If you’ve ever gotten one of those spam messages which has a big old image, and only a little text, or perhaps even one of those spam messages where the text is embedded in an image, you can understand the reason for this. It’s because spammers likes to send messages with images and little text – because of course the spam f...
2022-08-3002 minEverything Email MarketingHow do People Respond to You Personalizing Email Subject Lines? Survey Says... (Season 2 Episode 32)Conventional wisdom says that personalizing email subject lines in email marketing and other commercial email, such as putting someone’s first name in the subject line by using tags or other automations, increases the open rate for that email marketing. n fact, if you do a web search, such as in Google, for “email personalization open rates”, you will find over 16million results, most of which tell you that personalizing email subject lines in your email marketing will boost your open rate. That may have been true some years ago, but not necessarily so much now.
Prefer to rea...
2022-08-2603 minEverything Email MarketingNever Send Mass Mailings Before Warming Up an IP Address: A Story in 3 Parts (Season 2 Episode 31)You should never send mass or bulk email through a new IP address before you warm up that new IP address. Warming up an IP address is a critical step towards not only having good deliverability, but also to making sure that your email isn’t tagged as spam, or blocked. To illustrate the importance of warming up an IP address, we’re going to tell you a story.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/why-you-should-never-send-mass-mailings-through-a-brand-new-ip-address/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get t...
2022-08-2503 minEverything Email Marketing3 Ways that Email Personalization in Subject Lines May Hurt Your Email Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 30)Email personalization (i.e. personalizing email subjects and greetings) has become a widely used practice in email marketing. So it always surprises people to hear that personalizing email can actually hurt your email deliverability if not done well and carefully. Most mailing software these days will allow you to personalize email by putting someone’s name in the subject line and salutation, and, not surprisingly, most commercial emailers take advantage of this. After all, using the recipient’s name when addressing them seems like it should be a really good idea.
Prefer to read it instead of list...
2022-08-2504 minEverything Email MarketingWhy, Where, and How to Get a Dedicated IP Address and Why We Recommend It (Season 2 Episode 29)We are often asked “Do I really need a dedicated IP address?” and also how to get a dedicated IP address. So just what is a dedicated IP address, and why should you have one? In the context of email sending and email marketing, a dedicated IP address means an IP address through which you and only you send email. It means that nobody else can send email out from that IP address, just you. On the other hand, a “shared IP address” means that you are not the only one who is sending email out through the shared IP addre...
2022-08-2305 minEverything Email MarketingThe Answer to Where Can I Buy or Find Free Email Lists for Marketing? (Season 2 Episode 28)We are often asked “Where can I buy email lists?” or “Where are free email lists for marketing?” and the answer is “all sorts of places”. But the correct question is “Can I use a list of email addresses that I purchased or otherwise acquired?” and the answer is “No”, not even if it is a targeted list of email addresses. Now, to be more precise, of course you can use it, we mean you can physically load that list of email addresses into your sending platform and press “send”. But it will get you into a world of hurt, deliverability-wis...
2022-08-2203 minEverything Email MarketingWhat Does Opt-In Mean? An Explanation of Email Opt-In Definitions and Spam (Season 2 Episode 27)We talk a lot about email opt-in here, and you may be wondering “what does opt-in mean?” If you are not sure about the exact definitions of the various levels of opt-in when it comes to building email marketing lists or other types of email lists, or the definition of spam, here is a quick review of what each of them mean. Because there is some confusion about what each of them means, especially where one method of list-building may have more than one name, we’ve created this resource explaining the generally accepted definitions of Double Opt-In, Confirmed Opt-In...
2022-08-1904 minEverything Email MarketingWhy It's Important to be Truthful in Email Marketing (Season 2 Episode 26)Email marketing is a great way to reach your audience and customers. But when using email in marketing it’s also really easy to exaggerate, or even lie. The best email marketing never exaggerates, in fact it’s a great example of a place you should underpromise and overdeliver. The problem for email marketers and email marketing is that they may have quotas they are trying to meet, or a performance review coming up, and so are pushing the envelope a bit and overpromising. But there may also be another factor at hand: People find it much easier to lie...
2022-08-1802 minEverything Email MarketingEmail Reputation Can be More Important than Being on an Email Whitelist (Season 2 Episode 25)Many of our customers come to us concerned about one thing above all else: getting on an email whitelist. However having a good email reputation is actually much more important. But lots of people still talk about trying to get whitelisted, and they are looking for information about how to get on an email whitelist. And indeed, getting whitelisted used to be the holy grail of email deliverability.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/why-you-should-care-more-about-email-reputation-than-whitelisting/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get t...
2022-08-1802 minEverything Email MarketingLooks Really Do Matter If You Want to Improve Email Deliverability (Season 2 Episode 24)If you want to improve email deliverability it’s important not to neglect how your email looks, including the formatting! We’ve talked more than once here about how not just your content, but even the formatting of your content, can make a big difference to your email deliverability. It can either improve email deliverability, or it can hinder it. It’s something on which we cannot put too fine a point, as some people just don’t get it, others don’t believe it, and still others feel that it shouldn’t matter, gosh darnnit, especially if their list buildin...
2022-08-1603 minEverything Email MarketingISPs Do Not Have to Accept and Deliver Your Email Even If It Isn't Spam (Season 2 Episode 23)ISPs are allowed to bounce your email for any reason, or even no reason at all. We’ve touched on this briefly before, but we think that it’s time to make it crystal clear: ISPs do not have to accept and deliver your email. Or any email. Including, yes, again, YOUR email. Even if your email is double confirmed opt-in with a cherry on top, an ISP is under no obligation to accept or deliver your email.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/isps-do-not-have-to-accept-your-email-even-if-it-isnt-spam/
The...
2022-08-1603 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You Shouldn't Include Attachments in Email Unless the Person is Expecting It (Season 2 Episode 22)Including attachments in email without first communicating to the recipient that you will be doing so can really get your email into trouble. This is true for all types of email, including transactional email, one to one email, email marketing, and other bulk email.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/why-you-shouldnt-include-attachments-in-email-without-asking-first/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help you get to t...
2022-08-1203 minEverything Email MarketingNot All Double or Confirmed Opt-in Requires a Confirmation Email (Season 2 Episode 21)The title of this article, “Not all double- or confirmed opt-in requires a confirmation email” may seem at first like an oxymoron. But it’s not.
At its most basic, double or confirmed opt-in means that after someone requests to be put on your mailing list, you check with them and essentially ask “are you sure? Did you really mean to subscribe to this mailing list? Do I really have your permission to add your email address to my list?”
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/no...
2022-08-1103 minEverything Email MarketingEmail Best Practices Should Not Be Confused With Email "Common Practices" (Season 2 Episode 20)It’s important not to confuse email marketing best practices, and email best practices in general, with email “common practices”.
In fact, this can be a very dangerous, slippery slope on which to pin your email deliverability and indeed your email reputation. In fact at one point in time there was a meme going around suggesting exactly that, that it’s “important to follow email marketing common practices.” No, no, NO! To suggest that best practices aren’t really best practices, but only ‘common practices’, reduces them to “not necessarily required” practices.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to i...
2022-08-1003 minEverything Email MarketingStudy Finds That 75% of Unsubscribes Due to Frequency and Relevancy Issues (Season 2 Episode 19)It’s always nice when an independent third-party study substantiates what we’ve been saying all along. In this case, a study by Harris Interactive on behalf of Merkle (the database marketing people) has found that between 73 to 75% of people hit “unsubscribe” because either they feel that they are getting email from you too often, or that it is not relevant, or both.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/study-finds-that-75-of-unsubscribes-due-to-frequency-and-relevancy-issues/
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP Sur...
2022-08-1002 minEverything Email MarketingThe Benefits of ROI for COI (Return on Investment for Confirmed Opt-in) (Season 2, Episode 19)What is the ROI for COI (the return on investment for confirmed opt-in)? Many email senders are reluctant to move existing lists to a confirmed opt-in (sometimes called “double opt-in”) model for fear of losing many of their existing users, and reducing the size of their mailing lists. When called upon to confirm or reconfirm a mailing list – say, for example, when moving their mailing list to a new email service provider (ESP) – they balk, and will even go to a second tier ESP that doesn’t require reconfirmation.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do th...
2022-08-0903 minEverything Email MarketingDoes the TCPA and Do Not Call List Apply to Text Messages? How About Political SMS Messages? Yes to Both! (Season 2, Episode 18)Here are the answers to the two most common questions we get about the law which allows you stop spam text messages being sent by an SMS spammer by making the SMS spammer pay you. This is your right under Federal law, specifically the TCPA (TCPA stands for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act). SMS marketing has become the darling of the marketing community, but if you haven’t consented to receive their marketing text messages, and if your mobile number is on the Federal Do Not Call list, they are violating Federal law (the TCPA).
Prefer to re...
2022-08-0305 minEverything Email MarketingDo You Want Political Email to Bypass Spam Filters and Go Directly to Your Inbox? Congress Does. Here's What to Do. (Season 2, Episode 17)Political campaign email would get a free pass to your inbox, and not be allowed to be run through spam filters, if new legislation introduced by Republicans in both the U.S. House and Senate is passed. Named the Political BIAS Emails Act of 2022 (BIAS is short for “Bias In Algorithm Sorting”), a/k/a HR 8160 and SB 4409, the new law would require that email receiving systems such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and all the others, deliver political campaign email directly to your inbox, and they would be expressly forbidden to run it through their spam filters at all.
2022-08-0305 minEverything Email MarketingGoogle's Plan to Let Political Email Bypass the Spam Filter: Interview with Anne P. Mitchell Esq. on KSRO with Michelle Marques and Larry Olson (Season 2, Episode 16)Google has asked the Federal Election Commission to weigh in on Google's plan to let political email, and specifically political campaign email, bypass all spam filtering and be delivered directly to the inbox of Google's Gmail users. Email law & policy attorney and ISIPP Get to the Inbox CEO Anne P. Mitchell is interviewed by California radio station KSRO's Michelle Masques and Larry Olson.
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help you get to the i...
2022-07-2808 minEverything Email MarketingThe Top 3 Things That Can Cause Low Open Rates For a Mailing List (Season 2, Episode 15)Just what is a good open rate average, and is there an open rate formula? In our world we talk a lot about open rates, and why it’s so important to track them (you can read more about the importance of tracking open rates here). While open rate averages vary widely across industries, senders, ESPs, and ISPs, and there is no real open rate formula, a very general rule of thumb is that inbox providers and ISPs like to see a consistent 20% or better open rate in order to keep putting the email that you send flowing into th...
2022-07-2304 minEverything Email MarketingRemember to Add Email Deliverability Test Accounts to Your Mailing Lists (Season 2, Episode 14)One of the most important things that you can do to ensure good email deliverability is to add email deliverability test accounts to your mailing list. Fortunately, adding deliverability test accounts is also one of the easiest things that you can do! You should do this by creating one or more test accounts with each of the major free webmail hosts, such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. You can do this by using your “company name” as your standard email deliverability test account name.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.i...
2022-07-2103 minEverything Email MarketingLittle Known Self-Help Email Deliverability Checks to Improve Email Deliverability (Season 2, Episode 13)We are often asked how we can be so much lower cost an alternative to Validity, and it’s because we do things like giving you email deliverability check information that you can do yourself to improve email deliverability, instead of charging you a bunch to do it for you. Actually today we’re going to give you two email deliverability self-help tips. One of these is actually super-easy and seems obvious, yet we regularly get a surprised look from customers when we ask them whether they have done it already.
Prefer to read it instead of list...
2022-07-2104 minEverything Email MarketingLet's Play "Can I Use This List?" (Season 2, Episode 12)Let’s play a game that we like to call “Can I Use This List?” or “Can I Put This Email Address on My List?”. Here are fifteen scenarios in which someone may come across or into possession of somebody’s email address, or a mailing list, and you have to decide whether or not it is ok to use the email address or list. Which ones are fair game to use? The answers may surprise you!
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: https://www.isipp.com/blog/can-i-use-this-list/
The Everythin...
2022-07-2008 minEverything Email MarketingEmail Deliverability and Domain Reputation (Season 2, Episode 11)There’s a lot of misunderstanding around domain reputation when it comes to email sending and email deliverability. Domain reputation is a thing, and it does relate to email and email deliverability, and it is important. For example, it is absolutely the case that if example.com starts spamming, inbox providers are going to start putting email from example.com into the junk folder, or maybe even block it altogether. But still, domain reputation is not what a lot of people think that it is.
Prefer to read it instead of listen to it? Do that here: htt...
2022-07-1903 minEverything Email MarketingWords That Can Get Your Email Into Trouble (Season 2, Episode 10)Did you know that there are a lot of regular words that can help push your email to the spam folder if everything else isn’t squeaky clean? Remember George Carlin’s “7 words you can’t say on tv”? Well there are a whole lot more words that you can’t say in email without risking your email being a candidate for further scrutiny and possibly going to the spam folder. In fact one of the things that is most surprising to many email senders is just how many words there are that, when in their email, and if their email...
2022-07-1603 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You May Want to Rethink Your LinkedIn Outreach Strategy: LinkedIn Says Cold Outreach Messages Are Spam (Season 2, Episode 9)Did you know that it’s a violation of LinkedIn’s policies to send cold LinkedIn outreach messages? A lot (and we mean a lot) of businesses use LinkedIn as their personal cold lead generation playground, but that is not at all what LinkedIn is intended to be, and LinkedIn’s posted policies, and their very definition of spam, make that clear.
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, your outsourced email deliverability team, and the original email deliverability company and consultants, since 2003. For more information about how we can he...
2022-07-1505 minEverything Email MarketingWhat to do When a Spamhaus Check Shows You Are On a Spamhaus Blocklist (Season 2, Episode 8)When a Spamhaus check reveals that you are on a Spamhaus blocklist (also known as a blacklist), what should you do? The Spamhaus Project maintains a few different blocklists, such as the Spamhaus SBL and the DBL, and for each Spamhaus blocklist removal entails a couple of steps which may differ between the lists, but which are similar and not difficult. Note that most of these blocklists are DNSBLs (DNS-based blocklists), which means that what gets listed on them is IP addresses, specifically IP addresses demonstrated to be the sources of spam.
https://www.isipp.com/blog...
2022-07-1402 minEverything Email MarketingWhat is a Spam Trap and Why Do They Matter? (Season 2, Episode 7)What is a spam trap email address? (Or, if you prefer the one word version, what is a spamtrap email address?) Perhaps more importantly, why do they matter? Here we explain spam traps, and how to avoid spam traps. People used to not really believe that spam traps existed, at least not so many of them that an email sender would really need to worry about having a spam trap on their mailing list. But they do exist, they are everywhere, and as an email sender you do have to worry about avoiding them. So let’s start by ex...
2022-07-1303 minEverything Email MarketingDon't Use a Decoy Pass-through Email Domain Name - Here's Why (Season 2, Episode 6)Sending email from a decoy, pass-through email domain which forwards to your primary domain is never a good idea, yet there are people who do this. (Some people call this a ‘dummy domain’, but that’s actually something different.) What they do is set up a decoy domain and send their cold email from it, with links in the cold email which point to their primary domain. They do it this way in an effort to protect the reputation of their primary domain; aren’t they so clever? Here’s the thing; actually two things: 1. It doesn’t work, it will stil...
2022-07-1203 minEverything Email MarketingWhy Inbox Providers Don't Approve of Email Validation and Email Tester Services (Season 2, Episode 5)Email tester and email list cleaning and validation services are frowned on by inbox providers and ISPs, and many consider their use to be a sign that you may be a spammer. The rise of list cleaning (also known as “list hygiene”) and email tester services, by which we mean email address validation and verification services, has tracked in tandem with the rise of new ways to detect spamming activities, including adding email addresses to mailing lists without consent. It’s this last bit, the “adding email addresses to a mailing list without consent” that is the sticking point, and it is...
2022-07-0805 minEverything Email MarketingThe Hidden Legal Dangers in Not Confirming Email Addresses (Season 2, Episode 4)There is a hidden legal danger in not confirming email addresses, and yes, even in the United States. We talk a lot about email deliverability (because hey, we’re the original email deliverability company and consultants). And in that context we always explain how using double opt-in (i.e. confirmed opt-in) helps immensely with deliverability by reducing spam complaints and increasing interaction rates. But now we’re going to talk about something that people rarely think about: not confirming someone’s email address before you use it or add it to a mailing list can have serious legal consequences for yo...
2022-06-2908 minEverything Email MarketingA Glossary of Email Deliverability and Email Marketing Acronyms (Season 2, Episode 3)Just as with any other industry, the email deliverability and email marketing industries have their own jargon, and lots and lots of acronyms. For those who don’t eat, sleep, and breathe email deliverability, the jargon can be confusing enough, let alone when things are reduced to a few letters. So here is a glossary of email deliverability and email marketing acronyms.
Prefer to read it? You can do that here
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more info...
2022-03-2304 minEverything Email MarketingHow to Revive, Warm Up, and Re-Engage an Old Mailing List without Getting Into Trouble (Season 2, Episode 2)We are often asked how to revive, warm up, and reengage an email list that has not been emailed to in a long time. In order to do this you will want to conduct what is known as a “re-engagement campaign”. This is exactly what it sounds like: you already have the email addresses on your email list, and at some point they all gave you permission to put them on your mailing list (right?), so presumably at some point you were engaging with them, but you have not engaged them for some period of time. Here’s how to war...
2022-01-1516 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You Should Have a Dedicated IP Address (Season 2, Episode 1)We are often asked “Do I really need a dedicated IP address?” So just what is a dedicated IP address, and why should you have one? In the context of email sending and email marketing, a dedicated IP address means an IP address through which you and only you send email. It means that nobody else can send email out from that IP address, just you. On the other hand, a “shared IP address” means that you are not the only one who is sending email out through the shared IP address, others are as well. In this episode we explai...
2022-01-0506 minEverything Email MarketingWhy Having rDNS Set Up is So Critical to Good Email Deliverability (Season 1, Episode 13)Remember Lily Tomlin’s switchboard operator, Ernestine? Or, the Hooterville switchboard in Green Acres? When Oliver Douglas wanted to talk with Sam Drucker, he picked up the phone, and told the operator “Connect me to Sam Drucker”, and the operator translated that to “connect Oliver to Sam’s telephone number.”
rDNS, or “reverse DNS”, allows the process to go the other way – when your computer connects to our computer to deliver an email message, it allows our computer to look at your computer’s IP address, and see what domain name your IP address claims to be. Where DNS is like that...
2021-11-2307 minEverything Email MarketingHow Using Confirmed Opt-in (Double Opt-in) Keeps You Out of Trouble (Episode 12)We are often asked by email senders just why we urge people to use confirmed opt-in (or “double opt-in”) whenever possible. After all, they 'know' that they are being ethical and only adding to their mailing lists people whom they believe really want their mailings. So why should they have to go through the added “hassle” of using confirmed opt-in? Why should they put their recipients through that hassle? (Yes, some email senders have actually convinced themselves that users would rather be put on a mailing list without their permission than have to go through the “hassle” of clicking on a link to...
2021-11-1704 minEverything Email MarketingWhy All the Email Addresses You Send from Should Really Exist (Episode 11)Sending email “from” an email address that doesn’t really exist is a spectacularly bad idea. In fact, it may even qualify as the Epic Fail of “from” email address ideas. Because for one thing, people will reply, and they, and their ISPs and spam filters, are going to get ticked off when it bounces.
And for another thing, it reduces your credibility to less than zero. It shows that clearly you are someone who spoofs email addresses (which is hey, what spammers – and usually only spammers – do). And that for some reason – even though in your mind it may make...
2021-11-1703 minEverything Email MarketingWhy You Should Never Send Mass Mailings Through a Brand New IP Address (Episode 10)You should never use a brand new IP address to send out all of your email marketing and other bulk or mass email mailings. Here's why.
Prefer to read it? You can do that here!
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help you get to the inbox go to GetToTheInbox.com
2021-11-1403 minEverything Email MarketingHow Automated Vacation Reply Messages Can Hurt Your Email Deliverability (Episode 9)Did you know that setting up an automated “I’m out of the office” vacation autoresponder message can hurt your email deliverability? In fact, there are a few different ways that those automatic vacation reply messages can hurt your email delivery, and for that reason, we advise you not to use them at all or, if you must, to use them very carefully.
Prefer to read it? You can do that here!
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more i...
2021-11-1404 minEverything Email MarketingWhy People Who Request Your Email Still Report It as Spam (Episode 8)Why would someone who requested to be on your email list, maybe even paid to be on your mailing list, still report it as spam? Example: We have a customer who sends email out on behalf of a very large, very well known institution in the financial investment world. This company sends out millions of pieces of email a day, under several different titles, to several different mailing lists. All of these mailing lists are confirmed opt-in. Some of these mailings lists are paid mailing lists, by which we mean that the users paid to receive these emails. And ye...
2021-11-1302 minEverything Email MarketingThe Magic of Compounded Deliverability: Purge Deadbeat Subscribers and Boost Your Open and Engagement Rates to the Moon! (Episode 7)There’s a reason that email hygiene services are so popular: following regular email list hygiene best practices not only keeps email deliverability from tanking, but will also boost your list’s performance to the moon! Regular mailing list maintenance gives you amazing open and click-through rates, and not just because you’ve removed the dead wood. So many email senders who know that they should follow email hygiene best practices often just can’t bring themselves to abandon inactive subscribers. However, once you realize just how incredibly responsive a leaner, meaner list can be you’ll not only want to pe...
2021-11-1006 minEverything Email MarketingHow Has the iOS 15 Update Really Impacted Email Marketing Senders: What You Should Know (Episode 6)Tim Cook’s remarks at the 2021 WWD, leading up to the unveiling of the new Mail Privacy Protection and Hide My Email features threw email marketers into a tizzy. And ever since that bell was rung, which can’t be unrung, we have received a lot of frantic messages and emails desperate to know how Mail Privacy Protection and Hide My Email features are going to impact email marketing. Here’s why we think that you don’t need to worry about them too much, most specifically as they relate to tracking open rates.
Prefer to read it? You...
2021-11-0906 minEverything Email MarketingThis Rate is the Most Important Email Marketing Metric of All (Episode 5)Did you know that your mailing list's MR is way more important than LS (List Size), open rate, or even CTR? In fact, MR is one of the most important, if not the most important, metric of all, and yet it is often the most overlooked metric! Not familiar with 'MR'? You will be after you listen to this episode!
Prefer to read it? You can do that here!
The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about ho...
2021-11-0808 minEverything Email MarketingStaying Out of the Spam Folder 101 – Are People Reading Your Email? (Episode 4)“Why is my email going to the junk folder?” and “Why is the email I send ending up in the spam folder?” are questions that we get all the time. The thing is, for most people email deliverability is a distant land, where we speak a foreign language. So here is a plain English explanation of one of the reasons that your email may be going to the spam folder. (‘Deliverability’ refers to making sure that the email you send lands in the inbox, and, when it is ending up in the spam folder (or not being delivered at all), what i...
2021-11-0604 minEverything Email MarketingThe Myth About Personalization in Email Subject Lines (Episode 3)Conventional wisdom says that personalizing your email marketing subject lines, such as putting someone’s first name in the subject line using tags or other automations, increases the open rate for that email marketing. We explain why conventional wisdom is often wrong, and back it up with data from a survey.
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The Everything Email Marketing blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, the founder of the email deliverability industry. For more information about how we can help you get to the inbox go t...
2021-11-0503 minEverything Email MarketingWill the Intuit Acquisition of Mailchimp Help or Hurt Mailchimp’s Brand? (Episode 2)Whither goest Mailchimp? Often an email company being acquired leads to abuse handling and opt-in standards declining, and so to an associated decline in reputation and deliverability. So first, let us say this right up front: we ❤️ Mailchimp. And so we have mixed feelings about the upcoming Intuit takeover of Mailchimp. On the one hand, it’s always nice, as a company, when you are recognized for the value you add, and when you are courted and betrothed. On the other hand, generally speaking, when an email company gets acquired, their abuse handling and their standards regarding to what best p...
2021-11-0504 minEverything Email MarketingWelcome to the Email Marketing and Email Deliverability Audio Blog Podcast from Get to the Inbox by SuretyMail (Episode 0)This is our welcome message! Welcome! We're really glad that you are here! The Everything Email Marketing audio blogcast is provided by Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, your outsourced email deliverability team, and the original email deliverability company, since 2003!] An audio blogcast is just like an audio book; just as some people prefer to listen to books, rather than to read them, some people prefer to listen to blog posts, articles, and other updates. So here we are! So grab your favorite beverage, pull up a chair, and give a listen!
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