Jan
20
By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development
This week's best practice: Send a Welcome Message
Does this just seem too basic? We thought so too, until we studied more than 60 top-brand marketers and found that 60% of them didn't bother to send a welcome message.
Welcome messages are an important part of a well-run email marketing program. Now more than ever, with inbox clutter at all time highs, they are an essential tool to keep your list clean, control complaint rates and, if done right, even get your subscribers to start engaging with you immediately.
Most marketers know the value of a welcome message. So what stops them? It's usually a combination of inertia and budget. Isn't everything? If you need help making a case for prioritizing a welcome message, know that you can tie welcome messages to real revenue. ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Jan
15
Our new episode of Reputation Radio is available now on iTunes.
In the first segment we talk with Stephanie Miller about the New Year Email Community Challenge. Our second segment is all about spam traps, with some great advice from Tom Sather.
Meanwhile, we just booked Todd Herr, postmaster of Time Warner Cable/Road Runner, for an interview on February 2. If you have a question for Todd ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Jan
14
We have very exciting news - Todd Herr, the Postmaster for Time Warner Cable/Road Runner, is coming to Reputation Radio! We'll be talking to him about what reputation means from the receiver side of the desk.
And, we want to include your questions! ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Jan
13
By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development
The month of January is the traditional time to take stock of your life and make a list of resolutions to be better in the New Year. It's a little silly, to be sure, and we have all made resolutions that fizzled out before the champagne. But it can be a powerful exercise for those who are truly committed to changing their life.
So we at Return Path thought why not apply the same New Year power to business, specifically to your email program? Many of us have fallen into bad habits this past year, especially with the pressure to deliver results in a soft economy. Now more than ever email is a powerful channel for us. But, as Spiderman knows, with great power comes great responsibility. If we don't take care of the channel we will be in trouble very soon, if we aren't already.
Welcome to the first Return Path New Year Community Challenge! Our goal is to help you make 2009 your best year ever by getting back to basics and really moving the needle on your email program. Over the next six week's we'll focus on one best practice that you absolutely must implement if you are going to be - and stay - successful.
It starts with a simple resolution ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Jan
12
By Raymond Gannon
Director of Business Development EMEA
Beginning in March, a new law in the UK will force Internet Service Providers to store information on all emails sent and received for a minimum of 12 months. The official reason given for this new measure, which is part of a European Commission directive, is to assist in the fight against crime and terrorism.
In recent days several critics, including the Association of Internet Service Providers, have spoken out against this intended measure, casting doubts on its effectiveness as well as questioning the ethics behind the law. ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Jan
09
Happy New Year! Every January I take some time to reflect on recent industry trends and make some predictions and goals for the coming year. Needless to say, 2008 economic events have made a strong impact all around the globe. The anti-spam community, like many others, is bracing and already seeing the impact.
When times are tough, more people turn to crime. In the email business, this means spam and spam efforts will continue to increase. This includes pure evil spammers, who will redouble-efforts to get their annoying spam-messages in your inbox as well as semi-legitimate marketers, feeling the pinch of the economy, who will be tempted to be overly aggressive with their marketing campaigns and whose emails will cross the line from welcomed to unwelcomed and/or "spam". The folks who are caught in the crosshairs of this issue are the ISPs and the email administrators - trying to sort through this increasing tide of junk mail while also being asked to make budget cuts.
That's why I'm calling 2009 "The Year of Collaboration" among the ISP community. ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
29
By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman
Last year I thought it would be easier to make a list of things that WOULDN'T happen in 2008. Well, that turns out to be 60% true. Below see my original list of "unpredictions" as published on January 2, 2008 alongside an accounting of how I fared.
1. Email won't die! Despite at least 38 articles which will be published during 2008 predicting the imminent demise of our beloved channel, there will be more people using it, more companies using it, and more emails sent in 2008 than in 2007.
Thumbs up: Email certainly didn't die. It remains a strong, vibrant and interesting channel.
2. Multichannel retailers won't send out more email per subscriber in 2008 than they did in 2007. The best ones have already gotten the idea that less is more - or at least that less CAN BE more if segmentation, targeting, and user preference centers are done properly.
Thumbs down: Segmentation didn't increase appreciably this year. Too many email marketers continued ...
Categories: Email Deliverability | News
Dec
23
Our new episode of Reputation Radio is available now on iTunes.
In this special abbreviated episode we interview Bonnie Malone about the Unsubscribe Experiences study (which you can download here). We've shortened our 'cast to just one segment for this week -- give it quick listen then get out and start your holidays early. And don't forget to subscribe!
Do you have a question or an idea for our podcast? ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
17
By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman
As I've been saying these days, our primary goal here at Return Path is to make the email channel safe for legitimate use by consumers, commercial senders and Internet Service Providers. That is why we set out to revamp our Sender Score.org reputation portal. Sender Score.org provides everyone (senders AND receivers of email) with access to their Sender Score.
We invented the Sender Score reputation measure which gives nearly every IP on the planet a score based on the metrics that distinguish legitimate email from spam: volume, complaint rates, unknown user rates, infrastructure, spam trap hits and content. Scores are based on data contributed by ISPs and other receivers of large volume email.
By using Return Path's Sender Score reputation measure and blacklist information compiled through our cooperative reputation network, there is now a level playing field for all email senders to have access to data that ISPs and other email receivers can use to determine whether to accept or reject email.
Not only does the site have an improved design and navigation
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
Dec
16
By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman
Authentication is an important component in creating a better and more secure email universe. Unfortunately, just say the word "authentication" and most email marketers' eyes glaze over. It sounds technical. It sounds boring. It sounds hard.
And yet it's important. While there aren't any ISPs today that are blocking email solely because the server isn't authenticated, it is absolutely one of the factors that influences deliverability. Unauthenticated servers are more suspicious. Over time we believe it will become an increasingly important factor and it is even possible that some receivers will outright block any email that isn't authenticated.
Because of this the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) made a smart (and bold!) statement when they required all member companies to authenticate their email. They knew it was the right stand to take for the industry.
Of course creating the requirement did not make it easier and the DMA knew that it would need to provide members with educational resources and innovative tools and services to get the job done. If legitimate companies aren't authenticating their email it is almost certainly because they need help, not because they don't think it's important.
Which is why last summer Return Path announced a partnership between the DMA and Return Path to create a registry to help DMA member companies verify the authentication of their email streams. The goal of this registry is to help DMA members quickly and easily determine whether or not their mailing IPs are authenticated. If they aren't in compliance, the registry gives DMA members the information they need to fulfill the authentication requirement.
And it is now live! ...
Tell me moreCategories: Email Deliverability
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