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The Email Deliverability Landscape
An interview with Ellen Siegel, Director of Technology and Standards at Constant Contact
The world of email deliverability has many layers and is constantly changing. Here at Constant Contact we rely on a team of experts to build relationships with Internet service providers, stay abreast of important and emerging issues, and work with others in the email industry to map out and execute battle plans in the fight against spam.
Ellen Siegel is our expert in industry best practices here at Constant Contact. I sat down with her to discuss the current deliverability landscape, how it impacts email marketers, and what they can do to improve it.
A: While best practices for email marketing go well beyond the letter of the law, what requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act should email marketers be aware of?
E: There are several components to the CAN-SPAM Act that most email service providers [ESPs] will automatically take care of for you, but it's still important for email marketers to know what they are. First, all messages must have a clear unsubscribe link and all requests to be removed from a list, whether they're via that link or a reply to the message, must be honored within a maximum of 10 business days.
One of the biggest things to keep in mind when writing content is that subject lines must not be deceptive or misleading. They must accurately represent the content of the email. There have been several Federal Trade Commission [FTC] actions lately that reinforce this.
Finally, every email must contain a valid physical address that represents your organization. Those are really the high points that senders need to be concerned with.
A: You mentioned that the FTC has taken action around the issue of misleading subject lines. Can you tell us more about that and what an email marketer can learn from it?
E: There have been two big cases in the last few months that have resulted in large settlements; the most recent one was against ValueClick for 2.9 million dollars. In both cases, the FTC used a combination of regular law against deceptive advertising and CAN-SPAM. And in both cases, the deceptive subject lines figured heavily in FTC action and also in the settlement.
The main take-away is that if what you communicate in the subject line has any caveats to it at all, those must appear in the subject line as well. They can't appear later in the message. So if you're advertising a free gift with a subscription, the information "with a subscription" needs to be in the subject line along with "free gift." For more information on this topic, readers can read an FAQ I wrote for Constant Contact.
A: How about ISPs, such as Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail? What are they doing about spam?
E: Unfortunately, legitimate email is only a tiny fraction of what they process. The volume of spam is so high that they really have to focus most of their efforts on eliminating it. Statistics out there show that more than 95 percent of all email that arrives at a receiver [ISPs and other organizations that receive email and filter it] is spam and most of that is completely malicious, illegal, illicit spam. So the ISPs and other receivers are really not interested in debating with those sending mail about whether or not they're following CAN-SPAM. Instead, they're interested in how to stem this avalanche of really nasty spam and how to keep as much as possible out of their customers' inboxes. So, in general, receivers set their bar higher than CAN-SPAM compliance.
A: What steps can email marketers take to help the ISPs see their email as legitimate?
E: For starters, work with an email service provider that really knows what they're doing and has relationships with receivers. Also, make sure that you have real relationships with the contacts you are sending to and that they're getting what they want at a frequency that they're expecting. Monitor your click-throughs to see what your contacts are interested in and keep fine-tuning your content. In the end, the more you make your recipients happy, the less likely they are to tell their ISPs that they don't want your email.
A: Moving on to a hot topic in the world of email: authentication. What is it and why does it matter?
E: Authentication allows a sender to take responsibility for their email in a way that can be confirmed by ISPs and other receivers. This confirmed identity gives the receivers something to attach a reputation to. In the future, this reputation may help determine whether your mail gets to the inbox or not.
You can think of authentication as your driver's license. It says who you are in a verifiable way, but it doesn't say anything about what your behavior is. Reputation is more like your driving record.
Authentication use has been growing a lot over the past years, and in fact the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance released a report in January saying that authentication has finally reached the tipping point, where more than 50 percent of the email coming in to the Microsoft domains, Hotmail and MSN, are in fact authenticated with sender ID.
A: What are the benefits of authentication at this stage in the game?
E: ISPs are starting to check for authentication. So, if you are authenticating your email, they can register your identity and start collecting reputation data on you. Once the ISPs "flip the switch" so that all email must be authenticated, you'll already have built up a good reputation and you'll be starting from a much better point than someone who's just turning it on at the last minute.
A: How does a Constant Contact user turn on authentication?
E: Within the Constant Contact product, you turn authentication on by going to the "My Settings" tab in your account and off to the right of that settings page there's a link next to authentication. If you've never turned it on before it will show that it's off and you can click to turn it on and choose the authentication domain that you want to use.
A: Once authentication is turned on, can the people receiving your email see a change?
E: It's a very slight change. For some, the authenticated domain will show up in the "from" field once an email is opened. It is not seen in the inbox "from" line that people see before deciding to open. The majority of Constant Contact users will authenticate under Constant Contact's domain name "ccsend.com." They are required to choose a unique name so that they have their own sub-domain that they could use to build up their reputation. An example of what the subscriber would see after the email is opened is: "From: Mary Tripps [mtripps@sunsettravel.ccsend.com] on behalf of Mary Tripps [mtripps@sunsettravelonline.com]." We have an FAQ that gives more information on this.
A: What technologies are on the horizon in the fight against spam?
E: There are many. Spammers are constantly evolving their techniques, so receivers have to keep up and try to stay one step ahead. It's not easy. Most of the technologies that are coming are under the covers and won't be seen by your readers, but it's good for all email marketers to be aware that there's a whole industry that's focused on developing these techniques to help stem the flood of spam. In the meantime, the best thing that senders can do is send relevant content. This will help ensure that their emails are seen as legitimate by the ISPs and their subscribers.
