Feedback Loop and Whitelist Requests
Keep Complaints Low: The number one reputation metric has been and will continue to be user-generated complaints. Most of these complaints are derived from “Report Spam” buttons found with the application interfaces of major ISPs such as AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Comcast, Gmail, etc.
This paper seeks to outline the specific problem areas where complaints are generated; however, it is imperative that you monitor your complaints constantly and remove any complainers from your lists immediately. ISPs provide mailers with Feedback Loops that include the complaining email address as well as other information such as the particular campaign that generated the complaint as well as the date, time, etc. If you are using an ESP, it should provide you with detailed complaint data garnered from the feedback loops the ESP has in place. However, if you are running an email solution in-house, you want to be sure to register for feedback loops with all of the major ISPs. You must also register your “abuse@” and “postmaster@” email addresses with abuse.net so complaints are sent to the correct addresses. Each ISP has its own complaint threshold, but it is generally recommended to keep complaints under one percent.
Employ good list management and hygiene: The biggest changes we will see in 2008 will be ISPs pinning a greater share of your reputation on your list quality. Remember that spammers don’t care about their list quality. Because you are playing by the rules, you do not want to look like a spammer and, therefore, you will want to pay close attention to the quality of your lists. In doing so you will need to make sure that your hard bounce percentage is consistently less than five percent.
Targeted, relevant emails that are sent in a timely manner to the right person not only have the highest conversion rates, they also have the lowest number of complaints. Identifying and fixing any technology glitches such as missing rDNS (reverse DNS), and maintaining a clean list of valid, verified email addresses free from typos and old addresses will ensure that you are emailing your subscribers what they want when they want it, and will protect you against hard bounces. If you are using an ESP, it should have tools in place to assist you with this process.
In 2008, we will also see more email marketers segmenting their lists by removing inactive subscribers. This trend will become more popular as many early adopters of this method found that by trimming inactive addresses from their files, they not only increased open and click-through totals and percentages, they also increased deliverability and overall ROI. Inactivity is a sign that your emails are no longer relevant to those subscribers, so removing them from your lists before they report your messages as spam is a best practice that should be followed by all email marketers. For more information on how to deal with inactive subscribers, read Listrak’s blog “Quick tip: how to re-engage inactive subscribers.”
Manage bounces correctly and follow list acquisition best practices >>
