How to Improve Your Email Deliverability Rates
Mitchell Harper asked:
Last week Eddie and Rodney were attempting to send an email to a Hotmail account we’ve setup to make sure our emails get to the intended recipients without any problems.
Our mail server was reporting that the emails were being delivered, however we couldn’t see them in our Hotmail account. The emails weren’t bouncing back and they weren’t appearing in the junk mail folder. Puzzling to say the least.
If you’ve ever been in a situation like this with one of the big email providers including Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo and AOL then you know it’s frustrating and confusing to those of us who send emails regularly.
We have over 95,000 people on our mailing list and after a quick look at the list I noticed a large majority of our subscribers use one of the big email providers mentioned above. If our newsletter failed to get into the inbox of all of these people we’d probably only reach 10,000 - 20,000 subscribers (between 10% and 20% of our total subscribers); hardly what we want.
Getting Your Email There on Time
What would be some of the reasons why your email might not reach the intended recipient? The first problem are you subscribers, believe it or not.
How many times have you personally signed up for a mailing list (even using double opt-in) and then clicked the “Mark as Spam” button in your email client because you couldn’t remember when you in-fact did sign up? I know I’ve done this on many occasions.
This hurts companies who send legitimate emails, because if enough recipients mark their emails as spam, the big email providers take notice and ban their mail server. This process is called black listing and once your mail server’s black listed it’s extremely difficult to get off the list. More on that later.
Next up there’s the spam algorithms and other checks that mail servers employ. AOL for example used to implement a technique called rate limiting whereby they would only accept a certain amount of emails from a mail server at a time - send more than you’re allowed to and you’re considered a spammer and were black listed.
All of the big email providers have their own proprietary algorithms for checking and deal with email spam. The good news is that a lot of the things the algorithms check for are easy to avoid.
Take a look an article Eddie wrote called “Avoiding the Spam Filters and Other Email Marketing Tips”. Follow the steps he talks about in the article and you’ll improve the chance of your email getting through significantly.
More Ways to Avoid the Spam Filters
After doing some research using our good friend Google, we’ve put together a list of things you can do to reduce the chance of your email being marked as spam and/or never reaching the intended recipient in the first place:
* Make sure your list only contains double opt-in subscribers. Sure your list won’t be as big as it would if you didn’t require opt-in confirmation, but it will be safer, more valid and subscribers will be less likely to flag your emails as spam or complain to their email provider. * Using the link to Eddie’s article above, do your absolute best to make sure your email doesn’t look like spam. The spam filters are smart, and for everything it finds in your email that looks like spam it gives you one point. When you get to a certain number of points your email is rejected, so the less spam points the better. * Check to see if your mail server has already been blacklisted. You want to check your ISP’s mail server or the mail server of your web host. To see the IP address of the server sending your emails just send an email through your mail server to yourself and view the headers of the email in your email client.
The last received line in the headers will contain the IP address of your ISP or web hosts mail server through which your email was sent. For example, you might see 3 received lines in the header, like this:
Received: mail.somehost.com Received: 220.403.8.65 Received: 201.56.88.31
In the example above the IP address of your mail server would be 201.56.88.31
Once you’ve found your mail server’s IP address read this helpful article. It lists the different sites you can check to see if your mail server has been blacklisted. * Check with the postmaster services of the big email companies to see why they are rejecting your emails. If you don’t know what a postmaster is, here’s Google’s definition:
A special type of user responsible for tracking failed mail delivery. A post-master is responsible for following up on queries from users and other postmasters. Internet standards require that the postmaster account be valid at every domain.
AOL’s postmaster is http://postmaster.aol.com/ and Hotmail’s is http://postmaster.hotmail.com/. You can find postmaster details for other email services with a quick search on Google.
One thing to remember about postmaster services is that they make it difficult to get your email through. The theory is that the harder they make it, the less effort spammers will give, thus stopping the majority of them from trying. * You may also want to use one of the email accreditation services available, such as SPF (sender policy framework) records for your mailer or DomainKeys. You can also look at services such as SuretyMail to help improve the deliverability of your emails, particularly if you’re trying to send millions of emails per month.
I won’t go into too much detail, but SPF is a way to identify and reject forged addresses in the return path of an email, which is a common technique spammers use to send email. DomainKeys is an email authentication system that was developed at Yahoo. It was designed to verify the name server being used by someone sending bulk email. * Finally, you should educate your subscribers. Immediately after they join your mailing list you should give them a series of steps to white list your email address. White listing is a way of telling their email client to allow all emails from you into their inbox.
Each big email provider has different ways of allowing subscribers to white list email addresses, the most common being to add them to their address book or contacts. For more on white listing see this article on Wikipedia.
Conclusion
Although there’s no fail-safe way to absolutely guarantee all of the emails you send will reach the intended recipients, the tips in this article are an excellent place to start. Email deliverability is a big concern for most businesses (including us) and can mean the difference between a profitable email campaign and one that fails miserably.
optin email
Last week Eddie and Rodney were attempting to send an email to a Hotmail account we’ve setup to make sure our emails get to the intended recipients without any problems.
Our mail server was reporting that the emails were being delivered, however we couldn’t see them in our Hotmail account. The emails weren’t bouncing back and they weren’t appearing in the junk mail folder. Puzzling to say the least.
If you’ve ever been in a situation like this with one of the big email providers including Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo and AOL then you know it’s frustrating and confusing to those of us who send emails regularly.
We have over 95,000 people on our mailing list and after a quick look at the list I noticed a large majority of our subscribers use one of the big email providers mentioned above. If our newsletter failed to get into the inbox of all of these people we’d probably only reach 10,000 - 20,000 subscribers (between 10% and 20% of our total subscribers); hardly what we want.
Getting Your Email There on Time
What would be some of the reasons why your email might not reach the intended recipient? The first problem are you subscribers, believe it or not.
How many times have you personally signed up for a mailing list (even using double opt-in) and then clicked the “Mark as Spam” button in your email client because you couldn’t remember when you in-fact did sign up? I know I’ve done this on many occasions.
This hurts companies who send legitimate emails, because if enough recipients mark their emails as spam, the big email providers take notice and ban their mail server. This process is called black listing and once your mail server’s black listed it’s extremely difficult to get off the list. More on that later.
Next up there’s the spam algorithms and other checks that mail servers employ. AOL for example used to implement a technique called rate limiting whereby they would only accept a certain amount of emails from a mail server at a time - send more than you’re allowed to and you’re considered a spammer and were black listed.
All of the big email providers have their own proprietary algorithms for checking and deal with email spam. The good news is that a lot of the things the algorithms check for are easy to avoid.
Take a look an article Eddie wrote called “Avoiding the Spam Filters and Other Email Marketing Tips”. Follow the steps he talks about in the article and you’ll improve the chance of your email getting through significantly.
More Ways to Avoid the Spam Filters
After doing some research using our good friend Google, we’ve put together a list of things you can do to reduce the chance of your email being marked as spam and/or never reaching the intended recipient in the first place:
* Make sure your list only contains double opt-in subscribers. Sure your list won’t be as big as it would if you didn’t require opt-in confirmation, but it will be safer, more valid and subscribers will be less likely to flag your emails as spam or complain to their email provider. * Using the link to Eddie’s article above, do your absolute best to make sure your email doesn’t look like spam. The spam filters are smart, and for everything it finds in your email that looks like spam it gives you one point. When you get to a certain number of points your email is rejected, so the less spam points the better. * Check to see if your mail server has already been blacklisted. You want to check your ISP’s mail server or the mail server of your web host. To see the IP address of the server sending your emails just send an email through your mail server to yourself and view the headers of the email in your email client.
The last received line in the headers will contain the IP address of your ISP or web hosts mail server through which your email was sent. For example, you might see 3 received lines in the header, like this:
Received: mail.somehost.com Received: 220.403.8.65 Received: 201.56.88.31
In the example above the IP address of your mail server would be 201.56.88.31
Once you’ve found your mail server’s IP address read this helpful article. It lists the different sites you can check to see if your mail server has been blacklisted. * Check with the postmaster services of the big email companies to see why they are rejecting your emails. If you don’t know what a postmaster is, here’s Google’s definition:
A special type of user responsible for tracking failed mail delivery. A post-master is responsible for following up on queries from users and other postmasters. Internet standards require that the postmaster account be valid at every domain.
AOL’s postmaster is http://postmaster.aol.com/ and Hotmail’s is http://postmaster.hotmail.com/. You can find postmaster details for other email services with a quick search on Google.
One thing to remember about postmaster services is that they make it difficult to get your email through. The theory is that the harder they make it, the less effort spammers will give, thus stopping the majority of them from trying. * You may also want to use one of the email accreditation services available, such as SPF (sender policy framework) records for your mailer or DomainKeys. You can also look at services such as SuretyMail to help improve the deliverability of your emails, particularly if you’re trying to send millions of emails per month.
I won’t go into too much detail, but SPF is a way to identify and reject forged addresses in the return path of an email, which is a common technique spammers use to send email. DomainKeys is an email authentication system that was developed at Yahoo. It was designed to verify the name server being used by someone sending bulk email. * Finally, you should educate your subscribers. Immediately after they join your mailing list you should give them a series of steps to white list your email address. White listing is a way of telling their email client to allow all emails from you into their inbox.
Each big email provider has different ways of allowing subscribers to white list email addresses, the most common being to add them to their address book or contacts. For more on white listing see this article on Wikipedia.
Conclusion
Although there’s no fail-safe way to absolutely guarantee all of the emails you send will reach the intended recipients, the tips in this article are an excellent place to start. Email deliverability is a big concern for most businesses (including us) and can mean the difference between a profitable email campaign and one that fails miserably.
optin email
Why Your Company Needs an Email Policy
Erick Simpson asked:
Email is an important and necessary part of your business. It provides an economical and instant means of communicating with staff, customers, and vendors - that’s both simple to use and enables increased efficiency. An email policy is required to protect this necessary business tool.
An email policy is a legal document that details your organization’s definition of acceptable use for the company email system. It should indicate who emails can be received from or sent to, as well as outline what constitutes appropriate content for work emails.
In additional, having a company email policy will:
Protect the Organization from Liabilities: When all employees read and sign an email policy, it proves they are aware and agree to the information contained in that policy. Should an email be sent that is not considered appropriate content according to the email policy, the employee, not the business, would bear the brunt of liability for any damages or suits brought as a result of their sending an inappropriate email.
Promote a Professional Environment: If email is used only in a professional manner in the workplace, you can be sure that embarrassing mistakes will not occur. For example, if staff are using work email to communicate with friends, the content in those emails are likely to be sloppy, unprofessional, and informal. If those emails accidentally get sent to clients or other professionals - the company image may become damaged. If an email policy does not allow for personal use of the work email system, your staff will remain in a professional mindset and eliminate the potential of personal emails going out to customers.
Increase Productivity: Email tends to be a distraction for employees who are using it for non-professional reasons. If an email policy prohibits the use of work email for personal use, your employees will stay on task more and avoid the distractions that come from sending and receiving personal emails during work hours.
Establish Systems for Email: If the email policy outlines appropriate content for an email sent during work hours over the company email system, it can also help establish systems to ensure all staff members are contributing to the brand or image of the company. Have each staff member use a template for email responses and set up signature lines that appear in all outgoing emails to further establish the company’s professionalism and image in the eyes of individuals who may receive email from your staff. Setting guidelines for content and use of email creates a single, comprehensive image of the company that helps keep the organization aligned with its mission.
An email policy is a document that provides your business with certain legal protections involving misuse of the email system by employees. Because it is a legal document, many businesses elect to have a lawyer draw up the email policy, or at the very least, review the policy before it is implemented within the organization. Having a lawyer review or prepare an email policy may seem like an unnecessary upfront cost, but has the potential to save you in legal fees in the future.
optin email
Email is an important and necessary part of your business. It provides an economical and instant means of communicating with staff, customers, and vendors - that’s both simple to use and enables increased efficiency. An email policy is required to protect this necessary business tool.
An email policy is a legal document that details your organization’s definition of acceptable use for the company email system. It should indicate who emails can be received from or sent to, as well as outline what constitutes appropriate content for work emails.
In additional, having a company email policy will:
Protect the Organization from Liabilities: When all employees read and sign an email policy, it proves they are aware and agree to the information contained in that policy. Should an email be sent that is not considered appropriate content according to the email policy, the employee, not the business, would bear the brunt of liability for any damages or suits brought as a result of their sending an inappropriate email.
Promote a Professional Environment: If email is used only in a professional manner in the workplace, you can be sure that embarrassing mistakes will not occur. For example, if staff are using work email to communicate with friends, the content in those emails are likely to be sloppy, unprofessional, and informal. If those emails accidentally get sent to clients or other professionals - the company image may become damaged. If an email policy does not allow for personal use of the work email system, your staff will remain in a professional mindset and eliminate the potential of personal emails going out to customers.
Increase Productivity: Email tends to be a distraction for employees who are using it for non-professional reasons. If an email policy prohibits the use of work email for personal use, your employees will stay on task more and avoid the distractions that come from sending and receiving personal emails during work hours.
Establish Systems for Email: If the email policy outlines appropriate content for an email sent during work hours over the company email system, it can also help establish systems to ensure all staff members are contributing to the brand or image of the company. Have each staff member use a template for email responses and set up signature lines that appear in all outgoing emails to further establish the company’s professionalism and image in the eyes of individuals who may receive email from your staff. Setting guidelines for content and use of email creates a single, comprehensive image of the company that helps keep the organization aligned with its mission.
An email policy is a document that provides your business with certain legal protections involving misuse of the email system by employees. Because it is a legal document, many businesses elect to have a lawyer draw up the email policy, or at the very least, review the policy before it is implemented within the organization. Having a lawyer review or prepare an email policy may seem like an unnecessary upfront cost, but has the potential to save you in legal fees in the future.
optin email
Email Support for best Email Management
Joshep John asked:
Email plays a significant role in taking business activities to new heights. Although emails are just another way of communication, but considered to form backbone of most organizations every day’s work. With increasing importance of emails in the market, email security has emerged as another aspect to look for. The array of security implications generally includes email storage, policy, auditing, and proper email management. All these issues can be easily resolved with installation of an efficient email support client program.
The email client programs that are forming delight cup of businesspeople are Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. These email applications are offered by Microsoft at no cost and comes along with the Internet Explorer web browser. These email client programs contain many features which are extremely helpful for office people. The users can customize the emails they send or receive depending on their personal preferences. This can be done using the option of email setup rules provided with these email client programs.
Taking into account the kind of malicious virus and spyware present in the cyberspace, no PC user can ensure their emails’ security without having a practical as well as holistic approach. Email errors are common and can occur within email account or with the configuration of email client. Handling and fixing email errors is not at all easy. If being an active PC user, you really want to take care of your emails in the best possible way; you must consider an effective email management offered by email support services providers.
To have a complete range of email support services, technical support companies are the only option. They not only provide you with the best email management but also fix email problems. Their email support package includes everything starting from installation of any email client, configuration, to its tune up.
Another advantage of buying email support services is the optimal security of your business from harmful or unlawful virus attacks. Email support available with online technical support vendors ensures your emails’ protection by immediate troubleshooting of any email errors, spam filters and virus scanners. Other advantages are configuration of new email accounts, setting free email accounts with your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
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Email plays a significant role in taking business activities to new heights. Although emails are just another way of communication, but considered to form backbone of most organizations every day’s work. With increasing importance of emails in the market, email security has emerged as another aspect to look for. The array of security implications generally includes email storage, policy, auditing, and proper email management. All these issues can be easily resolved with installation of an efficient email support client program.
The email client programs that are forming delight cup of businesspeople are Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. These email applications are offered by Microsoft at no cost and comes along with the Internet Explorer web browser. These email client programs contain many features which are extremely helpful for office people. The users can customize the emails they send or receive depending on their personal preferences. This can be done using the option of email setup rules provided with these email client programs.
Taking into account the kind of malicious virus and spyware present in the cyberspace, no PC user can ensure their emails’ security without having a practical as well as holistic approach. Email errors are common and can occur within email account or with the configuration of email client. Handling and fixing email errors is not at all easy. If being an active PC user, you really want to take care of your emails in the best possible way; you must consider an effective email management offered by email support services providers.
To have a complete range of email support services, technical support companies are the only option. They not only provide you with the best email management but also fix email problems. Their email support package includes everything starting from installation of any email client, configuration, to its tune up.
Another advantage of buying email support services is the optimal security of your business from harmful or unlawful virus attacks. Email support available with online technical support vendors ensures your emails’ protection by immediate troubleshooting of any email errors, spam filters and virus scanners. Other advantages are configuration of new email accounts, setting free email accounts with your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
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