a white paper Deliverability The Informz Way

Transcription

1 a white paper Deliverability The Informz Way

2 Table of Contents Introduction... 1 The Basics of Deliverability Trends in Deliverability Tips to Improve Deliverability Conclusion Resources Glossary About Informz Revolutionizing the Way You Do Business Informz professional suite of integrated emarketing solutions empowers organizations of all sizes by harnessing the strength of to supercharge your return on investment. is a Science Web-based technologies from Informz enable personalized, highly targeted communications coupled with real-time reporting features designed to reach the inbox and drive results. Sending the right message to the right people at the right time is achieved through relevancy and your organization s ability to leverage its database. Your successful marketing and communications depends on reaching the inbox and engaging subscribers. Simply stated, targeted communications improve your response rates, and better response rates increase your message s impact. The Informz Difference In addition to on-demand product support, you deserve one-on-one, up-to-date marketing guidance relevant to your unique need, built upon strong relationships and reliable collaboration. In order to maximize your success, your exclusive emarketing Advisor is always ready to assist throughout the development, publishing, and measurement of your campaigns. Devoted to your professional success, Informz combines state-of-the-art technology with our trusted emarketing Advisors to bring you products and services that fi t with your marketing goals. With an established global presence in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Informz specializes in a variety of industries, including: Associations and Not-For-Profi ts Higher Education Travel and Tourism Publishing and Trade Through dynamic targeting, intelligent deliverability, precision reporting, seamless integration, and expert Advisors, Informz truly is the way to know marketing. Informz is one of the most reputable marketing service providers that I know. They would be an excellent choice for permission marketers seeking the best in service and delivery rates. ~ Ann Mitchell, Esq. President Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

3 1 - Deliverability: The Informz Way 1 Introduction Approximately 20% of legitimate permission-based is erroneously blocked as a result of spam filtering. deliverability is an art, pure and simple. Well, perhaps not so simple! But making the complexities of deliverability easy to understand and accessible for marketers of all shapes, sizes, and skill levels is something that we at Informz are committed to achieving through this whitepaper and our products and services in general. As technology changes and best practices trends respond in kind, it is important to understand that deliverability is just about the most important topic going for anyone interested in feeling confi dent about their electronic communications and marketing strategies via . Over the next few pages, let us take you on a journey through the basics of deliverability in order to help you navigate the essentials and provide a toolkit for your ongoing deliverability success. Here are some things to think about before diving in: Am I currently using an Service Provider (ESP) or am I thinking about signing on with one? Am I (should I be) the person responsible for ensuring the deliverability of my organization s communications? Am I using as a communications vehicle or a marketing vehicle, or both? What s the difference? Where is my subscriber information coming from? Better yet, what s a subscriber and why is that important? Do I think that obtaining permission to send someone an is important? What s CAN-SPAM compliance anyway? Can technology infl uence deliverability or is it all about how my message is written or designed? Regardless of your answers to these questions we are going to make the basics clear and manageable enough throughout this document to help you build a foundation for understanding deliverability and keep you coming back to reference this resource as you build or enhance your program. So now that you know a little more about what to expect and why you should expect it, let s get started!

4 2 The Basics of Deliverability The word deliverability refers to the overall ability for messages to be delivered to their intended recipients. Essentially, if your s are being blocked by spam fi lters or bounced because of bad addresses or technical problems, then this means you are having deliverability issues. Make sense? Ok, so a few (potentially) new terms were just thrown at you: spam fi lters and bounced. Maybe clearing up these and other technical and tactical terms related to deliverability will help. One of the factors that contribute to a message s deliverability is whether or not the message could be delivered in the fi rst place. s that are for one reason or another unable to make it to the inbox are either bounced or outright blocked. Later on we ll get into some of the factors that contribute to why a message is bounced or blocked, but for now let s take some time to get to know more about generally undeliverable mail. We ll start some terms that will help you to better understand the basics of deliverability, and then we ll dive into the spam fi lters. The following terms are helpful in determining why s are not being delivered or for cleaning up your list for better deliverability in general (this is also known as list hygiene ). Please note that these are Informz rules for categorizing bounces and the same may not be true for all Service Providers. Soft Bounce: A soft bounce is an that was undeliverable because of any of the following reasons: the mail server was down, the mail server was not accepting mail at the time, or the subscriber s inbox was full. In general, resending the mailing to these subscribers at a different time will help to ensure that they receive the intended message. Hard Bounce: A hard bounce is an that was undeliverable because of any of the following reasons: the domain does not exist, the domain does not have a mail server, or the address does not exist in the domain. Basically, these addresses will never receive the intended message because there is no place to actually have sent the message in the fi rst place. Repeated Bounce: A repeated bouncer is an that was not delivered because of any of the following reasons: An AOL address had previously hard bounced one time, a non-aol address had previously hard bounced four consecutive times, or a non-aol address had previously bounced seven consecutive times. It is always best for your list hygiene to remove these addresses from your lists and if possible, reach out to the subscriber to fi nd out their new address. Blocked: An has been blocked if the anti-spam fi lter that the recipient is using has rejected your . If your s are being blocked and the recipient opted-in via a subscription form, your provider s ISP Relations department should follow-up with the postmaster of the domain to resolve the situation. So now that you know the different ways how an can go undelivered, let s spend some time focusing on why the might not get to its intended recipient. If you have covered all the soft and hard bouncing options and you are certain that you have the correct address and that the recipient is able to receive mail, then you might be up against a spam fi lter! Spam is to as junk mail is to direct mail (or snail mail ) and spam fi lters are designed to take the guess work out of sorting out the relevant, solid s that you want to receive from the rest of the general noise. Whether you use an client Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

5 3 - Deliverability: The Informz Way like Outlook, a free web-based service like Gmail or Hotmail, today the spam fi lter is a standard part of your personal toolbox. These fi lters identify spam up front before the mail gets to you, based on the message s design elements and/or the content of its subject line or the messaging itself. For example, that about the new and improved, 100% free way to get rich just by sending in your social security and credit card numbers is probably safe to consider spam, and your personal or corporate service is already pretty great at fi nding spam like this before the spam fi nds you. How aggressively your spam fi lter works for you might be based on your personal preferences, your organization s IT security settings, or (and this is becoming more and more true) how personally engaged you are with the mailings to which you have subscribed. The beauty with is that you can easily click on a message that you feel is junk or spam and messages from that sender will no longer show up in your inbox. This is just one of the ways that technology is in place to protect the consumers of . Beyond the technology, there are several best practices to follow that will help your s get delivered, but there are also laws in place to ensure that your s are wanted and CAN-SPAM compliant. These guidelines protect consumers of and following the rules will help you with your deliverability. The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that sets the rules and guidelines for all commercial communications. Break these rules, and you can end up with costly penalties and really hurt your brand s reputation. The rules are pretty clear: A. is a permission based communication media this means that an organization that sends marketing communications must have permission to send s to their recipients. This permission may be implied by a vendor/client relationship, by virtue of being employed by the organization sending you communications, or most commonly via opt-in subscriptions. Opt-in can happen almost anywhere, including online at your organization s website, during check-out for an online ecommerce transaction, while installing a new software application, collected via a survey, or even in person by collecting business cards at a tradeshow (providing the person gives you their permission, of course). B. Your communications must provide recipients with a clear means for unsubscribing from your messaging remember the part about how deleting or marking a message as spam sends a different message than unsubscribing? When you mark a message as spam, you are in essence registering a complaint about the sender to the ISP. When you unsubscribe, you inform the company that you no longer want their messages but without hurting their reputation by stating that the message was unsolicited (as reporting it as spam does). This is the route you should take if you had subscribed at one point and decide you are no longer interested in receiving these communications. Making this option clear for your recipients will also ensure that they choose your preferred route of list removal rather than damaging your reputation as a sender via the spam button. C. Your communications must clearly list your organization s physical mailing address and phone number this ensures that you as the sender are a valid and real organization that a recipient can contact directly should they have issue with any of your content.

6 Your CAN-SPAM compliance will require some more in-depth attention to the rules, and what we ve provided is just a baseline for you to begin. For more information on the CAN-SPAM act, visit this page on the Federal Trade Commission s website: Following the CAN-SPAM rules is a great place to start when considering deliverability. Once you have a handle on the rules of permission based , then you should master the different methods that spam filters use. In general, spam fi lters are sophisticated and have many different methods of fi ltering. Here are some additional terms you will likely encounter: Blacklisting: Blacklisting is a process of monitoring the internet for traffi c being sent from unsolicited sources (spam) and then listing that information in a public database. ISPs use the blacklisting databases as a way to update their spam fi lters to look for s coming from those IP addresses and subsequently block the s in an effort to protect consumers. As a basic rule, don t spam and you won t get blacklisted but this is not always the case. Sometimes, your IP address might be guilty by association and if you are using an Service Provider that uses shared IP addresses then you are at risk of sharing the reputation of another organization s practices. Your best bet is to make sure that you are following the rules and using an ESP that provides you with a static IP address. Address Recognition: When you receive an , your spam fi lter will check to see if the sender s address is in your address book or on your server s list of acceptable addresses. Even if you subscribed to a resource that you trust, your spam fi lter might not recognize the sender address and place the message into the spam folder. At this point, you should then whitelist the message (and the sender) by unmarking the message as spam and verifying that it came from an approved sender, thereby sending the message to the ISP that this is trusted content that you wish to receive. Whitelisting can go also fi lter on the sender s IP address/domain at the server level. Trapping: Some of the ISPs will plant addresses across the internet in order to catch spammers. Spammers will sweep the Internet looking for addresses to spam and when they use the planted addresses, they are then trapped and blacklisted. Essentially, you should only be sending s to addresses that you have permission to send to, so as long as you are following the rules you won t have to deal with trapping. Challenge Response: The idea here is that ISPs or corporate fi lters will mark all messages as spam before the is delivered, forcing the sender to prove otherwise. This setting challenges the sender by making sure that a human sent the via a link that must be manually clicked. Once the sender verifi es that they are a trusted source, the sender will be whitelisted. Auto-response and triggered s may have trouble getting through this sort of fi lter, so it is important to have a strong relationship with your recipients, and to make sure that they are ready to receive your messaging. Rule-based: This most commonly used fi lter marks spam based on rules that are pre-set by the ISP or the corporate sever. Basically, set the fi lter to deny all subject lines that contain the word, FREE and these messages will be marked as spam. For this type of fi lter, it is very important to know about words and phrases that are commonly blocked, and to avoid them when creating your mailings. Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

7 5 - Deliverability: The Informz Way Probability: This type of fi lter uses the same principle as Rule-based fi lters, but this is based on the user s ongoing defi nition of spam. The more the recipient marks certain items as spam and others as acceptable, the more the fi lter learns and then makes fi lter decisions based on these actions. Volume blocking: Senders who send high volumes of s to lists that are brand new (meaning the sender never sent to these addresses before) or that have a high rate of bad addresses may be blocked as a result of volume blocking. This is because it is widely known that spammers send large volumes of s to lists that are purchased or harvested from Internet sites. As a rule of thumb, it is best to grow your lists slowly and via best practices for permissionbased acquisition. Remember, your results will have greater impact on a small list of subscribers who genuinely want your communications, than a large group of unknowns. Content based: The content of your matters for so many reasons, like delivering important updates to large memberships or communities, that it is extremely important that your s do not look or read like spam. For a content based fi lter, if it looks like spam or smells like spam then it must be spam. Many of the most popular clients have fi lters of their own to determine what makes it to the inbox. Here are a few more things that some popular ISPs look for: A high percentage of users hitting the spam button to register a complaint. A high percentage of messages being sent to trash without being opened. Inconsistent mail volume Sudden increases in mail volume from an IP address can look like spam, so try to maintain a consistent mail volume. If an increase is needed, do so gradually. Inconsistent subject lines Yahoo!, for example, suggests that senders should not customize the subject line by merging in personal information. Inconsistent from address Another spammer trick is to constantly change the from address. Hopefully, you are feeling more confi dent in your knowledge of deliverability and feel like you have the resources you need to make some good decisions about your marketing program. The basics presented in this document are meant to be your introduction to deliverability and should help you to frame your marketing strategy in a way that is consistent with current technology and trends. Remember, there is a lot to know about deliverability and there are entire jobs devoted to maintaining strong ISP relationships and advocating for senders who follow best practices. When getting your marketing program started, make sure that you are prepared to take responsibility for your delivery issues and to learn the actions you need to take in order to solve them. Deliverability is a core component of your overall marketing practices and it is very important to stay up to date on all the latest advancements and techniques for ensuring your messages are delivered.

8 3Trends in Deliverability Three trends in deliverability that you should know about if you are looking to launch or revitalize your marketing program. Now that you have learned some of the basics of deliverability, you re ready to take a look at where deliverability trends are heading. This section will briefl y focus on three trends in deliverability that you should know about if you are looking to launch or revitalize your marketing program. Remember, the terms outlined in the fi rst section were designed to help you out with some of the more complex topics in the rest of this document. If you stumble across something that isn t meshing with your understanding, feel free to review the earlier section for a refresher or check out the glossary of terms at the end of this document. If you are all set, let s jump right in: Trend 1: Sender Reputation Sender reputation is an anti-spam criterion that ISPs and other receivers use to determine whether to accept or reject . As ISPs and webmail services get more sophisticated about how they determine the fate of incoming , your sender reputation plays an increasingly important role. Because you aren t a spammer and you have worked very hard to acquire permission to send your content to your subscribers, it might be said that reputation is everything! In general, your reputation is made up of some combination of the following: consumer complaints, unknown users, spam trap hits, sending infrastructure (your IP address), and sending stability. The more complaints you receive and the more it appears that you have an irregular program, the worse your reputation becomes. Simply put, a damaged reputation is a hard thing to overcome. Being confi dent about your marketing practices requires patience, attention to detail, and a working knowledge of the do s and don ts. And don t forget, a strong reputation will contribute to strong deliverability. Trend 2: Authentication Another important trend in the deliverability world is the use of authentication. ISPs use authentication to determine if a sender is spoofed or if an provider has the authority to mail on your behalf. authentication includes a variety of methods that allow recipients to validate the responsible sender of a message. Authentication will be especially benefi cial if you are sending to primarily personal addresses, domains like Yahoo!, Hotmail, or Comcast for example. It is important to note that there is no best authentication method, but rather there are several different authentication types and each have their advantages and disadvantages. The types of authentication that Informz recommends are Sender ID, SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DomainKeys, and DKIM (DomainKeys Identifi ed Mail). Sender ID, SPF, DomainKeys, and DKIM are all similar in that they help validate you as a sender, but the implementation of each method is different. Due to the technical nature of authentication, it requires changes and/ or additions to your DNS, so you will need the assistance of an IT professional from your organization. Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

9 7 - Deliverability: The Informz Way Trend 3: Subscriber Engagement The third, and possibly most important, trend in deliverability is that ISPs will now be using engagement metrics as an important factor in determining if your s get delivered to the inbox. Engagement is one of the most important new trends in the world of deliverability and now more than ever, ISPs are tracking engagement with messaging and factoring this into an s overall deliverability. This means if an consumer wants to keep getting the s they subscribe to, he or she will need to open the and click on hyperlinked content on a regular basis. For example, you might have signed up for a newsletter six months ago but never actually opened the newsletter since the time you subscribed, and therefore the ISP may start sending those mailings into the spam folder or blocking them altogether. Bottom line, the more engaged a recipient is with an subscription, the more likely the s will be delivered to the right folder in the recipient s tool. Individuals have the choice of deleting or ignoring a message or unsubscribing from the service sending their communications. But, their choice has some real implications for folks who sign up or opt-in to receive messages and still may fi nd that the messages are being blocked. ISPs enlist a range of technologies to protect the users of their free or paid accounts and as a consumer of , it is important to know that deleting a message in your inbox sends a very different message than marking it as spam. Every action that takes place, including opening an , clicking on links, and forwarding is tracked by the ISP and possibly the sender. It is the overall action that the recipient participates in that is known as engagement. In a recent interview Yahoo! said they measure engagement by the following factors: Subscribers are marking the message as not spam if it goes to the spam folder. Subscribers are opening messages. Subscribers are clicking on the links in the message. If you are the person in your organization that is responsible for sending communications out to large lists of subscribers, then you want to be sure that your s are being delivered by following all the best practices available to you, and you also want to keep your subscribers engaged to ensure that your s continue to be delivered. Knowing the current trends of deliverability is just a starting point. For a truly successful marketing strategy, you will need to stay up-to-date on all the latest trends as technologies change.

10 4 Tips for Improving Deliverability Improving deliverability requires a real commitment to understanding both deliverability in general and the habits of your subscribers. Now that we ve gone through the basics of deliverability and some of the prevailing trends, let s jump right into some tips for improving deliverability. Please note that improving deliverability requires a real commitment to understanding both deliverability in general and the habits of your subscribers. The ability to review and understand your ing activity metrics is also a key component of ensuring list hygiene and making the necessary changes to your campaigns based on the real-time feedback you receive from your mailings. To make this section easy for quick reference, we ve provided a straightforward outline of useful tips for improving deliverability in general. Why would someone who signed up to receive my s use the Report as spam button? The three main reasons for spam complaints & disengagement from your subscribers: 1. Unrecognized: They didn t recognize your branding in the , so they did not know it came from you. 2. Unexpected: They didn t know to expect your on a certain day or at a certain time. 3. Unwanted: They just plain didn t want your messages anymore. Here are some tips to avoid becoming Unrecognized, Unexpected, or Unwanted: 1. Be easily recognizable: - Maintain branding consistency make sure that your s, your website, your social networks, and all other brand opportunities have the same look & feel! - Re-enforce branding in subject lines and from address the fi rst impression is the most important and your subject lines and from address let people know it s you (think of this as caller ID for your s). 2. Set expectations and fulfill promises: - Use opt-in forms and welcome messages to set expectations about frequency and content of your mailings then stay within the rules you have established! - Balance and be consistent with frequency sending too little is as bad as sending too much. Be sure to learn your subscribers behavior by checking reports to see how often and when your messages are opened. 3. Keep your content relevant and valuable: - Make sure your messages refl ect the reasons why your subscribers fi rst signed up build upon your subscribers trust and provide them with the value they seek out of your brand. - Segment your groups and target your messages for true personalization demographics make a big difference, and your activity reports are your best friend for supercharging deliverability! Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

11 9 - Deliverability: The Informz Way Things you should always include in your A message such as, To ensure receipt of our s, please add someone@yourcompany.com to your Address Book. A modify profi le link this link will help your subscribers to pick and choose precisely the type of communication they wish to receive. An obvious unsubscribe link it s always better for your recipients to unsubscribe than to click the spam button! You might have lost them for now, but they didn t hurt your reputation! Also, give them the chance to provide a reason why they unsubscribed. This can be helpful insight into what others who haven t yet unsubscribed might be thinking about your mailings. Required elements for your Unsubscribe link this is mandatory for CAN-SPAM compliance. Physical mailing address (No PO boxes!) this is also mandatory for CAN-SPAM compliance. Things to avoid in your s: Too many images without enough quality copy many spammers use lots of images in their s and this is the tip off for the spam fi lters to block. Common spam words, excessive capitalization, and punctuation. Written out URLS: for example: Wrong: Visit for more information. Right: Visit the Informz Website for more information. Deal with your inactive subscribers: 1. Defi ne what inactive is for your organization 2. Routinely identify inactive subscribers 3. Try and win them back 4. Remove them if they don t respond Monitor reports and remove repeated bouncers: Test your s before you send to uncover potential deliverability problems.

12 5 Conclusion deliverability is an essential part of all marketing and Informz is your partner for total deliverability. Our ISP Relations Team works for you behind the scenes by: Managing ISP relations Checking blacklists often Monitoring delivery outcome Managing blocks and challenge response messages The key to success is in creating content that will bring value to your subscribers. In the end, this will lead to an increase in engagement, an improved reputation, and the assurance that your s get delivered to the inbox. You ve learned that deliverability is a challenging, complicated issue and we are committed to helping you reach the inbox. At Informz, you are supported by an experienced, customer-focused ISP Relations Team with superior technical and industry expertise and a solid reputation. Employing the latest technology to ensure properly monitored messages and rapidly processed responses, our ISP Relations Team ensures that our clients are in full compliance with the ever-changing regulations and up-to-date on industry best practices. Informz offers a wide range of deliverability services, including: Regulatory Compliance: The rules and laws governing are ever changing. Our ISP Relations Team reliably monitors, evaluates, studies, and contributes to the latest in regulations and best-practices worldwide. Static IP Assignment: Informz assigns each client a permanent IP address, preventing blocked due to IP address conflict. List Maintenance: From subscription forms that allow for easy opt-in to your lists, to suppression list of domains that should never receive , Informz helps you maintain your lists in compliance with the rules that govern both you and your recipients. Domain Monitoring: Informz employs domain-level monitoring to manage the number of connections opened for each ISP domain at any one time. This ensures s are delivered at a maximum rate without triggering volume filters at large ISPs ( AOL & Yahoo!). Content Assistance: SpamAssassin, one of the most widely used content-based spam fi lters for B2Bs and B2Cs, allows users to test their s prior to sending. This fi lter fl ags words associated with spam and identifi es changes to improve your . Our ISP Relations Team and your emarketing Advisor then work closely with you so that you understand the suggested changes and learn to improve the content of your future messages. Reputation Services: Informz lists all IP addresses with ISIPP s SuretyMail Accreditation Service. We re also a ReturnPath SenderScore partner. These valuable services allow receiving systems to recognize your as authorized, legitimate mail. Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

13 11 - Deliverability: The Informz Way Challenge Response Handling: Ensuring that your system remains free from delay and obstruction, Informz processes all challenge responses swiftly and professionally. Whitelisting with major ISPs: service providers with whitelisting status help to increase deliverability and decrease the potential of fi ltering. With key relationships and whitelist status for major ISPs, such as AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Outblaze, and United Online, as well as anti-spam organizations, Informz helps to ensure that your s sent via our system get directly to your audiences. Bounce Processing: Nearly all campaigns result in a number of bounced messages. After rapidly analyzing bounces against hundreds of rules, Informz properly classifi es each bounced message and immediately takes appropriate action: opt-out, resend, or suspend message delivery. Blocked Mail Review: Our ISP Relations Team confi rms that your is not mislabeled as spam by reviewing all pieces that get returned and fl agged as blocked by our system. Abuse Management: The Informz ISP Relations Team works on behalf of our clients to respond to spam complaints. If necessary, Informz will follow up with our clients to ensure compliance with policies and procedures, and when appropriate, defend the validity of the list acquisition to anti-spam organizations or the company/ client. Deliverability Partners:

14 Resources Sender lookup sites Authentication CAN-SPAM Glossary This glossary is intended as a quick reference for readers of this document. Some of the terms listed below may not have been addressed in this document. If you have any questions about any of the content in the document, please contact marketing@informz.com. Blacklist: Published report of senders who have been reported or accused of sending spam. Bounce: An that has been returned to sender (Hard bounce = a more permanent bounce usually occurs when address is no longer valid, Soft bounce = returned to sender because recipients mailbox is full or their mail server is temporarily down). CAN-SPAM Compliance: The United States fi rst national standards for the sending of commercial and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. Compliancy includes having an unsubscribe link and physical address on messages. Click-Through Tracking: Reporting the number of clicks that occur when recipients click on a link in an . Data Input form (subscription form): A form created within Informz to allow potential new recipients to subscribe to your communications. This can be used on a website or in a mailing. Data format: Part of the uploading subscribers process, a place holder for the fi elds in the import fi le. The default format is just addresses. To import more than just addresses, a new format needs to be created so that it matches the fields in your import file. De-duping: Removing duplicates records (Informz does this automatically for you). Informz, Inc. 92 Congress Street, Saratoga Springs, NY

15 13 - Deliverability: The Informz Way Service Provider (ESP): Company providing services (Informz). client: Program or application which allows you to retrieve and send it to others via the internet (ex: Outlook, Hotmail). HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): The standard protocol for formatting and displaying documents on the internet. IP Address: The numerical sequence that serves as an identifi er for an Internet server (each Informz client has their own dedicated IP address). ISP: Internet Service Provider (examples: AOL, Earthlink, Time Warner). Mailing Activity report: The main report to fi nd the basic stats for a mailing (who was sent, delivered, bounced, unsubscribed, clicked, what was clicked). Opens: When a recipient has opened an message or has their client set to view messages with a preview pane. Opt-In: An recipient that has given specifi c permission or has signed up to receive mailings from you. Informz is a permission based service provider. Clients must have permission to send to their recipients, purchasing or renting lists is not allowed. Subscription Form (data Input form): A form created within Informz to allow potential new recipients to subscribe to your communications. This can be used on a website or in a mailing.