Delivery Simplified White Paper

Transcription

1 Delivery Simplified White Paper April 28, 2005 Prepared by StrongMail Systems, Inc Island Drive, Suite 200 Redwood Shores, CA t. (650) f. (650) The information contained herein or any portion thereof may not be copied, reproduced, transmitted or used without the express written consent of StrongMail Systems, Inc. Copyright 2005 StrongMail Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

2 The Myth One of the most common myths surrounding successful programs is that there is one definitive step that senders can take to ensure delivery of their messages. For example, a sender can hire an accreditation service to audit its mailing practices and vouch for their legitimacy; or the sender can outsource most of the technical aspects of delivery to an Application Service Provider (ASP); or the sender might simply focus on its own best practices to ensure that lists are compiled using confirmed opt-in and that unsubscribe requests and bounces are handled consistently and efficiently. The Reality The reality is that maximizing deliverability requires a thoughtful combination of most, if not all, of the ideas discussed above. With Internet users consistently naming spam as the #1 problem they experience online 1, any form of commercial , regardless of legitimacy, is treated with understandable skepticism by both recipients and their ISPs. Statistics show that over the last ten years, spam has grown to represent almost 80% of total traffic 2. The UN estimated costs of spam to the global economy are approximately $25 billion per year 3. As a result, ISPs are getting tough on bulk , resulting in an average of 19% of legitimate business s being blocked 4. Therefore, senders are best served by combining cutting-edge technology, rigorous best practices, standards compliance, and a consistent system of optimization and tracking to ensure that their messages get through to the Inbox. The Good News StrongMail delivers a robust combination of elements which are vital to successful delivery in one easy-to-use package. StrongMail Systems provides the proper technology to maintain compliance with the ever-changing delivery policies of ISPs, best practices recommendations, and delivery tools for optimization and tracking to get the right message to the right person at the right time. The following paper outlines how StrongMail enables our Fortune 500 customers to successfully deliver through a combination of technology, best practices, and optimization and tracking. 1 Iain Thomson; vnunet.com, Spam pips viruses as biggest web problem; 03 Apr Excedent Technologies; Excedent Reports that Spam Traffic has Grown to 80% of ; 31 March Spamhaus; Follow Australia! United Nations - World Summit on the Information Society International Telecommunication Union (ITU); 19 Jul Return Path; Blocking and Filtering Report; 23 March Delivery Simplified

3 Cutting Edge Technology StrongMail provides all of the critical components required for compliance with corporate spam-filters and the volatile deliverability policies established by ISPs. Accurate Bounced Message Processor Most ISPs will report delivery problems with your message in the form of a bounce message. Your messaging system needs to have the ability to accurately handle, parse, and categorize the bounce and unsubscribe data you receive back from ISPs and end-users alike. This enables you to avoid trying to deliver mail to bad addresses, to customers who have previously unsubscribed, or to ISPs that have blocked your IP address. If you fail to properly understand, process, and categorize these bounce messages, you run the risk of being blacklisted by the ISP. StrongMail s bounced message processor manages this complex and difficult task for you, providing you with detailed, but easy-to-read, reports of which messages bounced and why. Domain Connection Limits ISPs specify policies to control how is delivered into their networks. StrongMail s Domain Connection Limits feature in StrongMail BMS restricts the number of connections a sender s SMTP server may make to an ISP s receiving MTA (mail transfer agent) at any one time. These settings often differ from ISP to ISP, usually depending on the size and resources of each. Worse yet, an ISP may change these settings at a moment s notice, often without warning and seemingly arbitrarily. StrongMail s ISP and spam-filter compliance technology gives you the flexibility you need to ensure that your messaging complies with new standards and policies as quickly and efficiently as the ISPs change them. Speed Throttling Like Domain Connection Limits, StrongMail s Speed Throttling feature controls the rate of delivery to a specific ISP. If an ISP detects an extremely high delivery rate coming from a specific IP address, the ISP is more likely to assume that the sender is sending spam and will block the rest of the mailing. Speed Throttling limits the number of SMTP transactions that a sender may make to an ISP over a specific time interval, decreasing the likelihood that the ISP will block parts of your mailing. Virtual Server Routing StrongMail s Virtual Server Routing enables users to have very granular control of mailing parameters to increase deliverability. For example, you can specify a set of IP addresses and custom header combinations to use when sending messages to specific domains. This feature can also be used to control routing and to differentiate between classes of deliveries such as transactional messages versus newsletters or advertising. Feedback Loops Some ISPs provide their users with the ability to report a message as spam back to the ISP. Some of these ISPs also provide that information back to the sender at a prearranged address, in the form of a feedback loop. StrongMail provides our clients with recommendations on how to configure your servers to best accommodate this feedback and optimize your programs accordingly. 2 Delivery Simplified

4 Dynamic Content and Spam-filter Compliance In many cases, spam filters look for message attributes that represent a pre-existing relationship with the recipient. For example, if an comes in with specialized dynamic content based on a specific user s profile within a Web site or CRM system, that is more likely to reach the Inbox that a uniform, un-customized message. StrongMail features some of the most advanced dynamic content functionality available, enabling our customers to ensure spam-filter compliance while increasing the relevance and overall success of their electronic communications. Best Practices & Standards Compliance To augment the technology, StrongMail also provides customers with deliverability support and best practices recommendations to maximize delivery to the Inbox. Proper Set-up and Configuration A business messaging system must comply with many technical specifications to ensure that mail is properly delivered. These specifications, called RFCs (Request For Comments), are formal documents from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that reflect publicly agreed-upon standards for various Internet protocols in existence today. There are a number of RFCs specifically governing the transmission of . These RFCs discuss how mail servers should be configured, how should be processed, and how particular message content must be formatted. Many ISPs will refuse that does not comply with these RFCs. Using StrongMail will ensure that your mail server and your messages will be RFC-compliant. Whitelisting Practices Some ISPs implement processes by which legitimate business senders can ensure successful delivery of their messages to the ISP s users by adhering to certain sending policies (such as those discussed earlier). This system is mutually beneficial to the sender and to the ISP. It enables an ISP to more easily determine whether an incoming business message is spam or not. StrongMail makes the whitelisting process with ISPs simple by explaining how to develop a good relationship with ISPs as a responsible sender. Built in Support for Authentication Standards (SPF, Sender ID, Domain Keys, Identified Internet Mail) New standards are gradually being implemented that will assist both senders and ISPs in distinguishing legitimate business messages from spam. The standards including SPF (or sender policy framework ), Sender ID, Domain Keys, and IIM each differ in their technical specifications but share a common goal: to minimize the forgery of message headers, commonly referred to as forgery or phishing. StrongMail is encouraged by how quickly the community is embracing authentication: Hotmail has recently reported that about one-fifth of the s received by their users originated from a domain that had published an SPF record, and of that number, about a quarter showed evidence of domain spoofing. StrongMail enables you to easily adapt your business messaging system to any or all of these authentication standards, depending on your specific needs. 3 Delivery Simplified

5 Access to Reputation Services Reputation services go hand-in-hand with the concept of whitelisting discussed above. The difference between the two, however, has to do with who crafts the policies with which the sender must comply. Some ISPs rely on reputation services to determine whether business is legitimate and trust those services to handle the details. Legitimate business senders therefore use reputation services companies by warranting that their policies meet best practice criteria established by the services. The sender s practices are then often verified against background checks, references and similar examinations. A reputation service company often also examines the opt-in policies of the sender and whether the sender participates in best practices organizations. StrongMail has partnered with prominent reputation services organizations such as Habeas to ensure that adherence to their policies is seamlessly implemented. Optimization & Tracking StrongMail Delivery Tools enable customers to optimize message content and verify whether or not their messages are getting delivered, closing the feedback loop so they can adjust their delivery practices accordingly. The tools are powered by ReturnPath, an industry leader in delivery assurance services, and come with full training and support on their use. Optimize your message content to comply with spam-filters Many ISPs and spam-filters attempt to distinguish legitimate from spam by examining the content of the messages they receive. The Spam-filter Monitor grades a message s SPAM score based on an exhaustive list of rules. By examining your messages for problematic characteristics before you send them, StrongMail Delivery Tools can help you avoid using content that might be considered spam, thereby improving your delivery rates. Track delivery all the way to the Inbox The Mailbox Monitor enables you to verify whether or not your messages are getting delivered, closing the feedback loop so you can adjust your delivery practices accordingly. StrongMail s Mailbox Monitor tracks delivery to a representative sampling of over 80 million Inboxes at major ISPs and Webmail, so you can know whether the recipient ever saw the ; if messages were delivered to your customers inbox, sent to the junkmail box, filtered out as spam, or never delivered at all. In addition, StrongMail s reporting system goes once step further, by allowing you to track response rates, including opens, clickthroughs and, most importantly, whether they have chosen to unsubscribe from future mailings (which a new federal law, CAN-SPAM, now requires you to provide on commercial business messages). Monitor your networks for blacklists Many ISPs maintain their own individual blacklists and others rely on third-party blacklists (such as those maintained by Spamhaus or SpamCop) to determine whether to accept mail from a particular server. The StrongMail Blacklist Alert checks 87 blacklist providers to make sure that your domain is not listed. This prompt feedback allows you to take action swiftly to resolve any problems with your mail practices, thus ensuring uninterrupted communication with your customers. 4 Delivery Simplified

6 The Bottom Line has quickly become the easiest and most critical means of effective business communication. As a result of s sudden and increasing popularity, legitimate senders must sift through a vast and often intimidating array of products and services designed to facilitate business communication, compounded by emerging trends such as best practices, whitelisting, blacklisting, RFCs, and keeping up with rapidly changing standards and legal requirements. With consumers increasingly fed up with spam and other unwanted , senders must effectively use all the tools at their disposal to ensure maximum deliverability of their communications. Only StrongMail provides both enterprises and service providers with a one-stop solution for all of these tools, from technical configuration to best practices, from RFC compliance to legal compliance. StrongMail has uniquely positioned itself as a thought leader and a trusted advisor for all these crucial aspects of successful delivery. For more information or to schedule a demo, contact StrongMail Systems today. StrongMail Systems, Inc Island Drive, Suite 200 Redwood Shores, CA t. (650) f. (650) info@strongmailsystems.com 5 Delivery Simplified