Improving Deliverability

Transcription

1 Improving Deliverability A focus on what happens after you hit the send button and the role of a SMTP Relay Service Provider April

2 Introduction deliverability has become one of the hot discussion areas around marketing. In its most basic definition, deliverability is anything that impacts the transmission and receipt of an to the intended inbox. However, as with most topics that combine business and technology, deliverability can be a catch-all term that means different things to different people depending upon their role in the process, interest and expertise. At the core level, one constructs an and sends it with the intent of reaching the recipient s inbox. The goal of Deliverability is to improve the success of an s ability to make it to the recipient s inbox. The end goal avoid being blocked, labeled as spam, or both. Most of the focus around deliverability has been reviewing the front-end of the process regarding best practices that involve design and construction, opt-in lists, rendering and testing. This paper will review the lesser known aspects of deliverability - what happens after you hit the send button. Traditionally, this is where emarketers have had less control and have been somewhat at the mercy of how the long chain of ISPs and ultimately the intended recipient will treat their s as either legitimate or spam. What makes it more challenging is that can be a fickle and unpredictable process where different ISPs have different methodologies that are dynamic and unpublished. Similarly, recipients who had previously opted-in to a sender, spontaneously decide to change and label the as spam. This paper on deliverability will focus on the actual process of physically sending campaigns from the sender s server, through the internet, to the recipient s server. The goals are to: educate the reader as to the surrounding backdrop when sending s explore options that can result in improving deliverability make the experience of sending s much more palatable. ISPs are Businesses Too Why are ISPs so stringent about senders having legitimate, opt-in traffic? Of course there is the moral aspect to the answer. However, it is more important to understand the business angle. The internet is not free but made up of ISPs that are profit-oriented businesses. Sending traffic across their networks cost ISPs money. Idealistically, sending spam traffic that is unwanted by their paying customers costs them even more money. 2

3 The most expedient solution for ISPs is to stop the unwanted or illegitimate traffic right at the front door to their network. The technical challenge for the ISPs is to quickly determine good versus bad s while receiving and transmitting huge volumes of traffic, of which is only a part. Over the past several years, ISPs have become more sophisticated in how they determine bad traffic by implementing various processes and monitors that include feedback loops, spam filtering, DKIM, SPF, white and black listing, reputation, accreditation. All of these combine in a melting pot through a series of sophisticated algorithms and models that in the end, label your as good-to-go, or bad-not-to go. Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater So, ISPs are not being difficult. Rather, they are simply businesspeople trying to optimize their operations. It is estimated that over 90% of all Internet traffic is spam, so ISPs need to assume a policing role as a matter of good business relative to their own networks and customers. Unfortunately, given the amount of spam, there is a natural bias that you are guilty until proven innocent. And since this is neither an exact science nor a perfect system, legitimate traffic can and will be classified as illegitimate from time to time. And as with many large institutions in life, once your identity (IP, domain, etc) has been tainted with suspicion, it can be quite an ordeal to clear your name and reinstate your good standing. Frustratingly, your traffic may be getting blocked or labeled as spam without your immediate knowledge, or for reasons unknown to you because a specific threshold was crossed on some server in some ISP network. ISPs are not in the habit of sending you a pleasant letter seeking your feedback on suggested transgressions. Rather, they simply execute your sentence by vaporizing your s. No depositions, no hearing, no jury of your peers. Do-It-Yourself Users who have purchased a license for marketing software from a software provider are generally the type of users who want the greatest amount of flexibility and control over how they design and execute their emarketing campaigns. Users of licensed software may deploy and operate a combination of advanced software tools and techniques to establish their own reputation with ISPs while staying under the radar to avoid being labeled as spam. Although licensed software can improve deliverability, these advanced tools and techniques are expensive to deploy and costly to maintain in terms of: expertise dedicated headcount ongoing systems support 3

4 For smaller users that send tens of thousands of s per month, implementing these techniques and capabilities is cost-prohibitive. For large companies sending millions of s per month, it is a mandatory requirement for the successful execution of the company s emarketing campaigns. After all is said and done, one key factor will always remain as a core influence to deliverability the quality of the contact list. As much as everyone strives for true opt-in lists, the reality is that list quality will be comprised from time-to-time jeopardizing the user s overall reputation and potentially leading to blocked IPs and blacklisting. The effort involved to undo the damage and restore the production capability of the emarketing engine can be expensive, in terms of real dollars and opportunity costs. Best of Both Worlds Using an SMTP Relay Service as an Internet Post Office A hybrid option combines the best of both worlds enabling emarketers to maintain the advantages of using licensed software while outsourcing only the sending of s and avoid the challenges of managing servers, ISP relationships, reputation, etc. After purchasing a license for marketing software, users simply need to subscribe to a monthly SMTP service that is usually priced based upon the number of s being sent per month. Most popular licensed marketing software provides an option within their outgoing setup for configuring an outside SMTP service. Instead of the marketing software pointing the outbound to the user s ISP server, it is pointed to the SMTP service provider s server. This service is usually referred to as an SMTP relay service that acts as the steward for relaying your outbound through the web of ISP networks, from server to server, and eventually to the server of the destination recipient s inbox. In essence, the SMTP service provider acts as an electronic Internet Post Office responsible only for delivering . However, unlike the U.S. Postal Service which charges 44 cents to mail a simple letter, the SMTP service provider charges in the tens thousandths of a cent ($.0003) per . A Fundamental Advantage of the SMTP Relay Service Provider Inherent within how the Internet operates is the advantage of scale - the bigger you are, the more influence you attain. The more hits you have on your page, the higher you get in the search engine ranking. The more followers you have on your social network, the more recognition and influence you wheel as an individual. In terms of ISPs and deliverability, the more good s you send, the greater your reputation and the less likely your s will be blocked by ISPs or caught up in spam filters. Conversely, the smaller your volume, the less likely you will register on the radar, and thus, the more likely you will be scrutinized by ISPs and not receive the gold star pass-through treatment. 4

5 Users of licensed marketing software that send their own need to work that much harder to get into the good graces of the ISP community, never mind maintain them over time. As mentioned earlier, ISPs operate on a guilty until proven innocent basis. SMTP relay providers have long been proven innocent. They aggregate all of their customers traffic under their IP registrations and continuously send all day, every day. Not only have they long established reputations, they continuously maintain those reputations as fundamental to their business. As a result, customers of SMTP relay providers are riding those good graces. The cost / benefit of doing such is one of the reasons why they subscribe to the service in the first place. In a nutshell, when it comes to sending s through the ISP network, this is a time where you want to be part of the larger crowd. And, if you are going to stand out and do-it-yourself, you better have the wherewithal to establish and continually maintain your own good standing to get your s delivered. More About SMTP Relay Services The SMTP relay service doesn t examine and scrutinize your or your list, as is the case with the marketing outsourced provider mentioned above. The one and only job of the SMTP relay service is simply to bulk deliver your mail in a nonintrusive manner, similar to the Post Office. The SMTP relay provider: does not have restrictions on the number of s they can send maintains an excellent reputation with all ISP and Web providers provides all the necessary tools and options for its customers to optimize the delivery of their (dedicated IPS, DKIMs, SPF, etc) includes professional support services to interface with ISPs and resolve sending issues on behalf of its customers As is well known, the U.S. Post Office imposes strict regulations against mail fraud. In terms of , SMTP service providers consider spam to be the equivalent of mail fraud and when they find spammers using their service for illegitimate purposes, they immediately isolate and shut them down. Outsourcers of marketing software have little tolerance for spam-like s even when they are from legitimate senders/customers. On the other hand, the SMTP service providers are specialists in delivery so they tend to work with their customers to notify and advise legitimate senders on how to improve their s versus simply shutting them down. Factors of Influence Some SMTP relay providers offer options on how an marketer can send their s. The two most basic plan structures are those based on shared IP addresses and those offering dedicated IP addresses. 5

6 Dedicated IP service offerings are generally oriented to large volume senders or senders who desire the best possible attributes for ensuring their s are delivered. A Dedicated IP address(es) is a server s method of identifying where traffic is coming from and evaluating it accordingly for legitimacy and reputation. With a source identity enabled, a customer with its own IP address can now establish and manage their own reputation as a sender, accreditation, implement domain keys, etc without being associated with any other traffic. In essence, they have the ability to emulate their own do-ityourself environment but using the SMTP relay provider s infrastructure. Usually, dedicated IP addresses will be embedded as part of the service offering for higher volume senders, along with the advanced tools and options that further optimize delivery. A shared IP address service offering is generally geared to smaller volume senders who, neither desire to incur the higher costs of a dedicated offering, nor have sufficient volumes to justify it. As the name implies, customers will share server IPs with other customers of the SMTP relay service provider. Although shared IP services do not provide all the advantages of having individualized advanced tools, there is one fundamental advantage that is inherent within a shared architecture the larger the volume on one IP, the better off each of the individual customers will be as long as those volumes are clean from spam and enjoy an overall good reputation. So, consistent with the inherent advantages offered by the SMTP relay provider to all its customers, the shared IP offering s are particularly advantageous to the smaller volume users because they ride the good graces of the SMTP providers reputation, the associated higher deliverability but without the high costs of doing it themselves. No One is Perfect From time-to-time, even legitimate senders make mistakes and end up sending out spam-like s or not fully opt-in lists. Those occasional oversights get lost in the crowd of the larger volume of the shared IP addresses. For all the other customers using the same IP, there is no impact because the few bad apples are statistically insignificant. However, if the guilty party s transgressions persist, the SMTP provider will see the impact and quickly move to rectify the problem through an alert and consultation. Summary There are many facets to the subject of Deliverability. Traditionally, much of the discussion has been around the less technical aspects of deliverability where users can exert more direct control involving design and list quality. As social networks and business transactions continually add to the volume of s traversing the Internet, the business dynamics of ISPs are pushing them to be more aggressive about limiting illegitimate traffic with an attitude of shoot first and ask questions later. marketing senders are becoming more cognizant of the technical underpinnings around the physical sending aspect of deliverability. Users of outsourced marketing enjoy the advantages of convenience but must give up a degree of control and flexibility. Users of licensed software looking to 6

7 improve their deliverability beyond their own capabilities will find a new breed of SMTP relay providers as a very viable option to offer the best of both worlds - maintaining control over their design and lists while leveraging the low cost and good reputation of the SMTP provider for improving deliverability. 7