Category: Industry

Something that authentication can’t help

The email said, “Our last mailing had 30 complaints at AOL. Will signing with DKIM and SPF help with our reputation there?” In some ways, that is a fair question. We do talk about reputation a lot and how authentication ties into that. But, really, this is something that authentication can’t help because, for all… Read More

Listen to your unsubscribers

When was the last time that you took a good, long listen to the people who are asking you to stop sending them email? If your ESP doesn’t provide an opportunity for your unhappy subscribers, you should ask them to create one. Your now-former subscribers have a story to tell that can help you retain… Read More

List Rental Is…

Peter Roebuck of AllWEBeMail (a division of All Web Promotion, Inc.) recently left a comment on Laura Atkins’ blog: rented email addresses, if done properly, should be no different from renting physical mailing addresses. With over 25 years in direct mail catalog experience, we know that catalogers are sending fewer catalogs and moving from print… Read More

The Email Marketer’s Syllogism

I get to see a number of things on a daily basis which indicate that people may not have the best ideas when it comes to understanding how engaged their subscribers are. One such example reads: There are tens of thousands of people in our database with whom we communicate and who clearly want to… Read More

IP relisted despite no more mail being sent

On June 6, 2009, a client sent a mailing. After it was sent, their (static, only-used-by-them) IP was listed by a particular list that is generated by the creator of a large, well-known anti-spam appliance and seems to be used by default in that appliance. I didn’t notice the issue until I started checking all… Read More

Quotable quotes

Think about why you open an email in your inbox. Consider that when creating your next email campaign, would you open your email?— Informz (@Informz) June 8, 2009 That’s a great question: Would you bother to open your own mail if you had a choice, or would you toss it out with the rest of… Read More

When web experts opine about email…

you get incredibly dumb statements like this one: Like promotional e-mail, transactional e-mail by nature bypasses search engines.Maria Krueger, ​Transactional e-mail can help market your brand​, Post-Crescent (2009), http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20090518/APC0701/905180463/1436/APC03/Maria+Krueger+column++Transactional+e-mail+can+help+market+your+brand (last visited May 18, 2009). Uh? What? My car also by nature bypasses search engines (although it does, in fact, have an engine of its own, thus… Read More

Email is about relationships

Did you know that it’s entirely possible to learn the wrong lessons? Well, it is. I use Zemanta to suggest possible links for blog posts. As I was writing yesterday’s blog post, a suggested link came up dealing with CAN-SPAM and the definition of “spam”. That post by Roger Bauer shows how some people just… Read More

Video in email

I am asked about embedding Flash or Windows Media files in email on a fairly regular basis. I always advise against it. It never seems to deliver well and it also suffers from degradation in service. That is to say that it doesn’t seem to get where you want it as often, and when it… Read More

Bad Advice

The hallmark of bad advice is the “there are very clear guidelines” statement which appears without an actual reference to the “very clear guideline”. A great example of this is an Email Insider article entitled: “Transactional Email:” CAN-SPAM. There are very clear guidelines on how much marketing content is acceptable in a transactional email (no… Read More

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