Page 10 - index
P. 10
BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES
Email best practices and its
significance today
If you are wondering how email best practices have most important criterion of email filtering. Instead of
evolved over time, it actually becomes clear that they relying solely on complaints, they began to make use of
are timeless in many ways and it raises the question criteria such as unknown users (error message "550
how this is possible in view of the ongoing technological 5.1.1 rejected"), TiNS (acronym representing the
progress in email communications. phrase “This is Not Spam”), when email recipients save
desired emails from the spam folder, and content for
Best practices themselves have indeed only changed
little in the last decade, only the impact of the use of filtering decisions. In addition, they developed methods,
such as Microsoft's "Sender Reputation Data" (SRD)
“best or poor” practices, because both the filter methods and Yahoo's "Trusted Voters", in which email recipients
of mailbox providers and the legal consequences of fail- were randomly asked for feedback on whether a re-
ure to comply with best practices have continued to de-
velop. ceived email is considered “spam" or not.
This rating, at the same time, was used to estimate the
This means that it is no longer enough to consider just
the basics to run successful email marketing, but that sender reputation to obtain the most precise profile of
the sender. Hence, the email filtering by the mailbox
best practices are a must today for e-marketers, if they provider has become more effective and made it more
want to ensure that their emails end up in the inboxes of difficult for illegitimate senders to use the email chan-
their subscribers.
nel. Spammers could no longer mail to comprehensive
In the beginning was the complaint rate lists without consequences, because the quality of the
circulation list came more and more into focus. Even
Ten years ago, all you had to do as an e-marketer was legitimate email marketers felt the effects: If they didn’t
paying attention to a clean configured distribution plat- want to jeopardize the reputation of their IP addresses
form and low complaint rate for achieving good delivery and risk falling return on investment, it became impera-
rates. Today, these criteria are still important, but mail- tive to keep an eye on the complaint rate and avoid
box providers have long recognized that its mechanisms sending emails to unknown users or abandoned ac-
have to take into account far more criteria to enable ef- counts.
fective filtering of intercepting spam and malicious
emails. With the cleanup of lists alone, spammers could Putting the spotlight on user engagement
keep the complaint rate low and their emails were able
to reach the inboxes. Next, mailbox providers continued to refine the spam
filtering by setting up criteria and indicators for the com-
Thus, the IP reputation was established mitment of its users, which means their interaction with
advertising messages – such as e.g. the SmartScreen
As a next step, the general concept of IP reputation fol- Filter from Microsoft. Performance figures for the com-
lowed in 2009, introduced by mailbox providers as the
mitment are, for instance, clicks, the forwarding of
10 Asian eMarketing November 2014 - Cross-, Multi-, Omni-Channel & Everywhere Commerce
Email best practices and its
significance today
If you are wondering how email best practices have most important criterion of email filtering. Instead of
evolved over time, it actually becomes clear that they relying solely on complaints, they began to make use of
are timeless in many ways and it raises the question criteria such as unknown users (error message "550
how this is possible in view of the ongoing technological 5.1.1 rejected"), TiNS (acronym representing the
progress in email communications. phrase “This is Not Spam”), when email recipients save
desired emails from the spam folder, and content for
Best practices themselves have indeed only changed
little in the last decade, only the impact of the use of filtering decisions. In addition, they developed methods,
such as Microsoft's "Sender Reputation Data" (SRD)
“best or poor” practices, because both the filter methods and Yahoo's "Trusted Voters", in which email recipients
of mailbox providers and the legal consequences of fail- were randomly asked for feedback on whether a re-
ure to comply with best practices have continued to de-
velop. ceived email is considered “spam" or not.
This rating, at the same time, was used to estimate the
This means that it is no longer enough to consider just
the basics to run successful email marketing, but that sender reputation to obtain the most precise profile of
the sender. Hence, the email filtering by the mailbox
best practices are a must today for e-marketers, if they provider has become more effective and made it more
want to ensure that their emails end up in the inboxes of difficult for illegitimate senders to use the email chan-
their subscribers.
nel. Spammers could no longer mail to comprehensive
In the beginning was the complaint rate lists without consequences, because the quality of the
circulation list came more and more into focus. Even
Ten years ago, all you had to do as an e-marketer was legitimate email marketers felt the effects: If they didn’t
paying attention to a clean configured distribution plat- want to jeopardize the reputation of their IP addresses
form and low complaint rate for achieving good delivery and risk falling return on investment, it became impera-
rates. Today, these criteria are still important, but mail- tive to keep an eye on the complaint rate and avoid
box providers have long recognized that its mechanisms sending emails to unknown users or abandoned ac-
have to take into account far more criteria to enable ef- counts.
fective filtering of intercepting spam and malicious
emails. With the cleanup of lists alone, spammers could Putting the spotlight on user engagement
keep the complaint rate low and their emails were able
to reach the inboxes. Next, mailbox providers continued to refine the spam
filtering by setting up criteria and indicators for the com-
Thus, the IP reputation was established mitment of its users, which means their interaction with
advertising messages – such as e.g. the SmartScreen
As a next step, the general concept of IP reputation fol- Filter from Microsoft. Performance figures for the com-
lowed in 2009, introduced by mailbox providers as the
mitment are, for instance, clicks, the forwarding of
10 Asian eMarketing November 2014 - Cross-, Multi-, Omni-Channel & Everywhere Commerce
