email deliverability: the what, why & how

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Email Deliverability: The What, Why & How Ryan Moss Deliverability Manager December 5, 2012

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Email Deliverability:

The What, Why & How

Ryan Moss Deliverability Manager

December 5, 2012

In today’s session we’ll address the following questions:

• What is deliverability and why is it important for your

digital marketing success?

• Why bulking and blacklisting impact your email

marketing ROI?

• How do you avoid revenue loss due to deliverability

issues?

Objective

The Bad News:

Most of the largest brands in the world encounter

deliverability challenges on regular basis.

The Good News:

You can overcome deliverability issues and avoid substantial

revenue losses (ranging from $50,000 to up to several $

million) by applying:

• Pre-flight testing

• Inboxing reporting

• Blacklist detection

Key Points

1. Deliverability

• Inboxing

an email message reaching its intended recipient’s inbox

• Bulking

an email message being trapped by spam filters and thus

being prevented from reaching the inbox

2. Blacklisting

a major ISP (Internet Service Provider) blocking all

communications coming from a specific domain

3. Deliverability DOs & DONTs

Our Topic & Agenda

Deliverability - Inboxing

- Bulking

• Reaching your subscribers’ inboxes is becoming increasingly

difficult

• According to Yesmail Interactive data, email recipients at the

four major internet service providers (ISP) represent over 80%

of a marketers’ email audience

• ISP bulking issues will result in approximately 20% revenue

loss per ISP, per campaign

• Those losses typically range from $50K to several million

depending on the size of the brand’s subscriber list

Inboxing: Current Landscape

Example: GMAIL Bulking

• ACME Marketing generates $250,000 in revenue per email campaign.

However, this marketer has been blocked at GMAIL for its past 4

campaigns within the last 7 days.

– Average Weekly Revenue - 4 campaigns x $250,000 = $1,000,000

– Revenue Loss / Bulking Issue = $1,000,000 * 20% (GMAIL Audience

Size) = $200,000.00

• ACME has lost $200,000 in revenue this past week as a result of a

single GMAIL bulking issue.

What We Discovered: You Lose Revenue

• Over 20 major marketers from different verticals

were studied for inbox placement at AOL, Hotmail,

Yahoo, and GMAIL for a period of 60 days.

• Our study concluded that the largest brands in the

world experience inbox issues regularly.

Our Deliverability Study

Yesmail Confidential 9

Real Campaign Data: Yahoo Bulking

Lowes:

Date: August 2nd

Subject Line: NEW $50 and Change Project Inside

Date: August 16th

Subject Line: Manage Your Home in Your Hand

Yesmail Confidential 10

Real Campaign Data: Yahoo Bulking

Kohl’s:

Date: August 8th

Subject Line: Your $5 Gift from Kohl's has arrived!

Date: August 23rd

Subject Line: Last Chance to Save up to 20%

During the Lowest Prices of the Season Sale!

Yesmail Confidential 11

Real Campaign Data: GMAIL Bulking

Barney’s New York:

Date: September 6th

Subject Line: Shop the Fall Trend: The Electric

Blues

Date: August 29th

Subject Line: Miracle Moisture: Shop La Mer's

Soft Crème

Date: August 27th

Subject Line: Beat the Heat: No-Sweat Summer

Style from The Glamourai's Kelly Framel

Yesmail Confidential 12

Real Campaign Data: GMAIL Bulking

Barney’s New York:

Date: August 24th

Subject Line: Read All About It: Insider Fashion

Access on The Window

Date: August 22nd

Subject Line: Last Call to Shop Barneys

Warehouse Sale Online - Up to 90% OFF!

Date: August 20th

Subject Line: Under the Influence: Shop Personal

Favorites from François Nars, Sunday Riley and

More!

Yesmail Confidential 13

Real Campaign Data: GMAIL Bulking

Barney’s New York:

Date: August 17th

Subject Line: Up to 85% Off Styles for Women,

Men & More! Shop NOW Before They're Gone For

Good

Date: August 16th

Subject Line: The Urban Uniform: Introducing

BASCO Barneys Sportswear Company

Date: August 14th

Subject Line: New Markdowns! Now Save Up to

85% OFF Select Styles for Men, Women, Kids,

and the Home!

Sending Reputation: ISPs measure a variety of metrics generated by a

marketers email campaign that are fed into a central scoring framework.

The following metrics compose a sender’s reputation:

1. Abuse Complaints

2. Opens

3. Click-Through Rates

4. Messages ‘Passed By’ (abaca)

Problematic URLs: Links contained within the content body are known

to cause deliverability issues. ISPs will flag certain URLs that are

commonly found in messages that generate excessive abuse complaints

Example: www.3rd-party-company.com

Inboxing Issues: the Causes

Proactive Action:

Inbox Placement Testing / Preflight – Marketers are recommended to

generate inbox placement reports at the major and mid-tiered ISPs before

EVERY campaign.

• Step 1 - Generate inbox report 72 hours before campaign deployment

• Step 2 - Inspect inbox placement at each ISP

• Step 3 - Investigate discrepancies at problematic ISP

• Step 4 - Determine if the issue is tied to Creative Content or IP

Reputation

• Step 5 – Once issue is identified, take preventive measures to avoid it

recurring in the future

Inboxing Issues: the Solution

Inboxing Issues: the Solution

Much like a car travels on a road to reach its destination, an email

campaigns travels on an IP addresses.

Most marketers have dedicated IP addresses exclusively reserved for

their email program.

Just like there are different types cars on the road, there are different

types of email campaigns with different purposes (mail- streams):

Different Types of Mail Streams:

• Retention

• Marketing

• Third Party (Co-reg, Rental, eAppend)

• Transactional

Inboxing Issues: the Causes

Single Mail Stream

Preventive Measures:

Mail stream separation based on offer type and engagement.

The audience should be separated into individual mail

streams based on most recent engagement.

Deliverability issues will be isolated to the higher risk mail

streams, leaving the core streams uneffected.

Inboxing Issues: the Solution

IP Set 1 – Engagement Stream – (12 months or less)

IP Set 2 - Legacy Engagement – (13 months plus)

IP Set 3 - Other – 3rd Party, Append, Lead Gen.

Multiple Mail Streams

1. Ensure you are generating inbox measurement

reports BEFORE each campaign

2. Ensure your email campaigns are being sent

over DEDICATED IP addresses

3. Ensure your email campaigns are divided into

separate IP sets per mail stream

Take Action Today

Blacklisting

What is Spamhaus?

• The largest commercial blacklist in the world

• Protects over 2 billion email recipients worldwide.

• Adopted by 70% of major ISPs

Marketers in all industries can experience Spamhaus listings. We have

listed a few examples of brands from different verticals that have

experienced Spamhaus issues.

Blacklist: Landscape

GMAIL Hotmail Yahoo

Comcast SBC Bellsouth

Cablevision Road Runner USA.net

Spamtrap email addresses are ‘learning beacons’ operated by

Spamhaus. These beacons help Spamhaus monitor and

penalize Marketers with faulty mailing practices.

1. Honey pot – an email address that has never subscribed to a

marketer’s message, nor been released to the outside world.

Example Beacon: [email protected]

2. Inactive Recipient – an email address that has not opened,

clicked, or purchased from a marketer in 13 months or greater.

Example Beacon: [email protected]

Blacklist: Causes

Example:

ACME Marketing generates $250,000 in revenue per email campaign.

This marketer has been blocked with Spamhaus for the past 4 email

campaigns this week.

– Average Weekly Revenue: 4 campaigns x $250,000 = $1,000,000

– Revenue Loss / Spamhaus: $1,000,000 * 70% (Spamhaus Audience

Size) = $700,000.00

ACME has lost $700,000 in revenue this past week as a result of the

Spamhaus blocking issue.

What We Discovered: You Lose Revenue

Bath and Body Works:

Listing Date: August 24 to Present

ESP: Cheetahmail

Cause: Hitting spamtraps

Groupon:

Listing Date: October 30, 2011 - Present

ESP: Exact Target

Cause: Hitting spamtraps

Disney Credit Card:

Listing Date: June 19, 2012 - Present

ESP: Exact Target

Cause: Hitting spamtraps

Real Campaign Data: Blacklist

Sirus XM Radio

Listing Date: September 9 to present

ESP: Cheetahmail

Cause: Spamming to harvested addresses

in violation of CAN-SPAM.

•State of Michigan

Date: July 29, 2012

ESP: N/A

Cause: Spam source (traps)

•Children’s Place

Listing Date: August 28 to Present

ESP: Cheetahmail

Cause: Hitting spamtraps

Real Campaign Data: Blacklist

Preventive Steps:

Marketers are encouraged to perform the following actions in

order to avoid Spamhaus issues:

1. Engagement Analysis – Understand your audience and

perform segmentation based on recent engagement

2. Mail Stream Separation – Ensure mail streams are

completely isolated from each other

3. Hygiene – Utilize 3rd party hygiene solutions on data to

eliminate possible problematic data

4. Scans – Ensure your IP addresses are being scanned

at Spamhaus every 24 hours (at minimum).

Blacklist

Optimal Deliverability

What you should expect from your dedicated Email Solution

Provider:

• Constant monitoring of all deployments

• Inbox placement reporting across all major ISPs

• Hourly Spamhaus Blacklist detection

• Content rendering reporting across all major ISPs

• Proactive recommendations and guidance on deliverability

strategy

Make Deliverability a Priority!

Questions???

Call me, maybe…

Ryan Moss

Phone: 647.624.3512

Email: [email protected]