Relevant Interruptions

Most marketers believe that spammy looking content is the reason Internet service providers and major corporations block incoming e-mail.

It used to be true that words, like "Free" and "Mortgage", had a noticeable impact on email delivery. But spam filters have gotten smarter and faster.

Driven by cost and customer complaints

A couple of years ago, the big email providers realized that the ever increasing problem of spam was not likley to abate anytime soon. They were faced with growing costs for hardware and manpower required to sift through billions of emails. Their customers were screaming for a way to decrease the sometimes offensive messages that they were getting. So, they came up with a better solution.

Judging the messenger, not the message

Now, email messages are judged by factors that do not require opening and reading.

The first test is the sender's reputation, where the ISP looks at the profile of email sender. There are a number of objective measures that are being tracked against every email sender:

• Percentage of users who complain that they send spam or never open these email messages,
• If the sender has received complaints posted to various news forums and the "blacklisting" organizations,
• Judging whether email is sent in a manner consistent with spammers,
• Percentage of emails that bounce (sent to outdated, closed email accounts)

Specific email practices that get you blocked

The details about ISP spam filters are closely guarded secrets. However, through trial and error some basic facts have emerged:

• Putting numbers or symbols in your Sender Name,
• Heavy use of images, rather than relevant copy,
• Sending from an IP address that is consistent,
• Most importantly, too many users complaints and bounced email messages

The important thing to notice is that having a user's permission to email them does not factor into the decision. It boils down to what your recipients are saying about you and how well you follow email best practices.

Impact on your email delivery

ISPs will do one of two things to your email messages they decide are spam:

• Delete your messages without any notice or feedback
• Send your messages the recipient's Junk Folder

Here are the strictest ISPs with the percentage of permission email sent to the Junk Folder, even though the user has given permission to receive mail from the sender.:

• XO Concentric - 48.3%
• Bellsouth - 28.3%
• Gmail - 27.8%
• Yahoo! - 18.6%
• Hotmail - 16.2%

If you need help with your email marketing don't hesitate to call us at (816) 529-9000 or visit our web site at www.ontargetinteractive.com.