Boost Your Email Delivery Rate

There are times when we need not to understand completely ‘how things work’ we just need to know the tasks they do. Like email delivery assurance system, it is not that necessary for you to fully understand how it works as long as you are aware that it can help in the online business you have. I’m afraid that still most email marketers fail to see the entire picture of online marketing. Though online promotion requires little time, several considerations should be taken into account in order to optimize this type of marketing strategy. It’s not enough to just send a newsletter or a promotion to your clients and prospects. Neither is it enough to just place anything you would want your readers to see whenever they open your email. You have to make sure that your emails are reaching the inbox and that readers are getting what they have opted in.

An email delivery assurance system suggests an improved email delivery. Well, your emails encounter a lot of obstacles which you might not be aware of. Due to heightened unsolicited commercial emails, commonly known as spam (spam are emails that have salacious contents or those that suggest violence), mail administrators and major ISP’s adopt several metrics to minimize if not totally eradicate the negative effects of spam. These ISP’s and mail administrators procure several blacklists and spam filters. Blacklists are lists of known spammers and maintained by people who take effort to compile spam reports. Unfortunately not all spam reports are genuine; some users tend to report emails as spam because of the cluttering messages on their inbox or they just forgot that they have signed up for newsletters/updates. You need to know that when your domain gets on blacklists your emails get block. The problem doesn’t end here. Another thing that hampers email delivery is spam/content filters. You might have a clean reputation, in that your domain is not on the blacklists, but still experiencing blocked email (the primary indicator of blocked emails is low-response rate from your clients). This problem is likely due to the fact that your message doesn’t land on inbox but on bulk/trash folders. Spam filters do vary in detecting spam but generally they check on the subject line, header and content of the message for words that are spammy. Once sufficient spammy words are generated, your message will be flagged as spam. In addition, bear in mind that spam filters can be configured by the users. They can increase the security level, alter the whitelist and blacklist databases and a lot more.

You might be feeling discouraged because of the low ROI you are experiencing or you keep wondering if your emails are reaching your prospects’ inbox. I believe it’s time to drop those discouragements and wonderings and replace them with certainty. You can get assured of email delivery through an email delivery assurance system. I suggest you to have one.

Kindly check http://www.emailreach.com for more information about email delivery. Though I mentioned that it’s not that necessary to know how things work, like how email delivery works, it is still an advantage if you know exactly how email delivery assurance system function.

 

How To Deal with Disgruntled Users

In all facets of business, good relationship with the customers is the key factor that keeps the business standing. And once a good relationship is built, you will never know where its influence may reach. Your good reputation will make your business progress, as your name and the services you offer keep on resounding, attracting other prospects.

The same hold true in online business. Untarnished and clean reputation will enable you to soar high and get the most of your business (e.g. optimum profit). Though online types of businesses seldom require a close association to the clients because of its nature, warm and personal dealing is of great importance.

Email marketing stands out if online promotion is needed. This type of promotion is fast and time saving. The very problem about email marketing is that, sent messages are difficult to track. You might be aware of spam, these are messages which are unlikely and unbeneficial (e.g. pornography, violence, etc). Because of spam, ISP’s and mail administrators adopt filters to lessen its effect. In addition blacklists – lists of IP’s of known spammers, are widely used as well. If your IP landed on blacklists, it will be hard for you to send your emails to domains that use the blacklists where you are in. In worst case it will be impossible for you to send your emails.

Several backlists are out for ISP’s and mail administrators to purchase. These blacklists are made by certain individuals or groups which compile spam reports. The problem is that, not all spam reports are true. One of the reasons why legitimate senders get blacklisted is because of disgruntled or dissatisfied users. One or two reports aren’t enough to place your IP in the blacklist but when sufficient reports are generated form your domain, your IP is more likely to fall in the blacklists.

For you to prevent your IP from landing in any blacklists you should know how to deal with disgruntled email users. The very thing you need to have in any of mailings is a fast and easy way of opting out. Once you make it hard for your clients to opt out, they would more likely report your message as spam to unsubscribe from your mailings/updates. Another reason why users report your message as spam is because they fail to remember that they have signed up to receive updates/reports from you. Double opt-in is another thing to consider. Once a user signed up for updates, you can send an email, where a link to your site is embedded, and have him confirm his intention by following the link or the like. This would lessen your possibility of getting reported as spam. And finally send updates or news, your clients have opted in. Send them what they ask for.

For more tips on how to deal with disgruntled users, kindly check http://www.emailreach.com.

 

Spam Filters do generate False Positive

Internet is definitely making a visible trail of an improved medium of communication. Online businesses and promotions are but just some of the fields that make use of this worldwide connection. Email marketing is indeed of great importance for businesses that concern online promotion.

A big part of online marketers fail to understand the real score of their mailings. A message prompt like ‘message sent’ is not a guarantee that the message reached the prospect’s inbox. There are instances when promotional emails and even opted-in newsletters get block and thus land on bulk folders.

Most if not all ISP’s and email users utilize spam filters. Spam filters are softwares made to limit the effect of spam (these are messages that suggest violence, pornography, obscenity and the like). Spam filters have different spam detection techniques – certain filters check the content of the message, while others depend their detection on whitelist and blacklist. Though spam filters vary in detecting spam, most of them can be configured by the users – such as changing the level of security or updating the whitelist and blacklist databases. Furthermore, because of the unwanted effect of spam, be it in the context of homes, small businesses or large ones, email users and mail administrators tend to increase the security level of these filters. This results to a low false negative (false negative occurs when the filter fails to block a spam) which is very desirable. But increasing the security level increases the false positive as well. Unlike false negative, false positive occurs when a legitimate email is blocked from reaching the inbox. And this is very unlikely for email marketers. Heightened false positive rate hinders online businesses to progress. In addition, large amount of money is wasted during internet campaigns, and false positive can hamper businessmen from building relationships on their clients and prospects.

Spam filters are good; they help us in our fight against spam and spammers. But there isn’t a perfect filter. An ideal spam filter should generate a zero false positive and a zero false negative. Unfortunately this is hard to achieve, quite impossible actually. But it’s great to know that there are email delivery assurance systems which can help online marketers optimize there campaigns and mailings. Email delivery assurance systems test your emails on major mail administrators and ISP’s to know if indeed the inbox is reached. If not, these email delivery assurance systems can help you fix the problem that hinders your emails from landing on prospected inbox(es). One of the email delivery assurance systems used today is EmailReach – an assurance system that uses delivery audit. If you are planning to secure an email delivery assurance system, you may want to visit http://www.emailreach.com.

 

Secure Your Emails: Adopt An Email Delivery Assurance

Untracked email delivery is just like riding in a boat with a crack, waters keep on coming in, and little would you know – you’re sinking. Once uncertainty of email delivery arises, you will not be able to check the real progress of your online marketing which in turn will undermine your online business.

Your email for your clients would face several obstacles on its way to target inboxes. To name some, there are the Real Time Blacklists (RBL) and stringent content filters. These RBL and content filters used by major ISPs can block your message. Because of this dilemma, low ROI and click-through rates are being experienced in most online business campaigns. Indeed delivery assurance service is indispensable.

Most delivery assurance systems make a cycle of their services, sort of what comes first and what comes next. This cycle would help them master their services, track which step needs to be improved or omitted.

Primarily, good reputation can buoy your delivery rate. Once you have a clean reputation (your domain and IP are not included in the blacklists) you won’t have any problem to any ISP blocking. The very thing you just need to do is to make sure that your message passes content/spam filters used by your clients. These filters usually check the message’s subject line, html code and the content. Some of these filters are content-based filter, Bayesian filter and challenge-response filter. But most of the time, blacklisting issue is the main cause of failure of email delivery. A delivery assurance system can help you get whitelisted. Once you’re in the whitelist, your message will be tested to different filters used nowadays, and then if your message lands on the bulk folders you will get report/suggestions about the necessary modification of your message so that it will not be flagged as spam.

If you are looking for an email delivery assurance system, in that you want to make your business flourish, you can try visiting EmailReach. EmailReach services cover reputation check, message’s content assessment, and actual inbox delivery.

 

HTML Messaging

The format of your newsletters can help in converting more leads to sale. Most online marketers consider the use of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) messaging. HTML messaging gives your more control over your news reports by giving you more alternatives as to how you want your message to appear – layout, color, font, graphics, etc. HTML can make your emails for your clients look like web pages and can be browse as web pages. HTML messages can contain links, images and any kind of content viewable to the web. And things as such can make viewers enjoy looking at your updates.

HTML messaging does have benefits as mentioned but it has also disadvantages once used improperly. Usage of external editors like FrontPage or Netscape Composer can increase flexibility but can undermine your online campaign since these editors have different effects on the final outcome of the message because their codes are not all the time compatible. In order to avoid this problem have a programmer code your email template by hand. In addition, graphics embedded improperly in your HTML message will cause your clients to see a small red X and an empty graphic box instead of the graphics you intend your viewers to see. This can tarnish your reputation. In some cases slow loading time and image blocking are experienced by your clients, make sure to have a short tag describing the image so that you clients will have the idea of what they’re about to see.

Furthermore, virus outbreak is very offensive that is why mail administrators reject anything that might carry a virus. In HTML messaging, usage of scripts such as java script, visual basic, etc is discouraged.

Another friendly advice, use visuals sparingly so that your prospects won’t get distracted. Make your graphics fitted to your report – promotion or updates.

If you would like to try HTML messaging but has uncertainty of your message deliverability, or you have already tried HTML messaging for purpose of making your emails more enjoyable for your prospects but have delivery problem. EmailReach can help you fix your problem. EmailReach checks the content of your message as well as its HTMLcodes.

 

The CAN SPAM Act of 2003

The CAN SPAM Act of 2003 is an acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act which became effective January 1, 2004. The said legislation sets the requirements for commercial emails and as well the penalties for the violators.

CAN SPAM Act of 2003 permits unsolicited mailing as long as the sender practices the agreed upon requirements for commercial emails. These agreed upon requirements include clarity that the message is an advertisement, accurate header information on which the email and IP addresses of the sender can be tracked. CAN SPAM Act also requires an explicit way for opting out and stop further mailings. Whenever an email contains adult content, the sender should place a message prompt or the like in the subject line to warn the reader. A misleading subject line is discouraged.

Furthermore, commercial emails sent to addresses compiled without permission, such as by automation and email address generation using ‘dictionary attack’ (combination of names, letters and numbers into multiple permutations) are prohibited. In addition, aggravated offense such as hijacking computers through Trojan or worms or using open mail relays for sending spam is also prohibited.

The content is exempted if it is purely religious, or if the content complies with the marketing mechanism specified by the law. Messages with national security content are also exempted.

To understand more about the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 – the governing bodies, the penalties, reactions and detail explanation about it, you can visit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm.

Despite the measures established to fight spam, including CAN SPAM Act, most online marketers who send legitimate emails and are CAN SPAM compliant get block and thus experience low ROI. To further increase your understanding about email marketing and other considerations (other than those stated in the CAN SPAM Act) kindly check www.emailreach.com.

 

Types of Spam Filters

Types of Spam Filters

Spam filters are designed to block unwanted messages generated by unethical senders. Presently, there are different spam filter programs in the market available for email users to purchase. These programs are designed differently, which means that their methods of detecting spam vary.

Businesses which require email messaging for information dissemination would find it helpful to know the different methods used by spam filters. This will in turn help them tailor there message’s content as well as their mailing procedures. Thus, being aware of spam filter programs can help in the optimization of any internet campaign.

The most common type of spam filter is the Content-Based Filter. This type of filter as the name suggests, looks on symbols, words or phrases in the subject line, headers and content of the message which are suspicious. The filtering process is very dependent to phrases and words chosen by the user as spam, this means that spam messages with words or phrases not included in the list of the user will make it to the inbox time and again unless the user creates another filter to deal with those words and phrases. The good side of this filter is, it can be fashioned in anyway the user wishes to.

Another type of spam filter is the Bayesian Filter, unlike content-based filter; Bayesian filter undergoes ‘training’ where the filter learns the difference between a spam and a legitimate email. During this ‘training’ messages are broken into tokens and these tokens are then stored in databases (tokens of good messages are separated from those of spam). This type of filter requires minimal maintenance and can adapt easily to users’ usual message, just like if the user is a medical practitioner, anything that relates to medical field will be considered as good. The primary drawback of Bayesian filter is that optimum filtering will not take place immediately, since the filter is dependent on the messages on which it is trained.

In addition, there is a Blacklist-Whitelist filter where the whitelist is composed of the ‘good’ email addresses and the blacklist is composed of email addresses believed to send spam. This kind of filter ensures that received emails are from whitelisted senders only and any address aside from the whitelisted ones will be blocked. With this, email users can expect a zero false negative. The main disadvantage of this filter is that, whenever a real-time blacklist (RBL) is used, there is a tendency that the whole IP is considered as spam sender, though only a part of it used to send spam.

Challenge-Response Filter on the other hand sends messages to unknown senders asking them to do further action/step to justify their intention of sending the email. These further actions can be a request for the senders’ website to ensure that the email is legitimate. This type of filter is quite applicable to low traffic email users.

Community filter is another type of spam filter. This filter has a central server where users can send suspected spam; the server itself then saves the ‘fingerprint’ of the message to the database. When enough users flagged the message as spam, the ‘fingerprints’ of the message will be blocked in the future. But before a spam is blocked, many users have already opened it.

If your business makes use of email in sending promotional or newsletters, you should at least know if your email address is in the real-time blacklists so that you can apply for whitelisting. And at least know the basic symbols, words and phrases to be avoided in sending emails. Try visiting www.emailreach.com for more information about spam filters.

 

What Is A Blacklist Monitor Service?

Online marketers find email messaging helpful in their campaign. Thousands of email addresses are prospects and can increase sales if correct marketing strategies are used. But since spam senders compete with legitimate marketers, a great amount of money is lost every campaign period. Large amount of emails are blocked because of Unsolicited Commercial Emails (UCE) commonly known as spam. ISPs and mail administrators make use of blacklists to muffle its effects. These blacklists are lists of known spam senders, but some legitimate ones are also included in these lists. This problem arises because of a poor email format, a misleading subject line, etc. Once you get blacklisted your emails will not reach your targets.

As the fight against spam becomes intense, marketers have to device ways to deliver their message to their prospects. They need to ensure email delivery amidst spam filters and blacklists. But email delivery monitoring is a big task, and can kill your time, giving you less opportunity to think for other business strategies.

Blacklist Monitoring is a type of service that monitors your IP status. Blacklist

Monitoring can detect if you get blacklisted in any ISP and inform you about it. The said service can pinpoint what blacklist are you in, when the blacklisting happen and ways for delisting or removal from the blacklist. Through blacklist monitoring service you can track if your emails did reach your clients/prospects inboxes, how many of your emails ended in bulk folders, and the ISPs blocking your emails.

If you’re managing an online business, it would be of great help if you look for a Blacklist Monitoring service. If you are not sure whether your IP is in the blacklist, consider these following measures. If some of your emails do not reach your prospects inboxes then you’re suffering from spam filters/content filters but if all your emails are blocked, more likely you are in the blacklist.

To help you further about blacklist monitor service try checking http://www.blacklistmonitor.com/ For additional resource about email delivery, blacklisting-whitelisting you can visit www.emailreach.com

 

Increase Your Sales without Jeopardizing Your Reputation

Online marketers know the importance of internet marketing campaign. Most marketers, if not all are convinced that good marketing strategy is the key for their companies’ progress. Online marketing campaign aims to promote product or service to prospects, and convert these prospects into customers. Basically, online marketing uses SEO (Search Engine Optimization), this will improve your placement in search engine listings. Another thing is sending follow up messages for those who have visited your site and opted-in for mailings.

One of the major problems online marketers are facing nowadays is fighting spam filters from flagging their legitimate emails as unwanted, unsolicited, etc. Stringent spam filters tend to hamper internet marketing. If you are running an online business, you have to know what a spam filter is, and what does it do. Spam filter detects unsolicited emails which are often offensive – promoting violence, pornography and the like. But because unethical senders keep on looking for ways to make there emails look legitimate, spam filters become aggressive in detecting unwanted messages, but since these filters are not perfect there are false-positive and false-negative. False-positive emails are emails flagged as spam, although they are not. On the other hand false-negative occurs whenever a filter fails to detect a spam message as spam.

As an online marketer, you have to be aware of the different filtering strategies employed by spam filters of mail administrators and ISPs, so that you would be able to make your emails legitimate not just in nature but as well as in appearance, preventing them from being blocked. Most filters use content assessment – looking for a word or a phrase that is associated to spam. Another type of filter is the Bayesian filter, where the filter is accustomed to good and bad emails. During the ‘training’ the messages are broken into tokens and these tokens are then stored into databases (tokens obtained from legitimate emails are separated from those obtained from spam). In addition, there is a Whitelist-Blacklist type of filter. This filter would simply allow you message to reach the inbox if you are listed on its whitelist, otherwise your message will be blocked.

There is also a Challenge-Response filter where you are challenge to do further actions before your message gets to your prospect’s inbox.

(Preventing your message from being flagged as spam and making your message reach your prospects’ inbox)

To ensure deliverability of your newsletters, make your message appears unspammy. Learn the words, phrases or symbols to be avoided in a subject line, such as the word ‘free’, #, $, etc. Encourage your prospects to place you in their whitelist if they are using a whitelist-blacklist filter. If you want to know more about email deliverability, try checking www.emailreach.com.

To prevent your message from being flagged as spam use a double opt-in, this means that your prospects are required to confirm their intentions on your updates and follow ups before you add them into your database for mailing. This would give you an idea of who are interested on your product with a little possibility of getting reported as spam. Another thing is, make your opt-out procedure easy, just like attaching an opt-out link on emails to be sent or simply require your prospects to send an empty email whenever they decide to undo their subscription. Once you impose a tedious procedure for opting out, your prospects might report your message as spam to expedite their unsubscription.

 

Making Spam Filter Your Buddy

The web keeps the business world revolving. Infinite possibilities are unfolded as online business comes to exist. Through the internet, marketing campaign, promotion, news reports and many more are made in just a matter of minutes. With this, transactions are made easy resulting to more sales. But this is not the real score nowadays, with people sending unsolicited emails (dubbed as spam), mail administrators and users tend to install spam filters in order to prevent annoying and offensive messages from reaching their inboxes. But the thing is, your legitimate message can be blocked.

Spam filters are generally designed to eliminate spam messages in the inbox by either directing the received message on the bulk folder or deleting it. In other words, spam filters cleanse the user’s inbox from unwanted ‘trash’ – pornography, violence and the like. Since these filters are not perfect, legitimate messages can be flagged as spam as well.

Spam filters vary in terms of the method used in detecting spam. The most common type of method is content assessment. This method relies greatly in the content of the sent message or looking for ‘kill’ words or phrases. Bayesian logic is also one of the methods used. Unlike content-based filters, Bayesian method has some sort of ‘training period’, wherein the filter is accustomed to what a legitimate or a spam message appears like. One of the drawbacks of Bayesian method is, it is so dependent on the ‘training’ made. Furthermore, other spam filters use Whitelist-Blacklist method. If the message address is in the whitelist, then it will be directed to the inbox, otherwise in the bulk folder.

In addition, spam senders keep on devising tricks to make their emails appear legitimate; As a result, spam filters become more stringent in their filtering. And worst, your opted in promotional might not reach your prospects/clients inboxes. EmailReach can help you in assessing the content of your message, which will lessen your possibility of getting flagged as spam. If you want to increase your sales amidst stringent content filters try visiting www.emailreach.com.