Email Deliverability Tough Nut to Croak
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 6:03 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine
Kirill Popov and Loren Baker, as they frequently do, have prepared yet another excellent study, this time of email deliverability. Among other things the survey shows that 8 out of 10 email marketers are still experiencing difficulty with deliverability. But they go beyond that and discuss some of the ways email marketers can improve those numbers.
Both these wise and experienced marketers have earned their reputations. And much of the excellent advice they offer should be Email Marketing 101. The nagging feeling persists, though, that reputable emailers really shouldn’t have to bother.
Nearly everyone can recognize spam when they see it. And, I yet believe, ISPs do a pretty good job of separating out legitimate email from unwanted trash. Still the problem persists and, like it or not, it’s email marketers’ problem.
Though there are many, one basic reason for this sticks out beyond most others: Spam complaints.
Users dislike getting a piece of email from ReputableMarketers.whomever and they hit the “This is Junk” button. Really, can’t we do better than that?
There should be a better way, a way that doesn’t require ISPs to expend huge resources to implement, nor require users to jump through flaming hoops. There might be a way to turn those complaints to some good purpose.
Well, here’s one, from bluesecurity.
While controversial, the company’s basic approach is to let end users decide who should or shouldn’t be considered a spammer, but in a way less blunt than simply hitting a button. The way the company carries this out isn’t entirely original, but it might just work. This is, after all, the Web 2.0 way - let the community decide.
The idea strikes me as one way to make spam cost the spammers more than it does everyone else. And that’s the only viable, long-term solution so far as I can see.
Apparently spammers aren’t the only ones who are unhappy with bluesecurity’s methods, so we’ll be keeping an eye on this one.
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This is good news for sure.
Anything to help email marketing gain back a little of the success it used to have is a big plus.
I have practicly given up on using it and it’s such a shame.
6 years ago a couple of partners and myself grew a network of over 2 million members in just under a year using email advertising almost exclusively.
Now days about the best results we could hope for would be to not have our ISPs shut down.