The long and winding road (to the inbox) (18)
I noticed a few people complaining about getting banned from Mailchimp or not being able to inbox. I wanted to share some general thoughts that might be helpful.
Email is mostly REPUTATION-BASED. A high-volume frequent sender with excellent reputation can send an email saying "BUY VIAGRA BUY BUY BUY $10 ONLY!!!!!" and they will have no problem inboxing. For the vast majority of people, they can't do this because they don't have the reputation required, so they have to play by the rules and minimize their risk.
BASIC STUFF
- Try to avoid sending from newsletter@domain.com, instead use something neutral like email@domain.com.
- Try to avoid using domains typically associated with spam like .co domains.
- Try to avoid using domains that you just registered yesterday. In spam terms this is called DOB (day-old bread). Statistically, the domain will look more suspicious because it's brand new and has no reputation, and spammers like to use burner domains, so they're the ones likely to register a domain and immediately start blasting emails.
- Using Aweber or Mailchimp etc is fine, no need to complicate things.
INTERMEDIATE STUFF
- Test the deliverability of your emails with something like www.mail-tester.com
- Pay attention to the image to text ratio, use a lot of text and few images.
- Use forwarding or a tracking domain, never run links naked, like Clickbank links. Example:
forward www.mysafedomain.com to www.hugepenis.com, and use it in the email. If the offer is hugepenis.com/offer1/default.aspx, use mysafedomain.com/offer1/default.aspx in your email and it will still work.
- Never use links that look like fssd7645s6cvs54svsd.domain.com, because those weird strings are associated with phishing. Set up a tracking URL for it in your tracker, like mysafedomain.com/?trackingid=1
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ADVANCED STUFF
- Run an email server and connect it to an ESP like SendGrid, instead of using Mailchimp. It's 10x cheaper and gives you far more flexibility and control.
- Don't send email from your own IP. Many people think they have their own server and dedicated IP so they're "advanced" and can skip ESPs. You will never inbox as well as an ESP.
- Make sure you have the proper TXT records set up for deliverability. SPF, DKIM, etc.
- If your email blasts are on the dirtier side, don't get a dedicated IP. Only do so if it's perfectly clean. Also, you're probably not gonna last very long. You have to find the line and not cross it. This is done through trial and error.
EXPERT STUFF
- Some ESPs reveal the IP of the sending server, some do not. It's better if they do not. Find out this information, and monitor the reputation of the sending server's IP. It matters. For more info, google DNSBL.
- Monitor the reputation of the sending domain and the domains your use inside the email. For more info, google URIBL.
- You can stuff the email with neutral text that will pass spam filter and put whatever you want in an image. Spam filters can't read images.
- If you have a large enough legitimate list and have a strong income, you should really be on a marketing platform. You're no longer emailing, you're marketing. Platforms will allow you to do advanced segmentation, advanced integrations, advanced list management and automation. Strongly recommended if you can afford to spend 4 or 5 figures a month.
NINJA DEMON STUFF
- You can set up mail transfer agents that will do your dirty emailing while keeping the main IP of your mailing server hidden. The MTAs act as the frontline and take all the hits, and once they've been blacklisted you can put up new ones. It's like having 30 or 100 email servers that act as shells so you don't have to migrate all your data if your main server got hit.
- You can use spinning to further confuse spam filters. You can spin the subject and the content and the URLs, etc, which creates great variety and makes it hard for filters to nail down your email "signature."
- There are a lot of companies you can mess with by sending emails that are authenticated as them.
- You can mess with companies even further by sending 100% authenticated emails to their own fans/followers.
The last two things would lead to legal trouble and are just bad karma so I've never done them and never will, so don't ask about that.
This is a very short summary that doesn't even cover many of the tangents like email acquisition, list verification, marketing automation, etc etc. I've probably left a lot of stuff out, and some people will feel all this info is basic knowledge everyone is born with, and that's fine. I just felt like sharing it anyway.
If you have questions just post them here and I'll do my best to answer.
Awesome post man, great knowledge learnt here!
Sick sick thread _mcr_ thanks for this!
Great posts, thankyou.
That shit got real dark there for a second at the end LOL definitely ninja demon.
Some good info here, a few things that should help me envision taking my mailing to the next level so thank you!
Thx mcr aka email ninja
Good info, thanks a ton _mcr_. For one of our websites we're currently heavily investing in our newsletter and we currently have 240k subscribers in Belgium. The sending address currently is newsletter@domain.com. Is there anything I should be worried about if we change this to something else all of the sudden? What's the best practice with changing sending e-mail?
Thanks for the advice!
Originally Posted by scitox
- Test your newsletter with mail-tester.com and let me know your score/result and I'll tell you if anything can be improved. You should aim for a score of 9/10.
- Which email service do you use to send out the newsletter?
_mcr_ just rocks.
Originally Posted by _mcr_
Sent you the link in a PM to the mail-tester.com result (sorry guys, don't want my domain public here).
It's a very clean list and I'm using Mandrill as ESP. How does Mandrill compare to SendGrid? Also, in Mandrill there is something called "Account reputation". Do you know if Mandrill will give you better IP's who send the emails if your account reputation is higher? I asked their support, but they weren't very responsive regarding this question.
The score is 9/10, if you have any suggestion still: awesome!
Originally Posted by scitox
You can get a dedicated IP with Mandrill if you want to be in control of your reputation. Since your sending is clean, you will maintain a perfect reputation. Mandrill has an option for warming the IP for you. After that, you can monitor the IP's reputation in Mandrill, but also use monitoring tools like https://www.senderscore.org/index.php
SenderScore is the gold standard pretty much. If your rep drops, you have to figure out why, and that's a whole other process, but it's not something I see happening to you.
The one thing you might consider is, if your rev is high enough, and you want to build this into something massive, like more of a media company, is marketing platforms. But that's a decision that depends on your business model and where you're going with this.
Originally Posted by _mcr_
Regarding the dedicated IP: what is the biggest advantage compared to using their shared IP's which are already warmed up? Will I have a higher reputation due to it?
We're growing our e-mail list by going the co-registration route. It took some time to finetune this and find the right provider, but right now we have a good one. The moment a lead gets fired in our database through our API, we send out a "welcome" mail telling the user why they're subscribed and what they can expect (e.g. our newsletter is being send every wednesday at noon, we let them now in the welcome email). There's also a big unsubscribe button in it, since I figured if the user is not interested they might as well unsubscribe right away.
What still is an issue though is the SPAM complaint ratio with the welcome e-mail. It's still at 0.5% and I believe the industry standard is 0.1%, so this is not good. I guess it's the nature of co-registration leads as well. Every wednesday when the full database is being mailed with the newsletter, the overall SPAM complaint ratio goes down again, because most subscribers are used to getting the e-mail now. In the long run I don't expect the SPAM complaint ratio will matter at all anymore.
Now, back to the dedicated IP part: would you say it's beneficial to get a dedicated IP at this point OR would you recommend to get a dedicated IP once we have a very clean list with low SPAM complaint ratio OR would you just keep using the shared IP's?
Recommended report for anyone interested in e-mail
I can highly recommend this FREE report: http://offers.hubspot.com/science-of...ng-2014-report - great read with great insights.
Sendgrid is only $.10/1k emails sent?
The cheapest plan i see is platinum for $400 for 700k, that works out to be $.57 per 1k, this is transactional too not marketing pricing.
Originally Posted by scitox
Originally Posted by dalhaze
http://sendgrid.com/pricing/lite_plan
Note that SendGrid has a progressive limit, whereas Mandrill allows you to send big right away.
I will also add something that can dramatically increase your deliverability, although this is mostly relevant for opt in email where they hit a thank you page and may not be so much for co-regs.
Even if you get an email to the inbox of your recipient, it can still be filtered into their spam folder for reasons unknown to man and probably not to God. However, if you can get the recipient to add your “send from” email to their approved sender list, it can dramatically increase the number of emails that get to their inbox.
There is bad news about this that is actually good news: creating an approved sender list in services like yahoo is a complex, convoluted pain in the ass, and very few people figure out how to do it (I’d have to go review my own instructions to figure it out). However, because it’s such a pain in the ass and so few people do it, if you can get a percentage of your opt ins to do it, your future engagement will be high because your email is actually getting to their inbox and staying out of their spam folder.
Here’s how I do it, and admittedly, my prospects are more motivated because they opted in to get photos of sexy women, and by gum, they want their first photo NOW. So, I position adding my send from email to their approved sender list as part of the instructions for receiving their first photo via email. For the ones that do it, I’m most likely the only email on that approved sender list now, and forever after.
I had my webmaster go through the steps for creating an approved sender list for all the email systems, and take screen shots of each step, with big, fat red arrows pointing at what to do next. He did one for gmail, for yahoo, for hotmail/msn, for outlook, for aol and a general one for people who don’t fit into any of those systems.
When someone opts in, I have a script that sniffs out their domain, and directs them to a thank you page with specific instructions for adding my send from email address to their approved sender list.
You can check it out here, and see how it works by using different domain extensions (i.e. @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc):
http://www.womenapproachyou.com/expe...data=emailtest
Just opt in with different domain extensions and see what happens (I’ll delete all phony emails from my system, so no need to enter legit ones unless you want to see the follow on sequence, which is enormous).
The before and after is this: before I did this, 35% of the immediate opt ins were opening the first email. After I did this, 48% are, and that is an enormous difference. Now, whenever I email them from the send from address in their approved sender list, I hit their inbox. And because I hit their inbox and not their spam folder, opens and clicks stay high, and my sender score stays high too. A send from email address in an approved sender list IS an asset in this day and age, and if you can make it work for your business, it will help.
I recently (like, today) heard about another technique that is increasing Sender Score, although I cannot vouch for it because I haven’t tested it yet. But it is certainly a “no harm done” thing, and it is good for your relationship with your list.
Supposedly if someone replies to an email you sent them, that counts as a high “engagement point” and helps your send score. So, in my case, I’d send out an email that says, “Hey, please reply to me at this email address, and say hi” or something along those lines.
I am going to test this, but I have no reason to disbelieve it, and people replying to your emails (I’ll send them an autoresponse back) is a minor commitment on the part of the opt in, which can lead to opens, clicks, sales and revenue down the road.
So, while I can’t say for sure that tactic works, I can say for an absolute fact that the approved sender list does. It’s a pain in the ass to set up, but no doubt it works, and if the approved sender process changes, my webmaster will get to earn his check once again by taking new screen shots.
Great tip John. I used to have a page containing instructions for gmail/hotmail/etc, but your method is even better. I work so little with free email accounts that I don't bother with it much, but in the case of anyone working with free emails, I agree it's a must.
Nice!
Heh, I saw the poster and the title of this post, and immediately put it on the "for the newsletter" list
Awesome stuff - thanks.
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