MailChimp Blog

Opt-out hall of shame: No means Yes?

I thought the confusing opt-out example from Equifax that I posted a while back was pretty bad.

This one's a close second:

C'mon. If you don't want something, you say "NO."

MP3 Spam? Huh?

I like to think I'm on top of email and spam issues, but this one made me do a double take:

The Sound of Spam - article from TechSoup

Apparently, spammers are sending MP3 spam now. They have filenames like "elvis.mp3" but when you open them, you get an audio clip of some pump and dump scam.

I know I'm gonna regret saying this, but this is actually kind of intriguing. Seems like it would be funny to hear a Nigerian spammer's voice. "Hello, I am king blah blah and I send you this mp3 file to request your assistance with large sums of money..."

Spam Filters Automatically Unsubscribing People

Spam filters learned that spammers pretty much use the same URLs and domains for their spam.

So they started to store the URLs that spammers use.

Then spammers learned that they can just keep making up new domains really fast.

Then spam filters started to block emails that contained "fresh" new domains with no history behind them.

Then spammers learned to take advantage of "redirecting" services like TinyURL (a great, free service you can use to shorten very complicated URLs into tiny ones).

Then spam filters learned to actually CLICK each and every single URL in every email they receive, in order to follow those redirect links and analyze the reputation of the final destination domain.

The problem with this is if you send a legit email campaign that has a one-click unsubscribe link, spam filters will click those links to check their reputation, which will accidentally unsubscribe some of your members.

It's something we predicted could become a problem back in May 2007 (when we noticed this press release from Barracuda Networks). Now it's November, and we're starting to get confused users and their subscribers writing in to complain about being unsubscribed for no good reason. Analyzing server logs, it looks like Trend Micro is doing the automatic unsubscribing.

What's a marketer to do? The one-click unsubscribe link is a best practice. To prevent list shrinkage, should we start introducing a two-step unsubscribe process? It would prevent these accidental unsubs, but also make it harder for people to get off our lists. I hope it doesn't come down to that. Hopefully, spam filters will consider using "white lists" of URLs they can skip over.

When PR agencies spam

Found this link over at Al Iverson's SpamResource.com. An editor at Wired is posting email addresses of all the public relations agencies that send him unsolicited press releases via email.

If you run a PR agency, and you send unsolicited emails in bulk, yes---that's spam.

Send them one at a time, then technically it's not spam. But you'll still piss people off:

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/10/sorry-pr-people.html

Barracuda Central Lookup Tools

Maybe I've been out of touch for too long, but I just now noticed that BarracudaCentral has made their IP and domain lookup tools available to the public.

http://www.barracudacentral.com/index.cgi?p=lookups

Sorry if it's old news, but this is totally new to me, and it's very good news. Before, there was no way to really confirm whether or not we (as an ESP) were being blocked by Barracuda, or if one of our customers just sent some spammy content in their campaign. Barracuda has always kept their doors shut, locked, and boarded up.

Now, if we suspect a problem, we can just look it up (getting a reply from them will still require some work, though. Those guys are busy).

If you have affiliates (or even rogue marketing departments) who send emails with your company's domain name in them, go lookup your domain and IP address now over at Barracuda Central to see if you've been blocked.

MailChimp's Live Chat With a King

Today, we had the great honor of live chatting with King Erediawa, of Benin Land. He initiated the live chat on MailChimp.com, and spoke with our customer service team. Apparently, the king was looking for an email inbox service. You know, so he could send business proposals to a few bazillion colleagues. When he realized we didn't offer inboxes, he still was kind enough to give us a chance to invest in his opportunity. For this reason alone, you should consider adding LivePerson chat to your website. This is a transcript of our chat with the king...

MailChimp: hello, how can i help you?
King Erediawa: Dont you have inbox to send mail from this site to other recipient?
MailChimp: we are not an inbox service
King Erediawa: ok
King Erediawa: well i just supcrime because i want to propose business to friends
King Erediawa: i dont even know you you will be intrested in the deal
MailChimp: what kind of deal?
King Erediawa: well since you guy do not manage inbox is of no use for me then.
King Erediawa: Partinership in business
MailChimp: what kind of business?

King Erediawa: Well self introduction. I am The King of Benin Land and owner of the following companies: Chairman CEO:(Dipson rubber industry)Chairman CEO: Menatep SBP Bank (A well reputable financial institution with its branches all over the world) SOURCE OF FUNDS:The documents of the above funds in question was handed over to me to be used in payment of an American oil merchant for his last oil dealwith my my company.
King Erediawa: I have an  excess of US$116m usd (One hundred and Sixteen million United States Dollars), which I seek your partnership.You will be rewarded with 20% of the total sum for been a partner in this transaction.Can you be my partner on this transaction?
MailChimp: we may be interested in a partnership, do you have access to monkeys?
King Erediawa: Yes of cos
King Erediawa: Much Access to them
MailChimp: we're interested in families of monkeys
MailChimp: but they must be friendly monkeys
King Erediawa: I have thousans of them Even in suply. Please can you send me mail to my private email address and tell me your intress for ae to proceed?
MailChimp: we've had problems with cheap monkeys and we're looking for high quality mammals.
King Erediawa: I have all king of monkey in my factry Well Trains ok
King Erediawa: Send me mail to my private emil address at:  kingerediawa@yahoo.com
MailChimp: are they ISO9000 certified?
King Erediawa: yes
King Erediawa: I have anough in my factry, All time
King Erediawa: i have king kong but is still yong
MailChimp: can they be Microsoft Gold Certified?
King Erediawa: i still have other mighty monkeys that can even do whatever i ask them to do
MailChimp: how can you ship the monkeys to us?
King Erediawa: How you do you mean you want to see them through here?
King Erediawa: that why i told you to send us and email then we get back to you without delay
King Erediawa: but if i can ask, What about my inicial proposal, Are intrested in that,
King Erediawa: ?
MailChimp: we had a bad experience with the last King we spoke with, he did not deliver the monkeys as promised
King Erediawa: listern now, you are not the first company or individual i suply, When i give you the charge and you pay, I deliver it to your destination without any delay
King Erediawa: still give you the arrival time and particular that will guarrantee sucessful deliver
MailChimp: that sounds like great customer service
MailChimp: do you have a free trial?
King Erediawa: free trial of what?
MailChimp: of monkeys
MailChimp: if the trial is good we will be requesting 3 pallets of monkeys
King Erediawa: How do you mean, are you not a business personaly, How do think its posoible for me to transact a business for free of chjarg
King Erediawa: i am sory i dont havce free trial
MailChimp: no i am sorry for the misunderstanding my king
MailChimp: i only meant for a small trial
MailChimp: perhaps 3 monkeys
MailChimp: because surely 2 will die in shipping

NOTE: NO MONKEYS WERE HARMED DURING THE COURSE OF THIS LIVE CHAT


MailChimp: And we only request small monkeys for the trial period sire.
King Erediawa: you tell me the size you want and i take it down and give you exactly what you want?
MailChimp: Do you offer accessories?
MailChimp: Shoes, hats, and small purses and such?
MailChimp: Such that would fit a small monkey
MailChimp: In usa, such items are difficult to come by
King Erediawa: that is my business and i have everything to sactisfy my customers ok
MailChimp: In your country, the king is allowed to own business too?
King Erediawa: if your company want to do business with me, I have give you my email address, Mail me there and tell me what and what you want and i will be thereby suply you, give you exactly what you want ok?
MailChimp: what is your email address?
King Erediawa: kingerediawa@yahoo.com
MailChimp: Is this a secure email?
MailChimp: I did not realize you also own Yahoo.
King Erediawa: very much secure
King Erediawa: have you send the mail?
MailChimp: Did you get it?
MailChimp: It may be in your spam folder
King Erediawa: wait let me check
King Erediawa: ok
MailChimp: I get so much spam from nigeria and such, that most of my email goes in junk folder
King Erediawa: but i have never got it
King Erediawa: you dont get the email address well
MailChimp: Is there another email address I can try?
King Erediawa: kingerediawa@yahoo.com
MailChimp: Does royal king highness have his own domain name yet?
King Erediawa: that one is ok
MailChimp: Perhaps from godaddy.com
King Erediawa: keep the email address safe and mail there, i will get it
MailChimp: we have need for much monkey
MailChimp: do you have any other means to reach you?
King Erediawa: i mean as much your company want with gurantee
King Erediawa: i do a clear business
MailChimp: monkey business?
King Erediawa: i mean send me mail i will get back to you on your request
King Erediawa: ok
MailChimp: ok
MailChimp: a thousand thank yous
MailChimp: your highness
King Erediawa: you are welcomz
King Erediawa: if the mail is not going sign up yahoo and mail me from there
King Erediawa: or you give me name i sign up for you now
MailChimp: Roger Waters
MailChimp: but i do not want more email address
MailChimp: I get too much spam
MailChimp: we will send you email
MailChimp: after we fill out monkey requisition papers
King Erediawa: ok wait i will open for you right now
MailChimp: I must go now
MailChimp: monkeys are causing problems in office
MailChimp: this why we need good quality
MailChimp: they will not work hard enough for us
MailChimp: must go punish. Look for my email soon
MailChimp: fare thee well, your highness.

The king was a very pleasant man, and I just wish we had more time to speak with him. Oh well. For some really good conversations, we highly recommend you check out 419eater.com

Image spam down, PDF spam up

According to this article over at DMnews:

http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-mail-marketing/42087.html

Image spam is down from a January 2007 high of 52% of all spam, to about 8% (as of July).

But since spammers tend to fill any vacuum they find, PDF spam is now up (along with Excel and ZIP files). They're saying PDF files have long been trusted, business-related file types, so it's much easier to slip past the filters for now.

Sigh. Why don't spammers ruin the reputation of some other file type? Like Powerpoint? Wouldn't it be great if nobody could ever send a .PPT file to you via email ever again?

More on image spam here (and how HTML email designers can mistakenly look like spammers)

Avoiding Blacklists

Blacklists used to be an email marketer's worst nightmare. If you made a silly mistake and got blacklisted, good luck convincing the admin to delist you.

Thankfully, things have become more civil and professional (you still don't want to get blacklisted though). Here's an up-to-date assessment of blacklists from Al Iverson.

Iverson speaks the truth:

I would note that if somebody is a B2C sender with an average list composition, then blacklists shouldn’t be your biggest worry. Blocking by the top ISPs (AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, Juno, Earthlink, etc.) is generally more likely to cause greater issues, or happen more often, than a third-party blacklisting of a sender’s IP address

More worrisome, in my opinion, are the Postinis and Barracudas of the world. Those are increasingly becoming the "gatekeepers" of company email servers, and I don't see much of an effort on their part to work with legit email marketers and ESPs (such as setting up feedback loops, or registering for alerts like SpamCop). In those cases, it's just like Iverson says---you better make sure your ESP is on top of things, and is in contact with those groups.

Speaking of blacklists, Seth Godin just posted this page on Squidoo with a good roundup of articles and resources on how to avoid getting blacklisted. Most of the links are to our good friend Mark Brownlow's blog, but you'll also find a link---waaaaay down at the bottom---for our Inbox Inspector. Yay, we've been Seth'd.

HTML Email Mistake: Image-based unsubscribe link

We've already talked about some of the dangers of image-based HTML email (See: Common HTML email design mistakes).

I'll say it again, though. All-image HTML emails look like spam, so they trigger spam filters. Even worse, most of them display with the images turned off by default, so your recipients don't always see your message (which is why you should always test your campaigns before you send them).

All this time, I've neglected to mention that it's a bad idea to make your unsubscribe link an image. Kinda thought that was common sense.

Well here's an article from Ken Magill at DIRECT magazine about a woman who reported a marketer to the New York attorney general’s office, because her email program never displayed the unsubscribe image:

http://directmag.com/magilla/image-based_email/

It even suggests that you might be breaking CAN-SPAM law if you send email marketing with an image as your unsub link.

One tip the provide is to also include the full URL of your unsubscribe link, just in case your clickable hyperlink doesn't work.

MailChimp users: the built-in templates we provide for your campaigns already have a text-based, one-click unsubscribe link embedded. If you want to display the full path for the unsubscribe URL, insert it with this tag: *|UNSUB|*

Vonage Abuses Refer-a-Friend Program

Wow. I learned about this from Mark Brownlow's blog.

Apparently, Vonage asked customers to refer friends to their service. You've probably done it before. You fill out some tell-a-friend form, and if your friends sign up, you get a little something in return. But you assume that any legit company would never abuse that information, right? If they did, it would be like shooting themselves in the foot, right?

Well, looks like Vonage just shot themselves in the foot.

Check out this story from Andy Sernovitz' Blog. 

And this one from Cnet's Daniel Terdiman. He got an email from Vonage that tried to make it look like it was recently sent from his friend---but his friend has been in the hospital, unconscious, for the last 2 weeks. Ouch.

Sadly, this is not the first time we've seen this sort of thing. We've posted something from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) not too long ago.

If you've got one of those tell-a-friend or refer-a-friend systems in place at your company, now might be a good time to review your privacy policy.

At MailChimp, we occasionally get phone calls from newbie email marketers who want to offer some kind of "tell-a-friend" or "forward-to-friend" tool in their email campaigns. And they ask us if we "track the emails of those friends, so we can add them to our list too."

Um, no---that would be evil. And now, thanks to Vonage, we know what can happen when you do this kind of stuff.

We do offer a forward-to-friend tool, but the only thing it tracks is "total number of times your email was forwarded."

Related: Refer-a-friend best practices

Top Spammer Arrested

Instead of waking up to +600 spam messages today, I only got 421.

They say it's because this spammer got arrested:

A 27-year-old man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070531/ap_on_hi_te/spam_arrest

Microsoft sues over spam sent through Hotmail

I've always secretly felt that some ISPs were slightly hypocritical when it comes to "fighting spam." On the one hand, they make ESPs like MailChimp follow best practices to make sure spam doesn't originate from our system and end up in theirs. They spend bazillions of dollars to keep spam from reaching their users' inboxes. That's good.

But in a way, they're a part of their own problem...

You see, at MailChimp, we go through a lot of work to make sure spammers don't sign up and pollute the system. Because if spammers get into MailChimp, they can get us blacklisted fast by big ISPs like Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, AOL, etc. One bad apple can spoil it for the rest of our legit customers.

That's why a human review team has to approve every new account before they can send emails from MailChimp. It's also why ESPs like us have to get on those ISPs' feedback loops. We all know that if spammers get in, the big  900-lb gorilla ISPs will block us. They have the leverage to make us shut down accounts when senders get too many spam complaints (even if the sender is legit). Too many complaints, you're blocked. They don't care who you are.

Anyways, for the most part, spammers rarely visit MailChimp, because they have much better (more evil) ways of sending mass amounts of email anonymously.

But when spammers DO try to get in, they always have one thing in common: they're using a free email account from Yahoo!Mail, Hotmail, MSN, etc. to hide their identity.

That's why we block free trials when someone tries to sign up with an email account from those "free email" ISPs (we actually block several thousand "free email" domains, and the list is constantly growing).

That's where I start wondering. We have to go through so much trouble to keep spam from reaching ISPs like Yahoo and Hotmail. But it's those very ISPs that seem to help spammers get their work done in the first place!

Free email accounts make it too easy to hide your identity.

Granted, spammers can't easily sign up for a Yahoo! or Hotmail account and send a million pieces of spam from that ISP. I'm not saying free email accounts are easy to send spam with.  Spammers just use those free email accounts like an offshore bank. When they send spam, and idiots signup for Viagra or Rol3x watches, their information is saved in some free email account for the spammer to retrieve later.

If companies like Yahoo and Microsoft stopped offering free email accounts altogether, I think the spam problem would go down significantly.

Maybe I'd just get 590 spams a day, instead of 600. And it wouldn't just help with the spam problem. We'd certainly have fewer forum trolls. Maybe content on the Internet in general would get a big boost in quality. Think of all the bandwidth we'd free up.

At least some of those big ISPs are starting to sue people for using their services to spam:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32227/118/

Maybe they do care afterall?

Image-based Spam On The Decline?

An article from PCWorld that suggests image-based spam might be on the decline.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004489.html

At MailChimp, we're still shocked at all the designers and marketers who are sending HTML emails that are nothing but big images. They don't seem to realize that an all-image legit email campaign looks the same as an all-image spam campaign.

Related: Stupid Email Design Mistakes

Don't Assume We Know You

A bunch of marketers (who are also bloggers) got the same piece of spam yesterday. I got it too. It was about how not to spam bloggers.

It started out with:

Countless accounts of “PR Flaks” who have spammed bloggers, mis-targeted pitches or just plain gotten blogger relations wrong fill the Internet. Don’t risk finding your next pitch blasted on your favorite blog!

Their offer:

Download the FREE Vocus white paper Five Golden Rules for Blogger Relations to get insights on how today’s PR professionals can successfully incorporate blogger relations into their PR strategy and build effective relationships straight from four of the top blogging experts in the industry!

Who the heck is Vocus, and how'd they get my email address?!?!?

Then I found another blogger complaining about this spam. He posted the spam to his blog (which is exactly what Vocus wants to teach us how to avoid) and when people started investigating, we discovered that the one thing we all had in common was that we've all used a service called PRWeb to distribute a press release at some time in the past.

Then we learned that Vocus had recently acquired PRWeb.

Ooooooh, so they were sending out an email to their customers. Okay, I guess that's not spam. Problem is, most of us had no idea we were Vocus customers.

It really would have helped if they used PRWeb somewhere (like in the From: or Subject: fields) so we could trust it. Maybe even a permission reminder, telling us that "You are receiving this email because you are a PRWeb Customer, and PRWeb is a service of Vocus..."

We see this countless times at MailChimp. Companies are in a rush to "blast their customers" with some offer, or some exciting (to whom?) company news, and they don't consider that the majority of their recipients will simply get the email and ask, "Who the @#$% Are You, And How'd You Get My Email?"

What happens next? They get too many spam complaints and they get their company domain name blacklisted. Even worse, they get their email posted on some blog for all the world to see.

Vocus looks like they mean well. They just made a simple mistake (that a lot of marketers make). And the whitepaper they're offering? It actually looks useful.

If you haven't contacted your list in a while, PLEASE send a re-introduction campaign. Don't just assume people remember who you are, and definitely don't assume they want to hear your news.

Here's an excellent example from ModernPostcard on how to re-introduce yourself to your customers.

Forwarded Emails Causing Blacklisting Problems

Mark Brownlow reports how Stanford and Boston College have experienced some blacklisting problems when students automatically forward all their email from school to their personal accounts at AOL, Yahoo, etc. Basically, when students get spam sent to their school account, and they forward it to their AOL account, AOL thinks the school is spamming them, and blacklists the school's email server.

We've reported somewhat similar delivery "kookiness" here on the MailChimp blog, when people automatically forward their work emails to their wireless devices and home accounts.

Spamtraps and Hamtraps

Al Iverson did a pretty interesting study on which blacklists work well, and which ones accidentally trapped legit email. He setup "spamtraps" and "hamtraps" (learned a new word) and compiled all his results:

http://www.dnsbl.com/2007/03/how-well-do-various-blacklists-work.html

New Twist on Nigerian Spam

New twist on Nigerian spam. Siiiiigh. People are falling for this stuff?

All new computers should come with a boot-up screen (with a followup quiz) to teach newbies the basics. This woulda saved me a lot of embarrassment when I first got on "the Internets:"

1. If someone sends you an email with a really cool, amazing fact, it's a lie.
2. If someone sends you an email asking you to "forward this to 10 friends" don't do it. It's a lie, and your friends will secretly hate you.
3. Don't download anything. It's got a virus in it.
4. Don't give your email address to just anybody.
5. Unless you are a king or prince from some far off land, there is no reason a king or prince from some far off land would be contacting you to transfer his money to your bank account.
6. If a woman starts chatting with you online, that's really a man. A dirty, dirty man.
7. That really funny joke or web page you'd like to share with all your new online friends? Don't do it. We already read it 5 years ago. Wait 5 years before forwarding any jokes or URLs to friends.

Image Based Spam and Other Design Mistakes

Just stumbled upon this old article at the IronPort site, explaining image-based spam. I think we all know the basics. Spam filters scan for text, images don't have text, yadda yadda. But...

"Actually, it's a little more complicated than that. Some spam filters grew clever enough to spot simple types of image spam. At that point, spammers came up with a fiendishly clever trick. They learned how to use a layer of text on top of a layer of a randomly generated background for each message."

Other interesting tidbits about where it all came from, pump and dump stock scams, and more at:

http://www.ironport.com/company/pp_webhosting_news_11-29-2006.html

We've seen a lot of experienced web designers actually send HTML emails that are nothing but one giant image. That's an easy way of getting your campaign mistaken as image-based spam. We've posted a few other very, very common mistakes that we see web designers and creatives making all the time with their email campaigns:

Common Email Design Mistakes

Is Your Own Domain Name Getting You Blocked?

Someone called me the other day, and told me that he'd been sending email newsletters to his customer list for years. He was using some cheap software he installed on his desktop. He admitted that he hadn't been properly cleaning the list, managing bounces, handling unsubs promptly, etc. Long story short, he got himself blacklisted.

He thought he could solve all his problems if he switched to MailChimp, because we apparently have a good reputation, and because he thought we had some kind of secret-handshake arrangement with ISPs (actually, that's not the case---they'll blacklist anybody that generates too many spam complaints).

Ok, let's forget about the fact that he's been blacklisted, so he wants to potentially get us blacklisted too (um, why would we want you as a customer now?).

What this guy didn't realize is nowadays, if you've been blacklisted, switching email servers won't necessarily solve your problem.

Most people know that if you send spam, your email server's IP address will soon end up on a blacklist.

You probably also know that if your server is in the same "neighborhood" (IP range) as another server that sends spam (like in a shared environment at your ISP), then your server could get blacklisted too.

But not a lot of people know that your domain name can get blacklisted. If that happens, it doesn't matter where you send your email from. If spam filters simply find your domain name in the email's content, the message will get blocked.

The idea is that if you're an evil spammer (or just a really sloppy company), and you pay affiliates to go out and spam on your behalf, your company's name and reputation can get tarnished right along with theirs.

They call it "spamvertising," and you do not want to be labeled as a "spamvertiser." You'll end up on a "URI Blacklist" or "URI Block."

You can check if your company's domain name is blacklisted at:

http://lookup.uribl.com/

If you have an affiliate program at your company, this should be a concern (along with making sure your affiliates are CAN-SPAM compliant). Here are some tips for monitoring your affiliates, and here's a case where the FTC sued a company for letting its affiliates violate CAN-SPAM.

It's an interesting topic.

MailChimp was once put on a blacklist for this very reason. Not because of affiliates, or spam. But because our list-manage.com domain name, used for handling double opt-ins and unsubscribes for all our customers, is found in millions of emails sent every single day. When we first introduced our list management features (and bought that domain name), it looked very suspicious to all the spam filters out there that suddenly, this one domain name was found in so many emails across their network. They thought we were a spamvertiser.

Luckily, they do a little research on domains before they block them. Un-luckily, our domain name was brand-spanking new, so it had no history whatsoever. Took us a while to get off those lists. Now that the domain has a long (and good) history, we don't have that problem anymore.

Spammers are actually trying to fool spam filters who look for "spamvertising" domains by embedding tons of legitimate domains into their spam. The idea is to flood spam filters with false positives, rendering them useless. Or, instead of embedding their own links, they disguise them by using free "redirect" services (like tinyURL) in their spam.

Naturally, spam filters are responding to that by actually following every single link in your email, so they can get to the final destination domain and block it (Barracuda's firewall just introduced this feature).

It's neat when you think about it. Until you realize that when spam filters follow every link in your email, they will inevitably follow your unsubscribe link too. We've had a few recent cases of people mysteriously getting unsubscribed from lists, and we think we know why.

Hopefully, spam filters and email firewalls will start using "URI Whitelists" so that they don't follow certain (trusted/registered) links. Then of course, spammers will find some way to ruin that too.

Round and round we go...

How selling email sponsorships can land you on blacklists

One of our customers recently sent a campaign to 20,000 recipients. Those recipients all opted-in at his website for special alerts. They even had to click a confirmation link in a welcome email.

Problem is, 63 of his recipients still reported his campaign as spam.

That means everyone here at MailChimp got 63 warnings from ISPs (we send FBL reports to our entire staff, so we each feel the urgency if one of our customers is generating complaints).

We suspended his account to investigate...

He runs a tight ship, in terms of list management. He sends a well-branded welcome email. He's got his unsub link, mailing address, and all the usual CAN-SPAM requirements. He's even got some text in his footer, reminding people how they got on his list.

Hmm. What would cause 63 double opt-in recipients to still report you as a spammer, and possibly get you blacklisted?

Turns out he radically changed the design of his email campaign. He went from a white background with a blue and orange logo, to a very anonymous looking, almost non-branded, black-background template with white text and red links.

Why on earth would he dramatically change the branding and identity of his email campaign? Turns out he had a big sponsor in that email, and that sponsor's branding is black and red. The sponsor demanded that he redesign his campaign to match their branding. As you can imagine, his recipients just didn't recognize who was sending, and they reported it as spam.

We've seen this happen before, actually.

It's very common with promoters, party planners, publicists, and the like.

They're popular, they're cool, they're uber-networkers, and they have huge lists of local people who want to be "in the know." They send them occasional emails about cool events going on around town. Kind of like tiny, ultra-focused DailyCandys. They usually have extremely loyal lists. Very valuable lists. They make good money from sponsorships and ads.

The smart ones always, always, always put their own branding at the top of the email template. Then, just below, they place their their sponsor's branding and details. By the way, MailChimp's "Postcard" layout is perfect for this (here's an example we like).

If you want to sell sponsorships or ads in your emails, never let a sponsor supersede your own branding. Always let your recipients know where the email came from. Even better, try to include a personal note from you, or your company, introducing your sponsor below.

For example, "Hi everybody, we've got a special offer from Acme Widgets to all our subscribers. Enjoy..."

This will keep the unsubscribes (and the spam complaints!) to a minimum.

Whose list is it, anyway?

DKIM Authentication Icon in YahooMail Beta

For the longest time, ISPs like Yahoo! and Hotmail have talked about how they'd be checking emails for authentication, then using little tiny icons to signify whether or not certain emails were "trustworthy."

I'll admit, even though we've setup a few clients on DKIM and SenderID, we've yet to see any signs of those little icons. Sure, authentication has helped one of our MailChimp customers get through that mysterious "Bellsouth is blocking all HTML emails!" issue a while ago, but where's that icon?

I just found it. I thought it would be in my inbox list pane (where it would be really helpful), but it actually shows up after you've already opened the email. Here it is for Andy Borowitz' email, when viewed in Yahoo (click on the thumbnail to the right to zoom in). I'd bet that when authentication gets more popular, ISPs will begin moving the little icon up into that inbox list, so you can use it to judge whether or not you should even open a message from somebody.

If you'd like to read more about how ISPs are using Authentication and Certification now, and how they plan to do it in the near future, here's a recap of the recent Authentication and Online Trust Alliance.

Are You On The Safelist?

I've been using Apple Mail (the free email program that came with my laptop). The main reason I love this program is its spotlight search feature. I don't have to worry so much about folders and sorting old emails. I just search, and it'll find emails from years ago, no matter how obscure.

Anyways, the spam filter isn't as powerful as I'd like in Apple Mail. So I downloaded an add-on called SpamSieve. It requires a little training (you have to teach it what's spam and what isn't), but now it's been great.

I just noticed something in SpamSieve's "Preferences" area: they use the Habeas Safelist. Are you on the safelist? Know how to get on it? Is it worth it? Are there other safe lists out there that you should be on? Which ISPs and spam filters use which lists? Learn more about Habeas and email certification here.

How To Define Spam

As an email marketing service, we have to post clear definitions on what spam is. For us, it's pretty black and white. We use Spamhaus' definition of spam. To paraphrase:

"Spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE"). Unsolicited email is not spam. Bulk email is not spam. Combine the two, and you have spam."

If you think you have an exception to that rule, kindly send the email from your own server, thank you. Did you get some 3rd party "opt-in" prospect list? Then send to them one at a time, not in bulk (and send it from your own server, thank you).

However, we do recognize there are shades of gray when it comes to email marketing. LOTS of gray.

Mark Brownlow has written this very long, detailed article that I think covers all those shades of gray.

It's a very good read if you're new to email marketing. But keep in mind that when it's all said and done, your email service provider is probably going to be forced into some more black and white definition of spam.

CRMs and Email Marketing: A Dangerous Combination

Here's a common mistake I've seen quite a few times. A new email marketer has this huge list of opt-ins that they got from a signup form at their website. Maybe it's thousands of people who signed up for their company email newsletter. They're anxious to get their first issue out the door. They hire a designer, they create a newsletter, and they're ready to send it out to their list. So far so good.

But just before they send, they ask the sales team to go ahead and give them any "prospects" or leads they may have in the company CRM. We're talking about people they met at tradeshows and networking events 5 years ago. Or even worse, someone in the company sends them a last minute list of contacts that they simply exported from their Outlook Address Book (without checking to see if "receipts@amazon.com" or "techsupport@acme-ISP.com" is in there, too).

In their (understandable) excitement to show off their spiffy new HTML email newsletter, they just lump every contact they know (or sorta know) into the same list.

What happens next? Spam complaints, deliverability problems, blacklisting, and possibly lawsuits for breaking CAN-SPAM laws.

Here's an article at Clickz from Stefan Pollard on the subject of creating a unified permission standard across all your opt-in processes:

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625356

Tip o' the hat to Mark Brownlow for the article.

If you have a CRM tool with contacts and prospects who you think would really enjoy your email newsletter, you can't just add them all to your email newsletter subscription list. They never gave you permission. You'll get blacklisted on your first campaign. What you need to do is politely ask them if they'd like to receive your newsletter. Use that CRM to send one-to-one emails to them. Include a link to your newsletter sign-up form. If your initial response to this is, "but then nobody will sign-up!" you need to think about what would make your newsletter so incredibly useful, they'd be crazy not to sign up.

Create your first kick-ass newsletter, and send it to your real opt-in list. Post a copy of the newsletter to your website. Then send your one-to-one invitations to the prospects in your CRM. Note: the definition of spam is "unsolicited bulk email." If you send one-to-one emails that are personal (and not too templated) it's not spam (even though it's unsolicited).  It's when you cross the line and send "bulk" email where you can get in trouble. Anyways, include a link to your first newsletter, so they can see what they'll be getting. If your content is actually useful, they'll sign up. Also, won't that make them more qualified?

Are marketers stupid or sloppy for not doing all this? I don't think so. I think they're in too much of a rush to stop, separate their lists, and do proper invitations.

Slow down. If you don't do things right from the start, you'll be wasting a lot more time dealing with spam complaints, trying to get un-blacklisted by major ISPs (i.e. begging for mercy), apologizing to spamcops, explaining to your boss why the phrase "Spam Evidence" always shows up whenever he Googles the company name, and trying to get your accounts reinstated with your ESP.

Note: when a marketer gets reported for spamming, it's not just their company that's up against the wall. Often, their ESP is accused of being a spam-friendly provider, and must shut down the user's account. Usually, the only thing that can save you from being shut down by your ESP is to provide proof of opt-in for all your recipients. For your list that opted-in using your signup form, that's easy. For people that your sales team plugged into your CRM---good luck proving they gave you permission to send them email marketing.

Anti-Spammer Goes Ballistic (and how you can avoid this yourself)

There are a lot of classic anti-spam crusade stories out there. The Story of Nadine comes to mind.

Here's a new one. You can't help but drop your jaw in amazement when you read this story. Here's what happened:

1. Someone submitted Mark Mumma's email address (probably as a dirty prank) to Cruise.com.
2. Cruise.com sent him a followup email (screenshot after the link below).
   
3. Mr. Mumma felt that the followup email was spam
4. Instead of clicking the "unsubscribe" link in the email---well, you have to read the story (and interview) to believe it all.

Whichever side you're on (and each side has good points), you have to agree all this is a HUGE headache for all parties involved. 

Anyways, here's the back story, and then here's the transcript of his interview with Ken Magill (Ken writes about "The Blunt Truth on Everything E-mail" over at Magilla Marketing).

Here's a C|NET Article about it.

In all likelihood, it was a simple mistake.

There are some valuable lessons to be learned, and things email marketers can do, to prevent this kind of mess from happening to them...

1. First of all, don't just assume that "As long as I include an opt-out link, I'm safe." Obviously, people won't trust your link if they've never heard of you before. They're more likely to report you as a spammer (or sue you!).
2. When people opt-in to your list, how are your followup emails written? Are they written like you just walked right into their living room and plopped yourself on their couch, and went straight into your obnoxious sales pitch? Or do you stay at the door and politely introduce yourself first, making yourself look trustworthy, so that if this was all a silly accident or prank, they'll trust your unsubscribe link (instead of taking you to court)?

Here's a screenshot of the email that started all the trouble (click for full screen):

I gotta admit, that's pretty spammy looking. I mean, c'mon people. I know the courts sided with Cruise.com, because technically they didn't break any laws. But I think they could have avoided all this trouble with a better design.

Let me count the ways their email looks like spam:

I probably wouldn't spend $65,000 of my own money to sue them, but I know I definitely wouldn't trust this email's unsubscribe link. I'd report it as spam by clicking the "This is Junk" button.

How We'd Change The Design

First of all, how many people actually want cruise deals emailed to them every single week? I can understand if I'm planning a vacation. Weekly eDeals would be good research. But after I've booked my vacation, you can bet I'll be unsubscribing.

Maybe vacation planners or agents of some sort could benefit from the weekly eDeals. If that's the case, two separate lists might be in order here.

I'd definitely recommend collecting names on the signup form, and perhaps even "Date you plan to go on vacation," which could be merged into each email to create a subliminal sense of urgency.
 

Before sending eDeals to people on a very frequent basis, you better make sure they really want those emails. Double opt-in, while not 100% foolproof, will help keep your list clean, and will give you the "proof of opt-in" that you'll need if someone reports you as spam.

But if you absolutely refuse to use double opt-in (because you just enjoy the risk of getting in trouble), you really need to make sure your email looks reputable. Like you actually care about your brand. Don't make it look like a yard sale flyer you designed on your computer and copied onto flourescent pink paper at Kinko's.

Here's my suggestion for how they could re-design their emails:

The challenge with an email like Cruise.com is that it's full of unavoidable "spammy" looking content like "Lowest Prices Guaranteed" and "$Dollar signs" and stuff like that.

The double opt-in process would probably help a little by forcing the recipient to confirm their subscription (thereby giving you the opportunity to "train" their spam filters to accept future emails from you).

Otherwise, you've got to make up for all that spammy content with good, professional  design work. Here's what I changed:

1. I have nothing against center-aligning things, but not the entire message, please.
2. Politely say hello, and merge the *|FNAME|* into the content. Yeah, everybody knows about mail-merge now, but it shows you've actually got more data about them than their email ("Maybe I did sign up for this").
3. I created a title graphic: "This Week's eDeals" with the same font (and color range) as the logo, just to give the email some semblance of brand standards.
4. Got rid of the bright red numbers, converted the prices to "hyperlink blue" and added cruise ship logos. Give them something fun to click. When everything is bright red and bright blue, it all cancels itself out. Just make the prices blue hyperlinks.
5. Holy cow their email had lots of different fonts. I counted six (and some would only work on PCs). I'm just using one font in my version.
6. If I were BBB or Disney certified, I'd definitely use their logos whenever possible in my footer. If you've been identified as a credible company, flaunt it.
7. I'd collect opt-in IP addresses and date/time stamp for travel offer emails. That's your best "proof" of opt-in. Include it in the email's footer.

Your email design says a lot about your company's reputation. If you don't look reputable, why should anyone trust your unsubscribe link (let alone your content!)?

"Unsubscribe Link" vs. "This is Spam Button"

Returnpath has some very neat stats on how many people actually trust the "Unsubscribe" link, and how many people prefer to click "this is spam" instead. Best takeaway (IMHO):

"Make your email interesting and relevant! Subscribers in our survey report that the only factor growing in importance this year for why they open one email over another is "prior value" - they already received an email from you that was relevant. In fact, prior value with email falls just behind brand name in importance, and is more than twice as important as a discount offer."

http://www.returnpath.biz/resources/archives/2007/02/button_debate_u.php

Image-Only HTML Emails Getting Blocked

We just helped a MailChimp customer with a little bit of a deliverability problem. He's been sending campaigns without incident for years now (since July of 2004). He'd send a few thousand emails to his list, and get a 3% bounce rate. Pretty normal for a well-maintained list.

Recently, he sent a campaign that was nothing but one big graphic, with a little line of unsubscribe text underneath it. That campaign got a 26% bounceback rate. Ouch.

The reason? AOL blocked his campaign.

Today, he switched to a more traditional newsletter layout (with a better balance of text and graphics) and got a 2.2% bounce rate this time around. Much better.

As more and more spammers try that "image only" tactic, spam filters will adapt and begin blocking legitimate marketers who send image-only campaigns. Be especially on the lookout when you're sending event invitations, because it seems most marketers make those one big image, with no text to balance it out.

First conviction by a jury under the CAN SPAM Act 2003

"Goodin is scheduled to appear for sentencing before US District Court Judge Christina A. Snyder on June 11 where he faces a maximum sentence of up to 101 years imprisonment."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/17/aol_phishing_fraudster/

Other CAN-SPAM related cases in the blog:

• Yesmail Sued for CAN-SPAM Violations ($50,000)
  
• Kodak Settles With FTC ($26,000)
  
• FTC Starts Enforcing CAN-SPAM
  
• CAN-SPAM and Affiliate Marketing
  

Yesmail Sued for CAN-SPAM Violations

Yesmail was recently sued by the FTC for violating the CAN-SPAM act. Specifically, for not honoring an unsubscribe request within ten business days. Apparently, they used a "reply to this email and we'll remove you" kind of link. One of their recipients replied, but their message was accidentally spam-filtered by Yesmail's email server. Something to consider for marketers who don't use a one-click unsubscribe link in their campaigns. They settled with the FTC for about $50,000.

Read about the lawsuit
Read the CAN-SPAM Act

Truste's Guide To Preventing Spam Complaints

Even if you setup a perfect double opt-in, permission-based list, follow all the anti-spam laws and email marketing best practices, and keep your database totally clean, you'll get spam complaints. Sometimes it's a mistake, sometimes it's a prank, sometimes it's a spambot, and sometimes the recipient just isn't very bright. Spam complaints are inevitable. Luckily, there are ways you can minimize them.

Truste has published this guide that explains how spam complaints happen, what the repurcussions are to businesses, and simple things you can do to your opt-in process to keep complaints to a minimum.

By the way, MailChimp is on feedback loops with major ISPs so that we can automatically unsubscribe any members on your list who report your email as spam (Learn more about feedback loops at Clickz).

Yahoo's Sign-in Seal to Prevent Phishing Accidents

Yahoo just launched a new security measure that's pretty creative. It lets you upload your own, personal picture (whatever you want) as a "Sign-in Seal" for your login page. That way, if you click a "login" link in an email that claims to be from Yahoo, and you don't see your unique sign-in seal on the web page, you'll know it's a fake. Here are some details.

Seems like Yahoo and other companies that get imitated a lot (like banks) could use this tactic to include the image in the actual email itself. If you get an email from your local bank, you'll know it's "real" if your personalized image is in it. Sure, email's not that secure, and the image could get stolen while in transit, but it's a start. What if I could upload multiple images to my online account, and they rotated randomly from week to week?

Think you can tell if a site will spam your inbox?

I found out about this McAfee Spam Quiz from Mark Brownlow's blog.

McAfee signed up for different websites around the Internet. Some of them spammed them like crazy. Some of them didn't. See if you can avoid the scammy/spammy websites here.

Sigh, I thought I'd kick butt on this, but I got a 5 out of 8. Here's what they told me: "Not bad. You avoided some sites that would have shared your e-mail address with third parties. But you chose others that would have resulted in your inbox being filled with approximately 800 spammy e-mails per week."

Rant: How To Sound Like A Spammer

I wrote about this already here, but it's worth repeating. If you're evaluating and calling up email marketing services, do not use the word "BLAST." As in, "Hi, I want to blast a list with my promo" or, "We have ten million opt-in subscribers (yeah, right) and we want to blast them with a newsletter."

"Blast" connotes mass destruction. Use it for describing machine guns, cannons, missiles, or tanks. Not if you're a permission marketer.

When someone uses the word "blast" with us, it raises some red flags. It's like walking into a car dealership and asking, "Sooooooo, which one of these will outrun the cops?" or like walking into a bank with a ski mask on. It must be some relic of the old fax-blasting days.

We've turned lots of potential customers away, just for using that word. It's an indicator that the person just hasn't done his research about permission marketing, email marketing etiquette, and spam complaints. He obviously thinks email is a one-way-street, so is probably not too concerned about proper list management.

Instead of "blast" try, "communicate." As in, "I'd like to setup an email marketing system so I can communicate with my customers." Think how peaceful our inboxes would be if we stopped blasting, and started communicating.

Technology professionals say email marketing is spam

This just in: techies don't like marketing. Shocking, huh?

According to this BtoB article, a bunch of "Technology Professionals" were surveyed by CNet and MarketingSherpa, and they all said they didn't like getting emails too often (does anybody enjoy getting emails "too often?"). I wonder if they got the survey via email. That woulda been funny.

Okay, turning off the smart ass now. We thought we'd post some tips on marketing to techies...

Tips for sending email marketing campaigns to techies

1. Don't send too often.
If your list is composed of a lot of "Technology Professionals" (when did we stop calling them nerds?) you should know better than to send them email campaigns more than, say, twice a month.

2. Keep them "lite."
You should also consider keeping your emails "plain-text" (or at least make them look like plain-text) because a lot of geeks also think HTML email is the work of the devil. Take out the superfluous graphics and photos (unless the photos include: monkeys or spaceships).

3. Easy scan-a-bility.
Keep your content easy to scan. Bulletpoints are key. They get tons of emails, so they skim and scan.

4. Clear subject lines.
Mark, our own beloved uber-nerd, gets 5,000 pieces of spam a day. Spam filters? Ha. They barely scratch the surface. Nerds select huge blocks of emails in their inboxes and just click "delete." If they accidentally delete one legit email? Hey, that's collateral damage. If it's important, the person will call or write again. Want your email to survive? Take this tip from Mark: "Just make the main point of your email the subject line."  [Also see our subject line comparison study]

5. Don't pretend to be friends
Techies know a lot about databases and automation. So don't try to act like their friend, by starting off every email with "Dear FNAME." Mark says, "Merging my name doesn't bother me, so long as I know they actually got it from me. But it's so obviously fake when my name is spelled in ALL CAPS or all lower-case."

6. Don't be a bandwidth hog.
There's no better way to anger IT people than with big, bulky emails with ginormous graphics that take forever to download. Keep in mind the technology professional that you're emailing is probably the same person managing their company's email server. They don't appreciate emails that slow things down. Be sure to optimize your images before sending HTML email. Quick guideline: photos should be saved as JPGs, and line art (simple logos and stuff) should be saved as GIFs. Stock art of people shaking hands should be deleted altogether.

7. Nothing to say? Don't send (yet).
Finally, keep your emails incredibly useful (and funny, if possible). Guess that applies to all your recipients, not just nerds. Don't feel like you have to send a campaign every single week or month. You can skip an issue, if you don't have any content yet. Don't rush something out the door, just to stay on schedule with your marketing calendar. If you can't think of anything, include some research. Techies like whitepapers, research, facts, tips, how-tos, etc. You know, nerdy stuff. Or, walk down the hall and ask the office nerd to rant about something, so you can share it with "all our technology customers." They'll have something to say for sure.

The Story of Nadine - How Email Lists Can Go Horribly Wrong

This one's an oldie, but if you're new to email marketing, you should know your history.

It's a story of how a little old lady ("Nadine") signed up for an email list somewhere, but entered the wrong address (excellent case for using double opt-in, by the way). Her emails went to an angry server admin at a small ISP instead.  The guy tracks how many times Nadine's email address was sold over the years, how fast spammers got hold of that address,  and which (very large, legit) companies got suckered into buying Nadine's (erroneous) information. It's funny, sad, and infuriating, all at the same time.

http://www.honet.com/Nadine/

$630 mln lost in 2 yrs to email scams

Because of stuff like this: http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=11485

it's getting harder and harder for legit email marketers to "cut through the clutter."

We've suggested that you look through Newsletter Archive for some good ideas on what to do with your email newsletters.

But you should also look at all the bad stuff out there, so that you'll know what NOT to do. Here's where you can look:

1. Your own inbox.
2. Top 10 Spam Subject lines from McAfee's threat center
3. Top 10 Phishing Scam subject lines from McAfee
4. Email hoax database from Symantec

If you send emails of a financial nature (investing clubs, local banks, etc), or even if you just happen to be sending an email that has "money" related content, take some time to look at some real life scams. You don't want your emails to look like this (and get blocked by spam filters).

The Sleazy Life and Nasty Death of Russia’s Spam King

"He withheld pay from employees, boasted of his sexual adventures, enraged government officials, and flooded Russia with 25 million emails a day. Then one morning, Vardan Kushnir’s mother found his bloodied body on the bathroom floor, skull bashed in."

Excellent story on Wired

"Image-Based" Spam On The Rise

There's an article over at ComputerWorld about how spammers are switching to "image-based" spam these days. You know those stupid junk messages you get with a grainy picture of some fake Rolex watch or something?

It's their little way of "tricking" spam filters, since they can't "read" the content inside of images.

That means it's just a matter of time before all the spam filters adapt, and start getting really strict about image-only HTML emails. We've already talked about how some spam filters will block messages that contain too many images, and not enough text.

So if you're designing "postcard" HTML emails that are nothing but ginormous, pretty pictures, you might want to start thinking about adding some text to those emails to "balance" things out some for the spam filters.

Very large retailers, who primarily send graphically-rich HTML emails, might want to look into Goodmail or SenderScore to help keep your emails from being accidentally spam-filtered.

Article found at: B2B Email Marketing

Keeping Spam Trap Addresses Off Your List

There are anti-spammers and ISPs out there who create fresh new email addresses, and post them on websites as "bait."  They create these "spam traps" to capture spam-bots, who bounce around the Internet and "scrape" email addresses from websites.

This is why you never, ever buy those fishy email lists of "30 million opt-ins." You never know if there's a spam trap on the list (actually, you can pretty much count on them being on the list).

Here's a nice article from ReturnPath with tips for keeping spam trap addresses off your list:
http://www.returnpath.biz/resources/archives/2006/05/one_way_to_keep.php

Some of their tips include:
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