By Kevin Huxham on August 27th, 2008
Hello everyone, I must say I am very excited because this is my first blog entry here at CakeMail and boy did I choose some good subject matter!
I really don’t think people know how much their complaint rate affects delivery. If I told you 80-90% of delivery related problems are caused by complaints, would you believe me? Let me start by explaining how we get this data and how Feedback Loops (FBLs) work exactly.
Once upon a time (way back in 2003), the clever people at AOL starting using a little Spam button at the top of their interface that people could click on if they received an email they didn’t like. AOL soon realized they could not only use this little button to help people setup their own personal filters, but it was a great way for them to start keeping score on which emails generated the most complaints. Who better to listen to than your own customers! This complaint data could also be sent back to the sender so they could in turn remove this person from the list and avoid them from complaining again. It also allows ESPs (Email Service Providers), like us the ability to keep a score card of how many complaints we receive for a given client or mailing. People who generate a lot of complaints can cause a lot of problems, especially if they are part of a shared pool used by many customers.
This is an average, but if you are generating a complaint rate over 0.25% (1 in 400) at any given ISP, this is a sign that people are not happy receiving your email and/or there is a problem with how you are populating your lists.
Below is a list of top FBLs that are currently in use:
- AOL
- Abuse.net
- Comcast.net
- Cox.net
- Earthlink
- Excite
- Hotmail/MSN
- Lashback
- Mailtrust
- RoadRunner.com
- Spamcop
- United Online
- USA.net
- Yahoo! (currently not accepting new applications)
Unfortunately, many ISPs do not provide feedback loops to senders primarily because of the administrative hassles associated with them, but they are one of the best ways for email marketers to keep track of their sender reputation and help keep their lists clean.
If you are not getting the open rates you have been accustomed to seeing, or you are finding more and more of your emails ending up in the Junk folder, there is good news! CakeMail is committed to helping you find a solution.
If a given list source has a bad return, perhaps you are wise to stop using them! Generating your own leads and building a relationship with your customers is the best way to avoid generating a lot of complaints. Here are some things you should be doing:
- Avoid purchasing lists (this is number 1 on my list for a reason)
- Send email to those who want it - after you receive a subscription request, send a confirmation email to that address which requires some affirmative action before adding that person to your mailing list. Since only the true owner of that email address can respond, you will know that only the true owner has intended to subscribe. This will also remove any invalid addresses and help lower your hardbounce rate (another problem that affects your reputation). Without this process, you cannot be sure that the recipient requested your email.
- Don’t sign people up automatically and don’t hide behind some Privacy Policy nobody reads.
- Have people sign up voluntarily and keep those check boxes empty so they have to check it themselves. If the box to signup is checked by default, your list is actually ‘opt-out’ not ‘opt-in’.
- Honor the scope and frequency of your sign up process and don’t send them content or bombard them with emails they didn’t sign up for.
- Explain why they are receiving your email and make it as easy to unsubscribe as it was to sign up.
- Use a consistent “From” name and email address
- Make your subject line as clear as possible; people should know who you are, what your email is about and why they are receiving it without even having to open it.
Some of these are easy to do and some aren’t. Some of them will require a little time and money to put into operation, but all of them will help you avoid complaints, improve your company’s reputation, increase your deliverability and boost that ROI! It will also give you an edge over your competitors and you won’t look back once you start seeing the results. Like most things, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
The good folks at MarketingSherpa recently released an interesting study on the top 5 reasons people mark email as Spam. You will see from the chart below that the number 1 reason is because they didn’t sign up to receive email from the sender.
I can’t help but wonder how many of these people simply did not recognize the sender or complained because they were signed up without their knowledge!
Reason number 2 is even more enlightening, 41% of people also complained the email they received was not of interest. If these aren’t signs to strengthen your signup process I don’t know what is. If you make an effort to send emails that want to be received and give people a choice, you will eliminate the majority of user complaints with these 2 steps alone!
This data also shows how important it is for email marketers to stay on their toes and think about how they can make their campaigns more relevant. It shows how important it is to build a solid relationship with your customers from day one and follow best list building practices. In the end, this is better for everyone. Your reputation as a sender will go up and your customers will respond by sending more business your way.
Bye for now,
Kevin
If you have any questions, I can be reached at: postmaster@cakemail.com or feel free to use our Help Desk.
By Francois Lane on August 19th, 2008
CakeMail is pleased to welcome a new member to our team. You may have received an email from Kevin Huxham in the past few days. If you haven’t read it yet, we suggest you do so carefully. We all know how important delivery is in the email marketing business, and Kevin is definitely someone you want to have on your side since he is now our Director of Deliverability. We recommend you make him your new best friend by following his precious advice!
Although Kevin has just started with CakeMail last month, he has an extended background in the email software community. After managing a successful Internet business in Australia, Kevin came home to work on the receiving end of things in both the Technical and Abuse departments for Canada’s largest Internet Service Provider. After 6 years, he decided to switch to the sender side, and has spent the last 2 years working for one of the world’s leading ESPs based in Montreal. This man knows what he’s talking about, so if he insists you add a postal address at the bottom of your email (a mandatory requirement of the CAN-SPAM Act), you do. Not only will this help you improve your company’s reputation and avoid any messy legal trouble, it will also ensure you don’t get blocked by any spam filters!
Kevin is working with all CakeMail clients to help them increase their deliverability and resolve any associated issues. He is intent on making sure every client sets an example of email best practices, which will not only increase their deliverability, but also improve the results of their campaigns, boosting their ROI. After he is settled in, Kevin also plans to start contributing regularly to this blog, so stay tuned, and get ready to take notes! In the mean time, if you have any questions, we invite you to use our Help Desk.
By Francois Lane on August 11th, 2008
CakeMail is pleased to announce its latest release of the CakeMail open interface, version 1.6. This new CakeMail version eliminates the need for a separate Customer Management Hub, including the Customer Management functionality directly inside the new Reseller Master Account – All within one seamless interface.
Single-Click Administrator Account Access
The new CakeMail Administrator “single sign-on” one-click administrator feature allows you to log-in and work as any one of your client accounts, allowing you to review overall usage, mailings and content and send on behalf of your customers. Most importantly: all without having to create a separate user account!
Improved Client Management
As with the old Customer Hub, you can still use this area to review client’s sending history and track usage growth. But now you can quickly create, suspend or delete client accounts, set usage limits and manage client contact information in a single place, easily navigating between accounts with a single mouse click!
Linked With Master User Account
Of course, you can still access and use your own CakeMail user account to deliver your own corporate newsletters and automated messages as well!
All Hosted CakeMail interfaces are updated automatically. If you are hosting your own interface, you can download it at: http://www.cakemail.com/downloads
By Francois Lane on August 8th, 2008
The opening rate of a campaign is a large indicator of its success. It’s of utmost importance to understand how this opening rate is measured, in order to be able to best use the information to your advantage.
Email marketing software, such as CakeMail, inserts a tiny, invisible image into the body of the HTML email. The idea is that when the email is opened by the recipient, this image is downloaded, and the email software counts the opening.
This method of measurement is not as precise as it could be, for one simple reason: not every email software automatically displays images. If this is the case, and a recipient decides to read the email without displaying images, the opening is not detected.
Here are a few helpful habits you can start using to increase the precision of your data collection:
- Be sure to create an HTML email. It’s not possible to add image into a text email;
- Use compelling graphics, great and useful photographs, or illustrations- anything to stimulate the subscribers to display images in the email;
- Add a note at the top of your email saying something like: “We recommend you display images in order to fully benefit from the offers in this email.”;
- Click on “Always display images from…” in your reader.
If our “email opening” stats are not precise, why bother using them? Mainly because this opening rate information is very important, and yet, the above-mentioned method of measurement is the only automatic one currently available. Another way you can help increase accuracy in measuring campaign success is by comparing emails sent to the same subscribers. To gage if one mailing has better performed than another, try using different subject lines to see which one works better with your target. Paired with the “clicked link” data, email forwards, referrals, visits to your website and the actual actions taken by your clients: sales, registrations, etc… these email opening stats are actually the most precise way of giving you information about how effective your communications really are.
By Isabel Lapointe on August 4th, 2008
42 HTML email design resources
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An exhaustive tutorial.
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“Don’t weaken your brand by building silos. Boost your campaign’s ROI through integration.”
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“Here’s a compilation of silly and stupid ways companies are hindering adoption of their products and services.” By Guy Kawasaki.
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From None to Five. What’s your favorite?
And the Cupcake Recipe for this Edition:
Beach Cupcakes: Key Lime Pie Cupcakes Decked Out For Summer
By Francois Lane on July 24th, 2008
It’s time to show your love for your favorite email marketing software by becoming a fan of CakeMail on Facebook.
As a member of CakeMail’s community on Facebook you will gain VIP access to information updates about our product and email marketing best practices. You’ll network with other professionals passionate and preoccupied by the same issues as you are. We’ll use this space for surveys and share results with group members, set discussions and build an active community. Invite friends interested by email marketing to chat with us.
Become a fan of CakeMail and have a chance to win a CakeMail-special package of those fabulous little treats called cupcakes, delivered straight to your office. Your colleagues will love it!
By Isabel Lapointe on July 23rd, 2008
We have all received email where this absurd line appears: Please do not reply to this email, bla, bla, bla… Surely a VALID reply address, where SOMEONE would receive AND read email is as mandatory in a marketing email as it is with an “Unsubscribe” link. Seth Godin, the “Yoda of marketing”, recently reminded us in his post: “If you don’t want to get email…don’t send email”.
Here are some of his pearls of wisdom:
1. Send the email to your permission list, an announcement that’s anticipated, personal and relevant.
2. Set up a “reply to” that’s a different address.
3. In the email, at the bottom, give people a web address where they can go to give feedback, or give them an email they can write to that will be read by a real person.
4. If they hit reply, the reply to will automatically send the note to the right person.
By Francois Lane on July 18th, 2008
Starting now on our website, come visit our new and improved support area, and help us help you.
Take advantage of our brand new open forum, complete with a help desk ready to respond to your online questions and comments. Look forward to your email requests being processed within 24 hours on business days. Be sure to look out for our updates on frequently asked questions, and resolutions to the most common issues. We hope you will use the forum to stimulate us with your ideas on how to continue improvements with your favorite email marketing software 
Because of its strong ability to organize our help desk and assure the best follow-up on your questions, we have chosen to use Zendesk Helpdesk software.
To log into the CakeMail Support Area, simply use your master account email and password. We hope you will find this new help section friendlier to use.
By Isabel Lapointe on July 17th, 2008
They’re on your list. They registered a while ago, and since that time, you feel they don’t bother to read any offer you send their way. They haven’t unsubscribed, but they never click on your offers, or give you any feedback. You can’t tell if they’ve really viewed your emails, or if they’re using a browser that doesn’t display images, and are excluded from your stats. Here are several ways to try to regain contact with them:
In “12 Ways to Target Inactive E-mail Subscribers” from Target Marketing, Joe Boland summarizes some tips from a whitepaper recently published. Here are a few:
- Change format, modify frequency, time of day, subject line or even content of your newsletter.
- Tickle them with a special offer, free shipping or any incentive that could motivate them to update their profile.
- Conduct a survey to find out why they’re not interested. (This last idea may be tough to put in place with people who already show a lack of interest.)
Jeanne Jennings, from The ClickZ Network uses a 3 phase method in her article “Really Simple E-mail Segmentation: Reengaging Inactives”. Here is her first phase, which we could call the «cleaning step». It’s the most cost-effective, and sends a clear message to subscribers. She suggests the following:
“ … add language that will appear (only in e-mails sent to the inactive group!) in the preview pane of whatever standard e-mail communications you send. Here’s an example from Union Plus:
Would you like to continue receiving e-mail from Union Plus?
Yes, I would like to continue to receive e-mails from Union Plus
– link
No, please remove me from the Union Plus e-mail list
– link
After a few mailings like this, the intro should be changed for the last mailing:
“Would you like to continue receiving e-mail from Union Plus? If we do not hear from you, we will remove your e-mail from our list.”
We’ll soon follow up with more on Jenning’s ideas (and others) to provide further help in dealing with inactives. Don’t hesitate to share your tips with us.
By Isabel Lapointe on July 10th, 2008
CakeMail email marketing software offers you a default welcome message to greet your new subscribers. But is a default message as good as a personalized message? We think not. A personalized email message is your chance to make your first impression last with a client who has shown interest in your brand. To achieve the best added value, everyone agrees that the welcome message should be sent within minutes of subscription.
To help you get the most out of your welcome email messages, below are several useful hints from Jordan Ayan’s “Missing The Chance To Say ‘You’re Welcome’” (free subscription mandatory).
- To start, html is a standard. Your welcome email should be a well-designed html message sent out in multi-part mime so that it will display properly in text or html.
- It should thank the recipient for providing the required information. It should also reinforce the value of your emails, reminding them what to expect in terms of frequency and any other information that reinforces relevancy to the recipient.
- It should include the information recipients need to add you to their white or “favorites” list, including the “from” address for your message.
- It should reinforce the value you place on the relationship and reinforce your privacy commitment, including a link to your privacy statement.
- A little something special. The subscriber has expressed a high-level of interest, so this is the time to offer something extra as a thank-you: a coupon, a percentage off, free shipping, a bonus download of a white paper or a free webinar.
- If you use a double opt-in process, you have an opportunity to double-dip. The initial confirmation message can include a promotional message.
