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Jenny Lassi

By: Jenny Lassi on July 9th, 2014

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Re-Engage!

Email Marketing

mailto:demo@example.com?Subject=HighRoad Solutions - interesting article

One of the biggest challenges for eMail marketers is monitoring bounce logs and trying to make sense of why an ISP is suddenly not letting your eMails through to in-boxes. It can sometimes feel like you’re herding cats. When it comes to deliverability, eMail subscriber engagement with your eMails (even if they are your members) counts.

Before you hit the send button:

  • Has your IT department implemented Domain Keys for better Yahoo deliverability?
  • Has your IT department implemented Sender ID for better MSN/Hotmail/Live?
  • Are you sending your eMail to valid eMail addresses?
  • Are you excluding eMail addresses that have not engaged with your previous eMails in the past 60-180 days?

So you have done all of your homework and in your routine checks of your eMail statistics, you notice a spam content, spam block or Timeout bounce code in a bounce log. What do you do? Hide under your desk? Don’t take it personally, there isn’t a man behind the curtain reading your content and tossing it aside, it’s more complex than that.

Spam Content Bounce Code:

“Content in messages is rarely used anymore in determining inbox delivery or bounces, especially at the major ISPs. Sometimes, “spam content” refers to a URL that has been flagged as spam but mostly refers to excessive spam complaints. Some smaller ISPs and business servers may use content filtering, but the major ISPs (likely representing a majority of your subscriber lists) use a much more sophisticated reputation analysis process. So if you are seeing a bounce message from a major ISP (Yahoo, AOL, etc.) due to “Spam content” it is unlikely the actual wording or content itself causing the bounce.”

-DMS Team BlueHornet

If you get a spam content bounce code, this does NOT mean that you have been blocked or blacklisted. It means that this message in particular has been determined to have characteristics of spam. The next message you send can reach in-boxes.

Spam Block Bounce Code:

After an ISP has reviewed eMails coming from your sending IP address and has received repeated spam complaints from their customers; they can put a spam block on your sending IP address to prevent any more eMails from you from reaching their customers. You will notice that the larger ISPs will have a link in the bounce reason where you can access a web-form to submit a whitelist request. Once the web-form has been submitted, the time-frame before receiving feedback on your request is usually 24-48 hours.

Timeout Bounce Code:

If you notice an ISP is giving you a “Timeout” bounce code with a bounce reason of “exceeded max time without delivery,” this can also be due to excessive spam complaints. They generally will allow some messages through to their customers and then after too many hit the spam complaint button, they stop allowing in traffic. Our system retries sending for 72 hours at 2 seconds, then 4, then 8, then 16, then 32, etc. After 72 hours, the system stops trying and you will see a Timeout on your bounce logs.

Please note: With Timeouts, the system will NOT flag an eMail address as “Invalid” after 3 consecutive Timeout bounces.

Now What?

The trick to optimal deliverability is to send eMails to those expecting it and want it. HighRoad recommends creating a dynamic segment with eMail subscribers who have NOT opened an email in the past 60-180 days (60-days to be aggressive if there is a large deliverability issue) and exclude this segment on all future deployments for a 2-week trial period. Be sure to set up your search like the diagram below:

suppression-non-openers-2

You can then create a strategy re-engagement campaign leveraging new “BluePrint Strategy” features and include this segment for the Win-Back strategy campaign. If these features have not yet been enabled on your account because you do not see a ‘strategy’ tab in the navigation menu, please contact Support via eMail or @ 1-703-297-8886.

Win-Back_Strategy

Once you have re-engaged some of the inactive eMail subscribers using a Win-Back strategy campaign, you can edit the dynamic segment and change the criteria to those who have NOT opened an eMail in the past 90 days and exclude this segment on future deployments. If all goes well for a week or two, you can change it to 120 days and so on. At no point does the DMS team recommend sending regular mail to any eMail subscribers that have not opened or clicked in the last 6 months.

At HighRoad Solution, we are here to make sure you’re making the most of your Campaign eMail account. Please let us know if you have any questions.