Getting Email Delivered - the ISIPP SuretyMail Blog

There are many examples of when you can do something, but perhaps shouldn’t, and nowhere is this more evident (and prevalent) then in what is permissable under CAN-SPAM. For purposes of this article, in particular, we are going to talk about adding a customer’s email address to your marketing mailing list without asking them first.

We are often asked by volume email senders just why we urge people to use confirmed opt-in (or “double opt-in”) whenever possible. After all, they know that they are being ethical and only adding to their mailing lists people whom they believe really want their mailings. Why should they have to go through the added “hassle” of using confirmed opt-in? Here’s why.

We recently had occasion to write down in great deal the exact definitions of the various levels of opt-in when it comes to building email marketing lists or other types of email lists. Because there is some confusion on this, especially where one method of list-building may have more than one name, we thought that we’d share these descriptions and definitions of Confirmed Opt In (COI), Double Opt In, Single Opt In, Opt In, Transactional, and One to One (1 to 1) email with you.

The title of this article, “Not all double- or confirmed opt-in requires a confirmation email” may seen at first like an oxymoron. But it’s not.

Many email senders are reluctant to move existings lists to a confirmed opt-in (sometimes called “double opt-in”) model for fear of losing many of their existing users, and reducing the size of their mailing lists. When called upon to confirm or reconfirm a mailing list - say, for example, when moving their mailing list to a new email service provider (ESP) - they balk, and will even go to a second tier ESP that doesn’t require reconfirmation. The reason is always the same: “We don’t want to lose a portion of our users.” But what these senders overlook is that they actually will improve - sometimes dramatically improve - the responsiveness of their mailing lists - and the financial return that they receive from those lists. In fact, we have the email deliverability white paper to prove it.

We have a customer who sends email out on behalf of a very large, very well known institution in the financial investment world. Some of these mailings lists are paid mailing lists. By which I mean that the users paid to receive these emails. And yet, they still report it as spam. Why would they do this? Here’s why.

A fascinating, and a bit shocking, study was released today, rating how well online commerce sites do when it comes to responding to prospect and customer email queries. Not very, it turns out.

You may not have heard of drip email marketing, or email drip marketing, but I can assure you that you know what it is. You have either sent it, or received it, or in some other way come into contact with it. Wikipedia - not always the most reliable source, but in this case accurate - describes drip email this way: “Email drip marketing is a form of e-mail marketing where a company sends (”drips”) email messages to subscribers on a scheduled basis established using e-mail marketing software.”

While I’m off at the last of the three conferences in four weeks (actually I’m running the Boulder Business Retreat), I thought I’d share this little example of what not to do with your email marketing. I should be back more regularly next week; I hope you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you! Today’s shining example of a company that just doesn’t get it is AmericaRX.com.

This came into my inbox today. This is an example of just about everything we tell you not to do here. And this is a company that is going to have serious deliverability problems.

Confirmation messages are those messages that best-practices practicing email senders send to people who sign up for their mailing lists, to confirm that the person really wants to be on the mailing list - before they get added to the mailing list. The problem is, some email senders see confirmation messages as a place to slip in a little advertising. Don’t make this mistake!

We often get the question “where can we buy or rent legitimate opt-in mailing lists?” Well, the short answer is: you can’t. That is because, and this is very important, you can’t transfer permission.