A COMMON MISCONCEPTION
As you begin searching for an email service provider (ESP), there are several things to keep in mind. One is avoiding the misconception that it is solely the responsibility of the ESP to deliver your messages and manage your sending reputation. While the ESP is responsible for providing good sending IPs and some other “mechanical” items, the remainder falls on you, the sender. Delivery issues can be hard to resolve, and when there are problems, it’s easy to blame the ESP. No ESP is perfect, and sometimes it can be the ESP’s fault, but in most instances, the problem lies within what the sender is doing. One thing you definitely want is an ESP who will work with you to help resolve delivery issues. An ESP is only as strong as its weakest sender, so to speak.
YOUR ROLE AS A SENDER / CLIENT
The key responsibility of any sender is to maintain a good sending reputation. On the surface this sounds easy to do, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It is amazing the number of marketers that just don’t meet that simple requirement. In a digital world, the idea of just send it and forget it just doesn’t work anymore. A successful marketing campaign requires work and commitment to maintain that reputation. What makes a good sender? It is not an easy answer, but here are a few points:
• List maintenance / hygiene
How healthy is your list? Has it been a while since you were using that list? Or, if the list was given to you but you have doubts as to the validity of the acquisition source, get the list hygiened before sending to it. You’re welcome to do that on your own, but JangoMail offers a list hygiene service. Contact Support to learn more.
• Growing lists organically as opposed to purchasing or scraping addresses
Purchased list senders invariably run into delivery issues, starting with high bounce and complaint rates, and being outright blocked. Unsolicited email is a prime candidate to be delivered as spam, if not blocked altogether. Send to people who want to hear from you.
• Ensure you send to engaged recipients and not to spam traps
Spam traps (aside from the fake account version) are created by inbox providers taking dormant or abandoned accounts (no activity in the account for around 6 to 12 months) and using those addresses of indicators of poor sender management. Repeatedly sending to a non-engaged recipient costs you money and in turn can damage your sending reputation.
• Send relevant content, and send content that the recipient opted in to receive in the first place.
If you signed up to get the latest news on kitchen knives, and the sender starts sending newsletters hair loss products, how likely are you to stay engaged?
• Send messages that follow best practices, to include using a consistent FROM address domain, well-formed and visually appealing message content, and are mechanically sound (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
We’ve all seen poorly formatted messages that have 20 colors and 15 different fonts, and look like, well, yuck. Or the email client (Gmail in particular) is showing a “via” tag in the header information – who did the message really come from?
In addition to the above list, volume matters. Maintain a consistent sending volume. A sudden, large spike in volume or frequency can lead to blocking and list exhaustion (how many times have you unsubscribed from a sender because it seems like every time you open your inbox, there’s another message from them, and it’s more of a nuisance now than an interest?). Sending volume is a key factor in maintaining reputation. To help with that, higher volume senders will be assigned one or more dedicated IP addresses. Lower volume senders can be placed into a shared pool of IPs used for sending, but also have the option to buy dedicated IPs to help protect their sending reputation.
Dedicated IPs belong to only one user, and the sending reputation is theirs and theirs alone. Shared IPs are IPs that are placed into a group and assigned to multiple clients. JangoMail has several shared pools available, and we are confident we can find something that suits your requirements to meet your delivery needs. While a dedicated IP allows you to more precisely monitor your reputation and assist with delivery, it also come with an additional cost. Shared IPs do not have an extra fee, but they are also affected by all clients that are using those IPs. While JangoMail works hard to ensure the best environment possible for you, you can also help in this process by sending to opted-in and engaged recipients, and with regular sending, a dedicated IP works as well (it doesn’t have to be massive numbers of messages to warrant using one).
YOUR ESP’s ROLE IN DELIVERY
The role of the ESP regarding deliverability is to manage its environment and facilitate or enforce best email practices. At times it is necessary to suspend sending or terminate a client because their sending is directly or indirectly impacting the deliverability of other clients’ messages. One of the worst situations is when bad sending causes a range block of IPs, and your IP is in the middle of that range (i.e., guilt by association). When an ESP is handling their role correctly, and to protect the innocent, it will be identifying and releasing any client who is negatively impacting sending reputation. For example, a common tactic for list purchasers (despite saying everyone is opted in) is wanting to be placed into a shared sending pool so their problems with delivery are masked by the good sending others users are doing. They’ll eventually stand out and be identified and then be subject to termination. And anyone with high enough volume is going to want dedicated IPs in the first place so as to prevent a poor sender from impacting their delivery.
Another role is to provide transparency and accountability of your messages. Was it delivered, and if not, why wasn’t it delivered? Seeing blocks is a good sign something is off with your delivery, such as using a FROM address domain missing an SPF record (or the record goes bad due to a change), a change in volume that triggers rate limiting by the recipient domain, or a change in content (“your message was identified as spam” type of reason).
By: Josh Randolph
Josh Randolph has been working in the IT field for over 20 years, over 7 of which have been with JangoMail.com.
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