Email Blogs
Previously I’ve talked about the affirmative consent standard found in the US federal anti-spam law (CAN-SPAM). I’ve found it very useful test when trying to understand if a process is appropriately opt-in our not. Wondering if GDPR has something similar? It does.For various reasons, the UK and the EU have slightly differing versions of GDPR, but the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office provides us with a pretty good guide for email marketing permission standards, and I think it’s a good starting point to learn about opt-in requirements EU-wide.The ICO explains that “Consent requests need to be prominent, concise, easy to understand and separate from any other information such as general terms and conditions.”Opt-in is key — see “What methods can we use to obtain consent?” for more details. No pre-checked box, not hidden in terms and conditions, and make it easy to understand.The handy website GDPR.eu, put together by Proton AG
The head of Orange’s Anti-Abuse and Internet Security team has been kind enough to let the Mailop team know that in a few weeks, they will be bringing new IP ranges live, to send mail. Mail from Orange FR subscribers will be coming from any of these IP address ranges: 80.12.242.0/25, 80.12.242.128/29, 193.252.23.210/31, 193.252.23.212/30, 193.252.23.66, 193.252.22.0/25, 193.252.22.210/31, 193.252.22.212/30ISPs, mailbox providers and anti-spam filterers who wish to whitelist/allow list mail from legitimate ISPs may want to update their filters to allow through mail from these IP ranges.
What’s an ANIBIMI? A completely fake term that I just made up! It’s not a BIMI — it’s an animated user image for a Google profile, and (at least until Google decides they don’t like this any more) it’s your way to make an animated BIMI-like logo that will display for Gmail subscribers (only).Repeat after me: This is not actually a BIMI logo! You should still implement a BIMI logo! Especially since Apple’s jumping on the BIMI bandwagon. But since a lot of people have asked about animated profile images lately, I thought I would share this fun little trick. (And keep in mind that you can set this up and use it as a potential stopgap until you get that VMC certificate and are able to fully implement BIMI.)Create an animated GIF. There are lots of tools online that’ll help you with this, like EZGif, Imgflip or Canva. Because I’m
Lifehacker’s Claire Lower wants you to know: “Spam was made to be air fried.”She adds: “Thanks to its large amount of inherent grease, it’s one of the few foods that you can actually “fry” with nothing more than the hot, whipping winds of the air fryer.”Damn. That’s amazing. Let’s all try this ASAP! Read more here.
Let’s compare B2C versus B2B deliverability issues, shall we?In the B2C (business-to-consumer) or DTC (direct-to-consumer) email marketing universe, the number of mailbox providers, while broad, is very heavily concentrated in the US. There are six providers, that when you add up their subscriber reach, they comprise over 90% of almost any typical US B2C email list: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Comcast and Apple. Anything beyond the top five is pretty much in the long tail. (That doesn’t mean you ignore deliverability issues for smaller providers, but when you do a cost/benefit analysis of time investment versus reward, it is often clear that fixing an issue with a big provider first will yield more benefit.)In the US B2B (business to business) email universe, things are not as obviously concentrated. There are more providers and it’s not just a set of six controlling just about all of the mailboxes you’ll want to send mail
CM Group is looking for a Deliverability Specialist to help support Emma and Campaign Monitor clients. In that role, “you will provide consultative services to our customers and internal team on attaining and retaining consistent deliverability, you will also monitor and analyze the deliverability of our platforms, contribute to knowledge creation and provide thought leadership on current and emerging industry best practices.”Does that sound like something up your alley? If so, click through for more details or to apply.(CM Group is a communication technology company that owns multiple email platforms and systems: Campaign Monitor, Sailthru, Cheetah Digital, Delivra, Vuture and Liveclicker.)
Microsoft is the land of deliverability challenges right now. I’m hearing it daily from lots and lots of folks: “My (email deliverability) stats are great everywhere else. I’m not buying lists, I’m not doing anything sneaky or evil, but I’m still having Microsoft woes.” Well, you’re not alone. And while I don’t necessarily have an easy fix for you, I wanted to share (and recap) a few resources that you might find useful. The more you know, and all that…My colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz just recently put together a two part series called The Microsoft Conundrum, found over on the Kickbox blog, where she attempts to explain the world to you through Microsoft’s eyes (and through her own experiences):The Microsoft Conundrum – Part 1The Microsoft Conundrum – Part 2And here’s links to prior posts on Spam Resource where I talk about Microsoft blocking and what to do about it:Why does
There’s a term you don’t hear every day: electronic mail fraud. Apparently it’s just one of a litany of charges brought against four employees of a company called Adconion. Per Brian Krebs: “The government alleged that between December 2010 and September 2014, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to identify or pay to identify blocks of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that were registered to others but which were otherwise inactive.”What we have here are (alleged) bad guys (allegedly) engaging in fraud to obtain big chunks of IP addresses which were then (allegedly) used to send (alleged) spam. Yuck.Bad guys ruin everything for the rest of us. One of the big reasons ISPs and MBPs are suspicious about mail from IP addresses with no significant mail history is probably because of garbage like this. Using large swaths of IP address space (more than 65,000 IP addresses) and attempting to evade spam
It’s time for another BIMI update, and this time it’s chock full of new details that you’ll want to know! So let’s get right to it.The Authindicators Working Group (the folks behind the BIMI spec) have just indicated that Apple plans BIMI support! The information published so far suggests that it’s coming this fall to both iOS and MacOS. Beyond that, details are light; so don’t ask me (or them) for greater definition just yet. I’m sure when they have details, they will share. And when they share, I will share.Where does that leave us today? Here’s your status update on ISP support for BIMI as of June, 2022.Yes: Which ISPs/MBPs/email applications support BIMI today or plan to support it in the near future: Apple (iOS and MacOS email clients), Fastmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. (This also includes Pobox, AOL/Netscape, and Google for Business)Perhaps: Which ISPs are currently considering BIMI support:
Hey! Just a quick note to let you know of an upcoming webinar. This time around the topic is Deliverability 101. What does that mean? The basics. Where to start. What to keep in mind and be aware of to maximize your ability to get to the inbox successfully. This is a beginner level course meant for folks who are new to this whole realm and who are wondering how it all works.My friends at Insightly are hosting and we’ll have an overview of deliverability concepts and best practices, CAN-SPAM basics, what the sending platform does for you (and what is your responsibility) with regard to inbox success, and I’ll also briefly touch on the Kickbox deliverability tools suite and how it can help with monitoring and understanding your deliverability current state.If you’ve been reading Spam Resource for the past ten years and have been sending email marketing for longer