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DELIVTERMS: The Monday series here on Spam Resource that defines deliverability terminology. Today, I’m going to talk about VERP: Variable Envelope Return Path.VERP (Variable Envelope Return Path) is where you encode the return-path address (remember that from last week) on a per-recipient basis, uniquely changing it for each recipient. If somebody sends an email to two people, you and me, your copy of the email message will have a return-path header with a one code in it, and my return-path header will have a different code in it. (You can find examples over on the VERP Wikpedia page.)Why? VERP helps email sending platforms (ESPs, CRMs, etc.) more easily track which email messages weren’t delivered — which ones bounced back to the sender.To understand how VERP helps with bounce tracking, we need to understand how bounces are communicated between senders and receivers. There are basically two ways bounces can be communicated…
This might be first in a weekly series on the topic of Deliverability Terminology. Let me know in email or in the comments if you find this useful — that’ll help guide my future efforts.In today’s Deliverability Terminology blog post, allow me to explain the Return-path address.This is also called the envelope sender address/domain, bounce address or domain, or the 5321 FROM or MFROM.What is it: Not to oversimplify it too much (hopefully), but email message have two from addresses. There’s what you normally think of as the from address – this is specified in the “from:” header in your email message and it shows up in your email client, webmail client or mobile email application. There’s also a second from address, called the return-path or envelope sender address. After selecting “view all headers” or raw email source, search for “return-path” to find this header and its contents.Mail servers transmit this…