kickbox
It all starts with how much volume do you have — do you send more than enough emails per month to provide ISPs with enough data to decide upon a reputation for your sending IP address? Traditional guidance is that if you don’t, you need to send from a shared IP environment. If you do, you can send from a dedicated IP environment (and most often should). But there’s more to it than that, and my Kickbox colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz walks you through it all over on the Kickbox blog. There is strategy to be had here. Check it out!
(Here’s an updated version of a post from way back in 2018, with additional resources! I hope you find it handy.)Need a tool to parse message headers? Trying to break down how long it took to hand off an email message between servers? Want to check for blocklistings, content scoring or link issues? Here’s a few different tools that do a few different things.First, let’s check message headers using this tool from Google, or this (I think unofficial) version for Microsoft headers. Both do basically the same thing — you paste in the email headers and it will parse them, giving you a breakdown of how much time it took between each server hop. Very handy for troubleshooting delivery delays. Did a Gmail server hold on to your message for four hours before passing it on? Or did it never leave your ESP’s mail server? That’s what tools like these…
Looking to warm up your new sending IP address? Wondering how that all works? Looking for a deep dive with detailed information to guide you through every step of the process? If so, you’re in luck! My Kickbox colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz has got you covered. Here you’ll find links to her five part Kickbox U blog series on IP warming:What Is IP Warming & Why Is It Important?Before You Start the IP Warm Up ProcessThe Plan: How to Build Your Domain & IP Warming ScheduleExecuting Your Plan & IP Warming Best PracticesStaying Warm: Maintaining Your IP ReputationBonus (not really): Need to keep warm while working at home while warming that IP address? Tips abound.
Today’s guest post comes from my colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz, VP of Industry Relations and Deliverability at Kickbox, keeping us updated on yet another change that affects email privacy and tracking. Take it away, Jennifer!🔔 Ding, ding, ding 🔔 More fun updates about privacy in email. But first, those sneaky ‘spy pixels’ in email are still out there plundering the email world. So to combat them, we have another competitor out there vehemently shaking their fist in their air at them.Full disclosure, I’ve been an active user and proponent of open tracking as a tool for deliverability, but because it’s early in the week, I thought it would be fun to play the antagonist.On January 20th, Bleeping Computer reported on ProtonMail’s introduction of their email tracker blocking system. ProtonMail’s support page confirms that their new “enhanced tracking protection” is now enabled by default for all users. From what I’ve seen…
Over on the Kickbox blog, my colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz talks about sending domains and what you need to think about if you want to share domains between multiple email provider platforms. It’s a common thing, right? You are probably using more than one service provider, CRM or automation platform. You’ve probably also got a corporate email system in the mix. Can you send from more than one platform using the same domain? And if so, should you? What are the limitations and concerns around using the same domain to send from multiple systems? Jen walks us through it.
Hey, if you’re wondering who the heck I am, the fine folks at Kickbox just published a Q&A between myself and my new (to me) colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz. Click on over to the Kickbox blog to check it out. And if you’re a weirdo who likes time travel, below the fold, you’ll find a copy of my ExactTarget welcome email. When I started at ExactTarget (now Salesforce Marketing Cloud) back in August 2006, it was the custom that every employee would create an email introducing themselves, and send that email out to the entire company. It was a great way to get to know folks. I thought it’d be fun to archive it here, to try to protect it from bit rot. A few things have changed since then: Kate is now my wife, and my friend’s jazz club is no more. But I do still live in Chicago, and I…
I’ve got just enough time for a quick post today, to share with you this very useful DMARC Dictionary put together by the fine folks at dmarcian. Check it out! And since that would make for a very short blog post, here’s four bonus online resources that you might also want to bookmark, if you didn’t already know about them:The ISP Information page from Laura Atkins and Steve Atkins over at Word to the Wise, where they’ve collected info on which ISPs offer ISP Feedback Loops (FBLs), which ones have Postmaster information pages, help/support ticketing systems, etc.My new friends at Kickbox (disclaimer: they are my employer) have put together this great “Developer’s Guide to Email” website that you are going to find quite useful if you are looking to learn more about email technology or study how it all comes together.Postmark’s SMTP Field Manual allows you to look up example bounce messages…
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about Kickbox, and they’ve got new stuff that merits sharing, so here we go!On September 2nd, Kickbox announced: “Starting today, all new and existing Kickbox accounts include access to our full suite of deliverability monitoring tools. In addition to email verification, you now have more tools to help you reach the inbox and alert you of potential deliverability issues.”These new and improved tools include seedlist-based inbox placement testing, blocklist monitoring, precheck and DMARC monitoring. Precheck includes design preview and spam filter testing, allowing you to identify spam triggers like broken or spammy links, spammy wording, or domain issues.For more information about Kickbox and their new and improved deliverability monitoring suite, click on over to the Kickbox website.[ H/T: All Things Email, Edition #59. Great newsletter! You should sign up. ]