unblocking
Google’s Gmail might be the preeminent mailbox provider. Launched in 2004, Gmail has grown from the “new kid on the block” into one of the biggest hosts of individual email mailboxes in the world. Depending on what data you look at, you might even see Gmail as the #1 mailbox provider, at least here in the US. Gmail’s spam filtering systems incorporate user feedback and engagement. And they know what they’re doing. If you are not sending wanted mail to people who requested that mail and who read that mail at high enough percentages, you’re going to struggle. You won’t reliably get your mail to the inbox. Their systems are too good — their magic spam fighting robots look at metrics very closely — and their view of certain metrics can even change over time! What got you to the inbox in 2019 might not be good enough to get
Successful inbox delivery to Microsoft consumer mailboxes (referred to as Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, or Microsoft “OLC”) can be tricky. Any deliverability consultant will tell you that Microsoft is often the quickest to block or junk your mail, and that it is relatively common to have deliverability issues at Microsoft only, and nowhere else. You are not alone.Not only can Microsoft often be “quicker on the trigger” when it comes to blocking, but also, resolution of deliverability issues can take longer here versus other mailbox providers. It’s not always clear what triggers spam folder placement or blocking — but like with so many other mailbox providers, the best thing you can do to minimize deliverability risk is to send truly wanted mail. No purchased lists, no email appends, no ten year old lists you found in the back of a filing cabinet. Sending engaging, wanted, recognized mail, is going to be your
You did it! You got Yahoo or Microsoft to unblock you. Perhaps you even figured out why they “hate” you. Perhaps your friendly neighborhood deliverability consultant just closed the ticket you submitted, letting you know that the ISP has unblocked your sending IP address and telling you that you should now be “good to go.”So…now what? What should you do next? What should you send, how much, in what order? What’s the best way to ramp things back up? This seems something that is missing from a lot of deliverability consultation — the “now what?” after getting you unblocked. I sense an opportunity! Allow me to share my take on what you should do next, after getting unblocked by an ISP like Yahoo or Microsoft.WAIT. Wait a period of time — 24 hours if Yahoo, 48 hours if Microsoft, before doing any significant sending. (For other ISPs, wait until the…