More Cowbell; Return Path to Acquire Habeas
Posted Tuesday, August 12, 2008 by Des Cahill

Des Cahill, CEO, HabeasIn many cases in life, more is better. The title of this blog refers to the classic Saturday Night Live skit “More Cowbell” starring Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken.  This classic skit  is a hilarious illustration of the concept that more is better.  In the skit, Blue Oyster Cult is in the recording studio laying down tracks for their soon to be mega-hit “Don’t Fear the Reaper” under the supervision of gold record winning producer Bruce Dickinson (yes, “the” Bruce Dickinson) played by Christopher Walken. Will Ferrell plays BOC’s percussionist and on this track he’s playing the cowbell with enough fury and persistence to drive his fellow band members absolutely nuts. Despite the band members’ protests, Bruce Dickinson insists, throughout the skit, on getting more cowbell on the track, “fellas, I’m telling ya, you’re gonna wanna have that cowbell.”  You really have to see the video to appreciate the humor.

 

So why all this More Cowbell stuff in this blog post? Well, Habeas and Return Path are merging together and the big question I expect customers, partners and industry colleagues to ask me is “Des, why are you selling Habeas to Return Path?”  No, the answer isn’t “More Cowbell”, it’s that the combination of the two companies provides more resources to enable the common mission statement of the companies (i.e., “saving email”) to be better addressed on a global basis. These “more resources” will bring benefits to senders, receivers, consumers and the email community.

 

Email deliverability/reputation companies are by their nature trusted third parties that provide services to both email senders as well as to email receivers. That means that resources for product development, marketing, sales and business development and customer services have to be engaged with two completely different sides of the market. On both the sender side (e.g., direct senders, email service providers, MTA vendors) and receiver side (e.g., ISPs, message security companies, MTA vendors) there are multiple market sub-segments with varying needs to be served. And increasingly at Habeas we have seen domestic and international customers with mailing lists have a significant cross-border component, requiring expansion of our services into Europe and Asia. Long story short, email remains vital to our customers which has been helping our business grow at a healthy rate, but our management team has seen for some time that the business opportunity is a global one requiring more resources across the company to best serve our sender and receiver customers.

 

In 2003 I had been at Habeas for a few months, trying to figure out what the business might really be, when Matt Blumberg and George Bilbrey from Return Path came to visit. They were interested in purchasing Habeas (which was 4 people at the time) and our flagship offering, Sender Warranted Email, to add a whitelisting service to Return Path’s existing deliverability tools and consulting services business. I liked George and Matt and their knowledge of email market. While that deal didn’t come to fruition, their interest in Habeas helped me further understand the value in the business and inspired us to grow it further. Here we are five years later with over 400 clients and 45 employees and now the deal to combine the companies is coming to fruition.

 

Honestly this acquisition of Habeas is something that I have mixed emotions about. Chuck Swenberg and I have invested five years of hard work in building this business with a goal of creating an independent, stand-alone company. We have an incredible staff of talented people who care deeply about our mission statement to save email.  A lot of hard work has gone into selling and servicing our customers. The Habeas SafeList is used by leading ISPs and a million email networks globally. We’ve created innovative reputation technologies. The easy path would be to continue the business as is with its 60% year over year growth for the last few years. But, strategically, to continue to improve our services for our customers and partners and to grow our footprint globally, in the words of Bruce Dickinson, “You gotta have more cowbell.” Or to put it another way, the business opportunity to save email is a large one and will be best served by the combined company that will have the resources to address it globally for senders, receivers and consumers.

 

So, I am very pleased that this time we *have* reached an agreement with Return Path as this is the perfect home for the Habeas business and team.  First, Return Path recognizes talent and they are retaining essentially all of the Habeas team on a permanent or on a transitional basis. Second, as we’ve gotten to know each other, we discovered that we have similar values in our company cultures which emphasize both our employees and customer service. Third, based on five years of competing with Return Path and working with the management team in various industry forums, I know that Habeas’ customers and partners will be in great hands with this executive team. Fourth, Habeas innovation will live on. In working on this transaction both companies have learned a lot from each other and the Return Path team is keeping not only the SafeList, but will be integrating other Habeas technologies and business processes into their existing platform and business model over time. Fifth, the combination of the two companies creates the undisputed global leader in email delivery and reputation with the critical mass of employees, customers and partners to actually save email – which is what Habeas and Return Path are all about.

 

There is plenty of work to do over the coming months to integrate the companies. And we’ll do that in a way that allows us to continue to serve our customers and partners, and to soon offer them more and improved services. I’ll be actively be helping with the integration efforts for the next several months, helping the combined company come together and then I’ll step back and watch it grow over the coming years. Email is too important not to be saved. Read more about the acquisition via these FAQs and Matt Blumberg's blog post.

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New CAN-SPAM Regs: Are You Ready?
Posted Tuesday, July 8, 2008 by Ray Everett-Church

Ray Everett-Church, Habeas Advisory ServicesThe final iteration of the CAN-SPAM Act regulations take effect this week, so this is as good a time as any to review the requirements of the law and to make sure the latest twists given by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are baked into your email, web, e-commerce and/or marketing operations.

 

The basics of the CAN-SPAM Act remain the same as they were under the interim regulations:

1. Do not have false or misleading header information or deceptive subject lines.  When you send email, the "from," "to," and email routing information must be truthful and accurately describe the entity who is initiating the email. The subject line must also accurately reflect the contents of the email.

2. Identify the message as an advertisement. Every commercial email must include clear and conspicuous notice that the email is an advertisement and that the recipient can opt-out of future messages.

3. Include a valid return email address or other Internet-based method for receiving and processing opt-out requests. You must give recipients a simple means of requesting to be removed from future mailings. This can be done via email, or through a link to a single web page. The mechanism must be functional for at least 30 days after the email is sent and requests must be processed within 10 business days.

4. Include clear identification of the sender's identity, including a valid postal address.

 
What's new under the new rules?

 

There are four main issues addressed, or clarified, under the final regulations issued a few weeks ago:

 

1. The opt-out mechanism must not require recipients to pay any fee, must not require recipients to provide any information other than their email address, and must not require any steps other than sending a reply email or visiting a single web page. In addition, the FTC made clear that if you utilize an opt-out web page, it cannot contain additional advertisements or exhortations not to unsubscribe. This may require some email marketers to change their current unsubscribe practices, particularly if they ask recipients to log in or to navigate through multiple pages to process the request.

2. In the case of emails sent on behalf of multiple advertisers, the FTC provides guidance on creating a "designated sender" in order to simply the notice, unsubscribe processing, and other compliance obligations. The designated sender will be the entity responsible for ensuring prompt opt-out processing, and ensuring that all of the advertisers receive copies of the opt-out (suppression) list for future mailings.

3. A post office box or private mailbox, if otherwise operated in accordance with postal service regulations, can be considered a valid postal address under the Act.

4. When the Act talks about a "person," that includes natural persons as well as corporations, associations, and non-profit entities.

Finally, if your site includes a "Refer-A-Friend," "Forward to a Friend," or other similar process, the FTC provided some lengthy guidance about how it will look at such emails in terms of compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act. For example, the FTC made clear that any site, product, or service that is advertised in a "refer-a-friend"-type message may be deemed the sender of that message if the person "induces" its transmission.

 

The FTC did not provide a definition of "induce," but they did indicate that a payment or other consideration wasn't a necessary  requirement of an inducement. The FTC's discussion on this point is very lengthy and I won't try to summarize it all here. But suffice to say that if you depend on "refer-a-friend"-type mechanisms, you will need to consult your legal counsel regarding changes you might need to make in order to ensure compliance.

 

While Habeas cannot provide you with legal advice, we certainly can assist you in reviewing your email reputation management and deliverability strategy and practices with various legal and industry best practices in mind. Our advisory services team is happy to help you fortify your online strategy and brands, and stay off email blacklists!

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FTC Issues Final Regs for CAN-SPAM Act
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

By: Ray Everett - Church

After four years of drafts and discussions, the Federal Trade Commission has approved the Final Rule - the enforceable implementing regulations - that say how the FTC will be enforcing the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act).
 
The Final Rule was issued by the FTC on Monday, May 12, and will be published in the Federal Register, most likely within the next week or so. They will take effect 45 days after their publication. You can find a copy (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/canspam.shtm) in PDF form at the FTC's website.
 
(Obligatory disclaimer: The information contained in this blog posting is not intended to serve as legal advice. If you have any questions about compliance or liability, you are urged to seek appropriate legal counsel.)
 
The entire federal register notice is 109 pages long, although the rule itself is only six pages of that. The rest of the document is a lengthy but incredibly informative discussion of all the feedback they received during the process and an explanation of why they did or did not choose certain approaches.
 
The rule itself sets out four main issues that will affect senders of commercial email:

* The FTC clarified that when the law uses the term "person," that will include not only individual human beings, but also corporations and non-profit organizations.

* To satisfy the Act's requirement that commercial email display a "valid physical postal address," a sender is allowed to use an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox, so long as it is established under the applicable United States Postal Service regulations for such services.

* An e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than "sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page" to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender.

* The definition of "sender" will be modified to include a means of creating a "designated sender" who will be responsible for complying with the Act in those situations where multiple parties may be advertising in a single e-mail message.

The first two points are neither earth shattering nor controversial. But the same cannot be said of the other two, or of the many issues which the FTC chose to discuss in its notice but on which it ultimately chose to punt rather than issue regulations.
 
Prohibiting the charging of a fee to be unsubscribed is a no-brainer. But by prohibiting the asking of additional information, which would include usernames and passwords, could mean some changes for how sites handle the unsubscribe process.
 
Moreover, the discussion makes it quite clear that the FTC will not look kindly upon any process that takes more than one page, or fills that page with other advertising or marketing pitches. A big flashing banner that says "Please don't unsubscribe!" will definitely not be allowed on the unsubscribe page. Whether you could place some kind of appeal on the landing page after the unsubscribe request itself has been processed is not clear in the discussion by the FTC.
 
The biggest news in this Final Rule, however, is how the FTC chose to modify the definition of "sender" in response to many inquiries about multi-advertiser messages. They added to the definition of "sender" to clarify that:
 
"...when more than one person's products, services, or Internet website are advertised or promoted in a single electronic mail message, each such person who is within the Act's definition will be deemed to be a "sender," except that, only one person will be deemed to be the "sender" of that message if such person: (A) is within the Act's definition of "sender"; (B) is identified in the "from" line as the sole sender of the message; and (C) is in compliance with [the Act and the FTC's Final Rule]."
 
In creating the concept of a "designated sender," the discussion in the notice indicates that the FTC intends that the "element requiring identification of the person in the "from" line [be] mandatory."
 
Under the Act, the "from" line (the line identifying or purporting to identify a person initiating the message) must accurately identify any person who initiated the message. So when taken in conjunction with this change, the FTC seems to be requiring  that there be at least one entity accurately identified in the "from" line and they're probably going to presume that that entity will be deemed to be sender.
 
Applying this process to an example, let's say a newsletter publisher "PublishCo" sends an advertisement containing promotions for Company A, Company B, and Company C. Under the originally proposed definition of "sender," all four entities could be considered a sender, and thus all four would be responsible for ensuring CAN-SPAM Act compliance.
 
But under the Final Rule, the FTC would allow PublishCo to be the "designated sender" to be responsible for all compliance tasks, no matter how many advertisers appear in the body of the message.
 
To be the designated sender, however, PublishCo would need to be accurately identified in the "from" line, include their physical address in the body of the email message, and provide one of the two designated opt-out mechanisms (e.g., "sending a reply electronic mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page").
 
It's important to note that the rule does not require that there be a designated sender. The FTC discussion indicates that having an entity identified in the "from" line is "mandatory," but the discussion goes on to indicate that the rule:
 
"does not eliminate the possibility that a message may have more than one "sender." However, marketers can use the criteria set forth in the proviso to establish a single sender and reduce CAN-SPAM's compliance burdens. If marketers fail to structure the message to avoid multiple senders under the sender definition, then each sender is obligated to comply with CAN-SPAM requirements for senders, notably, to provide its physical postal address and to honor any opt-out requests."
 
In other words, if you don't have a designated sender, every advertiser appearing in a message could be deemed a sender and be responsible for processing unsubscribes and sharing suppression lists with all other senders. In a newsletter containing ads for a half-dozen advertisers, this could rapidly turn into a compliance mess, with each and every one of the advertisers liable for ensuring that all the collecting, processing, and trading of unsubscribe lists with all the other advertisers occurs without a hitch.
 
Under our example above, if the email "from" line did not indicate a single designated sender and instead provided something less definitive (e.g., "A_Consortium_of_Fine_ Businesses@PublishCo.net"), then all of the advertisers in the message could still be considered "senders" under the Act and be responsible for not only its own compliance but the compliance activities of every other "sender" on that message.
 
There's also another twist to this. In order for PublishCo to meet the Act's definition of a sender, it would need to be considered as advertising in the message. This requirement could be met with something as simple as including the words, "For the best in new products and services, come visit PublishCo.net." Without some content that could be clearly considered advertising for itself, however, PublishCo might not fulfill the legal definition of a sender and leave all the other advertisers on the hook.
 
The decision about whether to be a designated sender is one that a company like our fictional PublishCo will have to make with its legal counsel. But it might make sense for PublishCo to step up and be the entity identified as the designated sender, placing their address in the "from" line, their contact information in the message body along with their unsubscribe process, allowing PublishCo to take on the tasks of providing consumers with the opt-out choices, and in turn providing each advertiser with the suppression list arising from that campaign. For most ESPs or publishers, this could mesh well with the existing value-added services such organizations already provide.
 
Taking on this role as the designated sender would also allow PublishCo to offer choices to subscribers about exactly which advertisements they want to receive. While we noted that the FTC expects the unsubscribe process to be simple and unencumbered with additional advertisements or appeals, the law does still permit offering an array of choices.
 
Simplifying the compliance process by having a "designated sender" may help avoid legal problems, but it can also help email deliverability. Think of our example above with three advertisers and a publisher. If all four entities were considered senders, each with its own boilerplate disclosures and opt-out processes, a consumer receiving such an email might be confused about whether they might need to follow four different unsubscribe processes in order to effectively communicate their desire.
 
Some less-than-reputable advertisers might rejoice at such a prospect: by making the unsubscribe process cumbersome some recipients might be dissuaded from doing so - or so the theory goes. But in the end, it is really all of the senders who will wind up as the ultimate losers.
 
When faced with a confusing or cumbersome process, consumers will take the path of least resistance and click the "Report Spam" button or report the senders to email blacklists. Anything that drives consumers to click the spam button is among the most damaging things a sender can do to its email reputation.
 
At Habeas, we have long encouraged the customers of our online reputation management services to adhere to prevailing email industry best practices. Foremost among those is compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act, including making sure that the unsubscribe process is clear and simple.
 
At the end of the day, if a consumer is no longer interested in your email, you want to get them off your list as quickly - and from the consumer's perspective, as effortlessly - as possible, in order to avoid being labeled as spam and harming your email reputation.
 
Finally, it is worth noting that the FTC decided not to address a number of other thorny issues in the regulations. But the Federal Register notice does include some useful, if lengthy, discussions of many of those topics and provides some insights into how the agency might rule if pressed on those points.
 
Among the other topics discussed are: CAN-SPAM's definition of "transactional or relationship message"; the Commission's decision not to alter the length of time a "sender" of commercial e-mail has to honor an opt-out request; the Commission's determination not to designate additional "aggravated violations" under the Act; and the Commission's views on how CAN-SPAM applies to forward-to-a-"friend" email marketing campaigns.
 
The viral "tell a friend" email model, in which someone either receives a commercial e-mail message and forwards the e-mail to another person, or uses a Web-based mechanism to forward a link to or copy of a Web page to another person, is a hallmark of today's hottest social networking websites. The FTC declined to wade into regulating those kinds of emails, but they took pains to explain that, as a general matter, if the seller offers something of value in exchange for forwarding a commercial message, the seller must comply with the Act's requirements, such as honoring opt-out requests.
 
At the end of the day, for those familiar with the regulatory process, it's not surprising that this one has produced a set of rules that raises almost as many questions as it answers. We will undoubtedly see a number of additional inquiries to the FTC seeking further advice as companies explore how the Final Rule affects their particular ways of doing business.
 
But the good news for senders is that the new FTC rules will probably not have a significant adverse effect on senders who are already following the industry's best practices recommendations.
 
For those Habeas customers who are already utilizing our online reputation management services, our deliverability analysis and auditing process will be updated to reflect the guidance provide by the FTC for CAN-SPAM Act compliance. (Should you have any questions about your compliance practices, your customer service rep can provide you with further information.)
 
In the meantime, all email marketers should assume that the 45-day compliance clock is running and that they will soon be held accountable under the new regulations. For some senders, these new regulations will require changes in how they process unsubscribes or manage multi-sender campaigns.
 
To tackle these and other compliance questions, senders should consider a Compliance Analysis by the Habeas Advisory Services team, in which experts from Habeas review your CAN-SPAM Act compliance practices and make recommendations for reducing your risks. You can contact Ray Everett-Church <ray@habeas.com>, Director at Habeas, for more information.
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Exciting Times for Habeas
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

By: Des Cahill, CEO

 It's an exciting time in Silicon Valley and spring is in the air. The fruit trees, the ones that haven't been replaced by buildings housing start-ups, are in full blossom. Habeas' headquarters are located just a stone's throw from such iconic companies as Google, Apple and In & Out Burger. The ongoing tussle between Yahoo! and Microsoft is keeping the Valley blogs buzzing. Judging by the recent San Francisco ad:tech and Google's earnings report, Silicon Valley companies in the interactive marketing space are not feeling the effects of any recession. The energy and optimism of the Valley springs eternal.
 
And it's truly an exciting time at Habeas. We're growing our customer and partner base rapidly -- revenue growth for 2008 is more than 50% year over year. We hit or exceeded all our financial targets in the first quarter of 2008. Habeas recently announced partnership deals with eleven and Cloudmark to extend our SafeList coverage and reputation data network. We've launched major enhancements to our software platform to deliver blazing speed, add new reputation data sources and increase overall capacity for our growing customer base. While I could look back in amazement at the progress in the company from 4.5 years ago when Chuck and I re-started the company (we used to have a haiku?), there isn't any time for that. We're too busy looking ahead. And what we see is exciting.
 
Online reputation management (previously known as: accreditation, whitelisting, email deliverability...) is ever more critical in a world where the Internet and email have increasing importance in the global economy, yet online crime and exploits like spam, phishing, keylogging and malware continue to grow. We're proud to be the only company solely focused on online reputation management services. We've successfully been building a trusted brand, great group of employees and a sophisticated reputation network and technology platform since 2003.
 
There's been some chatter about Habeas as of late. Here's the deal. Habeas, like some of our competitors and many leading email companies, is venture backed. Venture backed companies talk to each other all the time about partnering, investing, etc. Those discussions are often facilitated by investment bankers. Habeas is working with a firm called William Blair. They're helping us look at our options to finance the continued growth of our business. There are many options available to Habeas to do so and these guys are the experts -- they know email and SaaS (software as a service) business models. William Blair has worked with Constant Contact on their recent IPO as well as the S-1 filings of both Exact Target and Convio.
 
Those projects that William Blair has been involved in underscore a key point -- email and interactive marketing industries are hot areas now and going forward. Habeas believes in the current and long-term importance of reputation services to the overall health and sustainability of the email and interactive marketing industries. We're proud to be a unique leader in this area and to be managing the growth and capabilities of the company to best serve our customers and partners. Onward!
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Will the Real Email Reputation Services Please Stand Up?
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Thursday, June 28, 2007

By: J.F. Sullivan, VP Marketing

Just to put this blog in perspective I should confess that I always love seeing Maureen Caplan Grey in print, as she is always insightful and always informed. When reading her recent article entitled, "Will honest mail ever prevail?" she highlighted a need for a definition that still remains unfulfilled.
 
What *is* the definition of an email reputation?
 
Much like anti-spam tools in the early days of 2002, the definition of reputation services varies greatly amongst the vendors described in her article. Let's break them down if only to further the discussion - and perhaps stir up a bit of controversy in the process!
 
First are the reputation services you already know. Anti-spam technologies and edge-of-network solutions that protect you from incoming spam. Many of these solutions are leveraging and/or creating reputation technologies. However, with no intent of malice, one could classify these as "negative reputation" systems. In that, they are observing much of what is "bad" on the Internet and therefore they are able to assess a negative reputation with a variety of senders and sending systems.
 
A close cousin of these anti-spam systems are the more popular blocklists (colloquially termed blacklists) which identify spammers or senders who look a lot like spammers either by using spam trap email addresses or other creative detection mechanisms. One could say that these are an unadulterated version of negative reputation systems.
 
In another camp we have the large ISPs who are developing their own proprietary reputation systems - such as the one Hotmail recently announced. These systems are designed around a number of parameters but are HEAVILY weighted towards complaint rates. Hence, while a sender may appear good in all other respects, if complaint rates are too high, the sender will earn a bad reputation and be blocked from the inbox.
 
On the other hand, the reputation service providers such as Habeas, as well as our e-marketing based counterparts at Return Path, have a more holistic view of reputation. Given that both companies began as public Internet whitelists, they were already complementary approaches to anti-spam and blocklist services. More recently however, we at Habeas see our reputation systems evolving beyond the purely positive, i.e. whitelisting, towards more of an aggregate view of reputation. By observing hundreds of millions of senders daily, their infrastructure, practices, and sending behaviors, we are able to attribute a multi-faceted reputation to a sender that takes into account a whole host of factors.
 
While we're on the topic of these cottage industries, I am on record as stating that I can certainly understand why some senders would want to invest in Goodmaill to pay for guaranteed email rendering at AOL, Yahoo and four other ISPs. That being said, as a technology, Goodmail Systems has nothing whatsoever to do with reputation systems, services or technologies. Anyone who states otherwise is just trying to include them in conversation for PR...utterly shameless I should think!
 
Finally, I find that the ESPC and MAAWG, (i.e., the Email Sender and Provider Coalition and Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group ) while certainly furthering the conversation around reputation services, are better characterized as interested bystanders than organizations that are driving standards. For an organization that is truly driving standards, interested parties should check out the Domain Assurance Council which was founded by Habeas, Return Path and Ironport (now Cisco) to drive standardization around reputation information access.
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Road Noise - DM Days New York
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

By: Des Cahill, CEO

"Road Noise" was the title of an audio journal I made during a long and interesting car journey through the Pacific Northwest sometime in the late 80's. The exact date and route is somewhat fuzzy. I visited various relatives and friends in Northern California, Oregon and Washington during that epic journey - and the tape has achieved mythic cult status amongst this group. Who can forget the interview with the sorority sisters in Eugene or the entry from I-5 just north of Medford when we nearly got clipped by that semi?
 
Well, I'm resurrecting the brand. Road Noise is appropriate as I've been traveling a lot this last month. MAAWG in Dublin, then a quick jaunt to London for eTail and hop over the pond to New York for the Stevie Awards last week. DM Days in New York this week. And more to come in July with the FTC Spam Summit in DC. Once again, it's all a little fuzzy. So here's a Road Noise post on these past few days in New York and DM Days. It'll help me remember the key happenings and hopefully provide an interesting perspective for you.
 
Ahhhh, New York City in the early summer. Warm weather. Times Square. Street vendors. Food carts. Groups of tourists. Throngs of tourists. Tourists everywhere. Buses and hotels full of them. All from Europe or Asia - yes, the falling dollar has made $500. hotel rooms a bargain if you're paying in pounds, yen, or euros. New York is a great place to be in June, but it isn't a place to seek solitude.
 
But if you're in the online marketing or email business, then a great place for some alone time would've been the Jacob Javitz Convention Center where DM Days was being held. The conference was fairly well attended, but it wasn't an INBOX level affair. 95 percent of the vendors and attendees were in the off-line list business. There was a small interactive enclave, but the only friendly faces I saw exhibiting were FreshAddress and ListTrack. There was an all-day email 101 track that Austin Bliss was running, and he was kind enough to invite me to present at one of the sessions on compliance and best practices. It was well attended and reminded me that there are a lot of email marketers out there who don't know about authentication or reputation, and are still trying to figure out best practices basics. There is still a lot of education and outreach to be done through the AOTA, ESPC, MAAWG and of course, the DMA.
 
So, I give a bleak review of DM Days. This morning, I pointed out DMA's lack of relevance to online marketers to someone in the industry. "Why doesn't the DMA 'get' interactive marketing?" I said, "ad:tech is eating the DMA's lunch with their conferences." My breakfast guest pointed out that the DMA, unlike ad:tech, does more than conferences. It covers a broader spectrum of marketing activities and does extensive policy work and outreach through its lobbying efforts. He pointed out that the DMA may not be the best at representing best practices standards in email or online marketing but, "the DMA is a lot like the U.S. It's imperfect, it's powerful, it's influential and until someone or something else comes along, it's the only game in town."
 
Great line I thought.
 
So if the fear of being surpassed by Japan motivated U.S. economic and educational reform in the 80's, and fear of being surpassed by China may yet motivate the U.S. to be more globally competitive in the latter part of this decade - who is going to motivate the DMA to get more attuned to the radical shift in marketing dollars to the online world?
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Managing Relationships with Customers? It Starts with Reputation.
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

By: J.F. Sullivan, VP Marketing

For months now, vendors have been pushing the topic of monitoring and maintaining your online reputation. In the very cottage industry of email, it seems there are more companies springing up to inform you about your online reputation than photographers gathered around Alec Baldwin these days. Why is that?
 
The fact is, much of what folks refer to as reputation is not a new thing, it has existed for years. Blacklists were always a form of negative reputation. Whitelists, conversely, sprung up as a form of positive reputation. ISPs have been holding the axe of user complaints, aka feedback reputation, over the heads of senders for years now as a way of determining the "goodness" of an emailer. Recent announcements have repositioned anti-spam content analysis vendors as now supplying reputation add-on tools.
 
We openly confess that we ourselves have been aggregating and maintaining a reputation data network of several million receiving systems for years.
 
So why all the sudden fuss?
 
Perhaps all this energy was directed at the moment last week when Microsoft announced that they will begin throttling the connections of new senders not by whether or not they were on a whitelist but solely by the established reputation of that sender. A reputation that is determined by creating an aggregated view of the sending volume, complaints, etc. over time.
 
So are you interested in maintaining the relationships you enjoy today with your customer? All the former rules apply with regard to message content and construction. But, whereas you may have found blacklists, whitelists, and other reputation information an inconvenient annoyance in the past, the future is going to be very different. Your customer relationships are going to start with that reputation, or your customer relationships won't be relationships at all.
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It's a Small World
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

By: Des  Cahill, CEO

Let me start by apologizing. The inanely repetitive lyrics are likely to be running through your head right now. But, I had to use this as my title - because I've concluded that when it comes to email, it is a small world after all.

So let's dig deeper. Anything to get your mind off that song! I come to my observation about the worldwide importance of email after spending the last couple of weeks traveling around the U.S. and Europe and attending email-related events in both San Jose and Dublin. Email is still increasing worldwide. For both businesses and consumers it is the number one online application used every day. Email is global. Sender subscriber lists are transnational as the Internet is borderless.

The incredible devotion we consumers have to our email was evident at my cousin's farmhouse in rural Ireland, on the bustling streets of central London, in airports, buses, trains - everywhere people were checking email for business and personal use.
 
At Habeas, we're also experiencing the global implications of email. A significant and increasing portion of our customers are senders headquartered in Western Europe or Asia/Pacific. These senders still have a large percentage of subscribers who have Hotmail, Yahoo! or other free U.S.- based webmail accounts and are turning to Habeas for assistance with email delivery and reputation tracking. So a U.K.- based supermarket may have a customer in London subscribing to their weekly specials email newsletter - but the supermarket has to make sure Hotmail isn't throttling or blocking their email.
 
On the flip side, we're also seeing increased interest from our U.S. headquartered customers in the international traffic component of their campaigns. Large multi-national customers are interested in making sure their online reputation is maintained globally by monitoring their in-country email campaigns. Mid-tier e-commerce companies are offering their goods and services to an increasingly international audience - it's not just delivery to the big four U.S. ISPs anymore. Non-delivery to the inbox at BT or Tiscali can have a significant impact for these senders.

So, what are the implications for an international commercial email sender?
 
1. Do an analysis of your list. Do you have known international domains in your subscriber database? Do you have user profile info with country information?
 
2. Think about your creative, copy, and offer. Are they as relevant in Brussels as well as in Des Moines? Should you be segmenting for known international users?
 
3. Make sure your seedbox network reflects your demographics. You may want to expand your delivery seeding program to encompass some of the international ISP domains on your list or work with a 3rd party provider such as Habeas.
 
4. Consider email reputation tracking and whitelisting programs with strong international support. Nearly 5M email networks subscribe to Habeas' whitelist - with about 80% of those outside the U.S.
  
As glad as I am to be on the last leg of my journey home, it has been a great trip and reminder that email is a global phenomenon in an ever-shrinking world.
 
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Doing Everything Not to Spam
Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 by erick mott
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

By: J.F. Sullivan, VP Marketing

I recently read Seth Godin's blog about being a Spammer -at least in the eyes of Yahoo! It reminded me of certain principles that we always take for granted, but perhaps bear repeating lest any of us forget the limitations of this business of email marketing.
 
The spammers are winning. This is still true. On a good day it's a war of attrition and on a bad day it is like being part of Paris Hilton's legal team. This isn't going to change anytime soon. If for no other reason than everyone from spammers to the people who fight them now have an entrenched economic stake in the survival of this marketplace.
 
Senders don't determine what's spam. Only the person who receives the message is the arbiter of what is and isn't spam. Trying to exert control here is like trying to control your teenage daughter's wireless minutes. ISPs really only care about keeping their users happy. They do not care about false positives. They do not care about misdirected messages. They do not care about your accreditations, certifications, or other well-intended actions. They care that people don't complain. To that end, they primarily consider user complaints to determine delivery protocol.
 
Users are in control. And that alone is a cause for great consternation and concern. Users tend to be unreliable, misinformed and lazy - and those are the ones who behave better than I do! Yet all that we do, or to put it more precisely, all that we are empowered to do, is subject to the whim of the users (both B2B and B2C mind you). Assume, annoy, or antagonize at your own peril these people called "users".
 
There are no guarantees in this war. Ultimately, if you buy the former point, it doesn't matter whether you pay for certified email, put on a stamp, insert a trusted seal, include free shipping, extend the warranty, or promise a gift certificate to a spa, both the user, and the ISP who acts on behalf of that user are going to ultimately determine deliverability.
 
Yet despite all this, legitimate email as well as spam volumes continue to rise. 97 billion emails will be sent in 2007 according to IDC Research - which is second to text messaging (est. 750 billion) but still ahead of web searches. The game is not over, because no one fighting in the war either wants it to be or can afford for it to be. Companies still plan to use email in multi-channel marketing campaigns (over 70%) and spending on email marketing is continuing to rise. So, what should you do to enable email delivery?
 
I say you should do everything you can. I say you should invest in an email audit to figure out where you stand today. I say you should examine the myriad accreditation services, because it can't hurt if someone else says you're a good sender. I say you should maintain and continuously monitor your reputation including user complaints because it's a key determining factor for inbox delivery. I say that you should investigate certified email if you're sending to the half dozen vendors that have announced support and predominantly to those half dozen odd vendors. I say do all this because you say you want inbox delivery.
 
And, honestly, that's about the only say we marketers have in the matter.
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