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.