I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but never “The Mailman”. When I hear that term I think of two things, first the guy that drives the little white truck and delivers the vast numbers of print catalogs to my house and second, I think of NBA great Karl Malone, known as “The Mailman” as he always delivered. In this case, however, the term “The Mailman” is being applied to me in a different context.

 

I am fortunate to have been selected by CRM magazine as one of their Influential Leaders of 2008, for the work that I and the team at Habeas have been doing to help save email. The title of their piece on me is “The Mailman”, thus the title of this post. I am truly honored to accept this prestigious award on behalf of the entire team (past and present) at Habeas.  The article praises Habeas for being thought leaders in the drive to educate marketers and email senders about best practices in email through such initiatives as ReputationWiki.org and our participation in industry forums likes AOTA as well as our work with our valued partners such as Lashback, BoxSentry, Campaigner, Summit Projects and many others. We’ve made it part of our mission statement to “save email” and a huge part of that is market education to email senders about differentiating themselves from spammers by adopting best practices in email (e.g., obtain recipient consent, relevant email, prompt unsubscribe, etc.).

 

This award comes at a very interesting time in my life and the company’s history. As I write this post I’m also multi-tasking by completing the very last byzantine details on the Habeas-Return Path merger. So, yes, Habeas and I are being recognized as industry leaders in email reputation management and delivery simultaneously with the company merging into Return Path. 

 

I admit the timing has a bit of irony, but in the big picture I think this award from CRM magazine is further validation of a few key things that drove the merger:

 

First, over the last several years email has made a strong resurgence as a marketing communications medium.  Both consumers and businesses love and prefer the medium above any other for their interactions.  I’ve written about our consumer research with Ipsos and Erick Mott has written about our business research with the EIU's "Digital Company 2013" initiative which supports this assertion.

Second, evangelism of best practices among email marketers is a huge part of what today’s email ecosystem needs. Organizations like eec, AOTA, MAAWG, and others are playing a big role in sender education. But many email sending organizations need more than a list of best practices – they need the rigor, analysis, process evaluation, consulting and performance monitoring provided by email deliverability and reputation service providers like Habeas and Return Path.

Third, email has become critical as a business to consumer communications medium across most verticals in the U.S. (retail, travel, automotive, etc.) and Europe and increasingly in the huge market of Asia as well.

 

We at Habeas are very proud of this award and I am very proud to be associated with the merged Habeas and Return Path. As of August 22, 2008, Return Path has the team to take the mission, saving email, and the company to the next level – evangelizing best practices to senders across industries globally, enabling consumers to have a better inbox experience and supporting the continued healthy growth of the email industry directly and through an extended network of receiver partners.  It’s going to be great to see email’s continued growth in the next couple of years – the Return Path team will continue to work hard to make sure the (legitimate) mail is delivered!


A special thanks to every Habeas employee since Day 1 (alphabetical order):

Tracy Amador, Bradley Anderson, Jeffrey Anderson, Joshua Barrack, Kristine Beebe, David Bernard, Robert Biala, Michael Bierman, Srinivas Bolisetty, Jessica Bowe, Keith Brown, Chris Brubaker, Jennifer Bumb, Michael Cabbell, Des Cahill, Eloise Carlton, Richard Castello, Carlo Catajan, Denise Cattan, Faith Combs, Joe Cordoni, Monica Coriz, Nicole Curutchet, Rajat Dutta, Larry Ellis, Ray Everett-Church, Kristin Fawns, Jennifer Fery, Mandy Fu, Michael Garcia, Liz Gegenwarth, Carl Gutenkunst, Sharon Haahr, Virginia Hammrich, Cynthia Herrera, Matt Herrera, Shawn Higginbotham, Tifaine Highly, Bill Hunt, Franz Hurtado, Anthony Igwe, Parul Ihde, Courtney Kerns, Carolyn Keyes, Charlie Kim, Jon Kingsting, Bryan Klech, Mike Klein, Sudhir Krishnan, Aleisha Lang, Brett Lemoine, Deborah Leyvas, Ky Lim, Quintin Litten, Steve Lozoya, Nigel Marrion, Michelle Marsh, Art Martinez, Alisa Matsuzaki, Sarah Matthews, Mike Mills, Anne Mitchell, James Moore, Erick Mott, Dharmendra Naik, Tara Natanson, Satish Natarajan, James Navin, William Nicholas, Donald Nordloff, Elaine Orgain, Scott Orgish, Farzana Patel, Manisha Phadke, Stefan Pollard, Beatrice Poulsen, Erin Raby, Venkatraman Ramamurthy, Catherine Ramos, Lianne Reynolds, Goody Riley, Michael Rosenberg, Ramie Salameh, Carol Sarracino, Theodor Schricker, Aparna Seetharaman, Nicholas Shackelford, Roshan Sharma, Charles Skinner, Philip Smith, Josh Stivers, JF Sullivan, Chuck Swenberg, Alfiya Tamayeva, Tom Taylor, Jaysree Thakore,  Mark Tognoli, Qarin Van Brink, Xuyen Vuong, Douglas Warren, Brady Wilkes, Huiwen Wu, Kalyan Wunnava and Chris Zutler

In 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.

We had another great turnout and discussion during this week's Habeas Huddle webinar. I had the pleasure of presenting with Jeanniey Mullen, founder of the Email Experience Council and CMO of Zinio, David Daniels, VP of JupiterResearch and Des Cahill, CEO of Habeas.

Key Takeaways to Consider:

1) Email and the Web will continue to maintain their leading positions as preferred communication channels through 2013, despite the rise of fast-growing channels like web meetings, social networking, blogging, instant messaging and video conferencing.

2) Email is proven, scalable, cost effective and is not going to go away; it's core to your digital company's success.

3) Users have growing concerns about becoming victims of fraud via email and the mobile web. However, users do prefer emails and make purchases online from businesses they trust.

4) Embrace customer empowerment online and their need for control and certainty, or risk losing customers and your competitive position.

5) Email reputation management absolutely helps to ensure email trust and online results.

We also received a number of questions from attendees; here's some Q&A to consider:

Q: How do you know if you have a good 3rd party reputation?
A: From a receiving perspective, we recommend you do a free Reputation Check that takes Habeas 24 hours to complete; this is also referred to as an email blacklist check.

Q: Do you have any tips for the 55+ market or trends with senior audiences?
A: Like any audience you're trying to engage and serve, know their hot buttons and communicate with them based on their expectations. Font sizes, content and creative should be easy to read since vision tends to decline as we get older.

Q: Should I send weekly emails?
A: It depends! Simply put, every customer has unique needs and expectations. Habeas suggests setting expectations upfront and using a preference center to help understand and segment needs that can then be applied in your email and outbound strategy. Operate with the recipient in mind.

Q: With email trends growing, at what point do internet users become overwhelmed, desensitized and apathetic to content?
A: Email is growing because of demand. Like anything, it's difficult to say when a good thing is too much -- but internet users have options to request and filter content via email, and are more empowered to hit the "this is spam" button.

To ask Habeas experts specific questions about your email strategy, operations and programs, please contact us and we'll do our best to provide useful information.

If you haven't already done so, take advantage of and share the on-demand webinar. Don't forget to download the new white paper just published by the Economist Intelligence Unit -- research that was co-sponsored by AT&T, Concep Global, Habeas, Nokia, PwC, SAP and WebEx. The webinar and white paper are free, factual and will likely spur some great ideas and content for your 2008 planning and execution. Stay tuned for more great content.

The 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!

Over the past few months, Habeas and some key vendors have been working on a number of communication projects to better serve customers, partners, prospects, the media, analysts, etc. -- or simply put, you our valued reader. 

Today, I'm pleased to make this post on behalf of the team about our new website including updated messaging and look-n-feel, new content and offers, improved navigation, etc. Other new projects in the works are this blog, a new newsletter with preference center, collateral, etc.

At Habeas, we're always trying to improve in everything we do that touches and supports email and interactive marketers, ESPs, agencies, e-commerce and CRM solution providers, Web 2.0 leaders, ISPs and message security companies and more. We are determined to help customers and partners with their email reputation management strategies and online results -- and to stay off email blacklists! Let us know what you think.

The Habeas team returned from this year's Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) Summit in Seattle, and by most measures it was a roaring success.

As with past AOTA Summits, this year's featured a wide array of top-tier speakers, including Craig Newmark from Craig's List, former cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt, and Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna.

Even at a time when travel and conference budgets are being slashed, the turnout for the AOTA Summit was great, with a tremendous mixture of brands, vendors, service providers, and current/former government officials.

There were also a number of excellent sessions covering the latest technologies and best practices in authentication, email security, and deliverability. We're proud to say that Habeas and some of our customers presented in several sessions, including at AOTA's first Email Deliverability and Trust Academy.

In this post are assembled some random thoughts and comments from several members of the Habeas team who participated in the event. Here are some of the most noteworthy observations:

The deployment of email authentication continues to grow, but it remains a daunting task. In January, AOTA reported that over 50% of email is authenticated in some fashion. These figures were confirmed at this month's Summit, and most of the attendees at AOTA are from companies that really understand the urgency and importance of authentication. The problem is not with the companies whose representatives are involved in AOTA or attending these conferences, rather it's with the thousands of companies who weren't there and who don't yet see authentication as a critical brand protection and reputation protection measure. Thus, some of the most interesting and difficult conversation topics at the summit were around how to grow that number.


There remains a great deal of tension between email senders and receiving ISPs regarding who owns the consumer relationship at the inbox. One attendee made the point that the existence of the "This is Spam" button makes it difficult for a sender to get more useful preference information from their customers. For example, perhaps a recipient really only wants to receive such messages monthly rather than daily or weekly. It's difficult to get a recipient to consider such a choice when the Spam button is glowing in their face.

 
In many of the sessions, we saw continuing evidence that deliverability remains a significant challenge for many major brands, in large part because it can be a very imprecise science. Even when companies employ the very best practices, the difference in how various ISPs assess reputation continues to make reliable deliverability a challenge. For example, SPF records may have a great deal of weight at one ISP, while DKIM signatures have more weight at another. Content filtering may also see a resurgence for ISP to ISP email due to some problems with hackers breaking the "CAPTCHA" process and automatically creating accounts for spamming. All of this points, yet again, to the importance of comprehensive and ongoing reputation management.


Adding further confusion to the deliverability landscape is the proliferation of "best practices" documents and recommendations. With recommendations out there from the DMA's EEC, the ESPC, MAAWG, the IAB, and others, it will be increasingly difficult for senders to stay on top of what "state of the art" actually means. If there's good news for Habeas customers, however, it's that we stay on top of these for you. More importantly, we are very involved with these organizations, and others, and continue to work to resolve any discrepancies and contradictions between all of these standards.


We closed the event with a fabulous group dinner at “The Met” including our customers Sal Tripi from Publishers Clearing House and Sean Walker from The PGA -- and were joined by Craig Spiezle from the AOTA board, members of the team and a few industry friends.


The AOTA Summit continues to be the premier event focusing on authentication issues and technologies. But even though the event is over, the challenges being addressed by the members and attendees continue. Habeas is proud to be helping AOTA drive the effort to get everyone to "Authenticate in '08!"


As always, Habeas Advisory Services and our extended team are happy to help you and your organization with email reputation management and inbox deliverability strategy and execution to achieve your business goals.