In one of my previous articles I’ve already touched upon the email filtering and blocking issue and talked about the reasons why the email may be blocked or filtered by ISPs. That was mostly all about the message content and list building. There are also some technical issues that may be overlooked by email marketers but play a significant role in the email delivery process. By addressing those issues, you can increase your email deliverability rate and ensure your newsletter is delivered directly to the recipient’s Inbox.
You probably know that the best way to send emails is through the SMTP server. You can use the SMTP server of your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and be happy with it. But many ISP now limits the number of email messages you can send per hour or day. This definitely hurts your business if you have a large contact database and need to send the message to the whole list urgently.
With that said, if you can’t use the SMTP server of your ISP because of email sending restrictions, consider the following solutions:
1. Get your own SMTP server. The advantage is that you will be able to send as many emails as you want without any restrictions. The disadvantage is that you will need to setup the sender’s authentication records on your server yourself.
Email Authentication is the effort to include identifiable information into the messages so that the receiver can recognize incoming email message automatically. Email authentication helps prevent forged emails from being sent from your mail server and thus, helps reduce the amount of spam in the recipient’s Inbox.
If you get back nothing at all, or something other than what you expected, then that can be a problem as some mail servers will reject email if the PTR does not match or is missing. To set up an rDNS properly, your ISP/Hosting provider, NOC or Datacenter must have delegated the IP address to you.
So, when you get your mail server, adjust your authentication records to make sure your emails are delivered to the recipient’s Inbox. The sender’s authentication can be done in several ways such as SPF, Reverse DNS Lookup, DomainKeys, or Sender ID:
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records. SPF is an open standard created to stop forgery of From addresses. Because the majority of spam emails are sent from forged email addresses, SPF records allow the receiver’s host to verify that the email is being sent from the server it asserts it’s sent from. It’s like the email sender is telling to the receiver “I send emails from this computer only”. So, if any other machine tries to send an email from the same domain, the receiver’s mail server knows the From email address is forged. SPF standard is being used by some ISPs (including several large providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.) and mail hosts. You can ask your hosting company to setup SPF records for you. Or, go to your cPanel and click on “Email Authentication”. Then enable the authentication parameter you would want to apply to your emails.
- Reverse DNS. This is another way to authenticate the email sender to the receiver host. Reverse DNS lookup implies determining what host and domain name belong to a given IP address. If a Reverse DNS Lookup returns a “no domain associated”, then the email will likely bounce to the sender, or will be deleted or filtered. To avoid Reverse DNS Lookup problems, follow these simple rules: 1) don’t send emails directly from your home computer (always use an SMTP server when possible) and 2) don’t send emails from a crappy shared hosting server for a small fee monthly fee. Get a solid host, better yet a VPS (virtual private server) or a dedicated server and ask your hosting company to enable Reverse DNS for you.
- DKIM. This is the next step to do after you setup your Reverse DNS records. According to Wikipedia “DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email validation system designed to detect email spoofing by providing a mechanism to allow receiving mail exchangers to check that incoming mail from a domain is authorized by that domain’s administrators and that the email (including attachments) has not been modified during transport.”. In other words, DKIM authentication system checks if the email is sent from the domain it claims to be sent from. By installing DKIM, you can help your server deliver your emails directly to the recipient’s inbox.
In fact, if you have SPF records, Reverse DNS and DKIM setup, this is enough to get your email delivered to the recipient. However, you may also want to setup your Sender ID.
The Sender ID is an email authentication technology that validates the origin of email messages by verifying the sender’s IP address against the supposed owner of the domain the email is sent from. The Sender ID authentication algorithm addresses the problem of forging email messages headers by verifying the domain name from which the emails are sent.
2. Use the 3rd party email service. If you don’t have mail server or don’t have enough knowledge to properly setup your SMTP server to send your emails to the recipient’s Inbox, consider using the 3rd party email service provider. We recommend the following:
- Amazon SES. Amazon SES is probably the cheapest email sending service. They charged only $1 per 10 000 messages. You can use GlockApps Bounce Monitor for bounced emails management.
- SMTP.com. SMTP.com provides the highest performance in sending emails and ensures inbox delivery for your critical messages while protecting your IP reputation. SMTP.com establishes Feedback Loops (FBL), DomainKeys/DKIM signing, SPF and manages ISP Relationships (including Whitelist, Greylist, and Blacklist resolution) for you. They have a variety of service plans that address the diverse needs of users ranging from small businesses to large corporations who require higher service levels and support.
The steps listed above will help, but they still may not be enough. There are a few more things you can do to build your email sender reputation and improve your email campaign performance:
- Check your mail server’s IP address against DNS based blacklists every few email campaigns. You can use the G-Lock Apps delivery and spam testing tools to see your inbox placement, spam scores, authentication issues, daily blacklist monitoring to check if your server’s IP address is blacklisted and get summary email alerts. If it is, there is nothing wrong with emailing to the admins of those DNSBL sites and ask them how you can be removed from the blacklist.
- Sign up at email deliverability services. These services work as whitelists and ensure the email delivery to the recipient. When you sign up, your server’s IP address is included into their database. The ISPs check those databases, and if your IP is found there, your email is delivered. Only note that the email deliverability services are not free. They charge a monthly fee or the fee is based on the quantity of sent emails.
- Whitelist your server with ISPs. Large ISPs have a procedure you can follow to facilitate the delivery of your email messages directly to the subscriber’s Inbox and not to the bulk email folder. The bad thing is that the ISP may not whitelist you if you are using a shared mail server. Even the host owning the mail server may come into troubles with getting the server whitelisted if shared accounts are in use. The experience shows that to send the emails as reliably as possible, email marketers should use a dedicated mail server and implement all the steps I described above. And the final thing to do is to follow the ISP whitelisting procedure. There is also a concern about the quantity of emails sent at a time. ISPs tend to meter incoming emails and accept only a certain number of messages per hour. Gone are the days when it was possible to continuously blast thousands of messages. Now the emails should be metered to leak over time.
- Signup for Feedback Loop programs with ISPs. Those are free programs provided by major ISPs to help email senders improve the delivery of email messages to their recipients. When a user receives a message from a sender enrolled in the Feedback Loop program and clicks on the Report Spam button on the message instead of clicking on your unsubscribe link, a feedback report for each spam complaint is sent to the email sender. Why is it useful? It lets you know there is something wrong with your email (off topic, unreadable, etc.) so that one of your subscribers clicked the spam button on it. A spam complaint is a valid reason for you to immediately remove that person from your list. Remember, by clicking on the “Report Spam” button the recipient does not unsubscribe. They will still receive your emails until you manually unsubscribe them. So, to avoid more spam complaints in the future, you’ll want to remove them immediately.
- Access to accounts on your domain: abuse@ or postmaster@
- IP addresses that you want to receive feedback loop emails for
- your IP range
- your domains
- your network’s contact information: name, contact e-mail and phone
- the e-mail to which the FBL will be sent
- Do not change your mail server’s IP address without any evident reason for it. Some ISPs are more cautious to new IP addresses and restrict the amount of emails that can be sent from a new IP address.
- Do not change your “From” email address without need. The recipients have already used to your From field and probably added your From email address to their whitelists. Sending from a new email address may make them think it is spam and hit “Report Spam” button or just delete your email message. If you are forced to change your From email address, consider sending a short notification to your subscribers before the change takes place. This way, they can update your records in their address books or whitelists and your future emails will more likely to be received in the Inbox.
- Ask subscribers to whitelist your email address. It’s better if you include into your welcome message the instructions how to whitelist you in order the recipient receives your regular HTML email newsletters into the Inbox. If you’re looking for an easy way to build your own mailing list, this subscription plugin for WordPress is exactly what you need. Using this plugin you can place the signup form at the side bar on your WordPress blog and let people subscribe to your newsletter using the confirmed opt-in method. The plugin automatically sends the welcome email new subscribers proving them with the instructions how to whitelist your email address. The subscribers will be saved to your internal WordPress database. You will be able to create and email newsletters to your list directly from WordPress, or export the subscribers for using the list your in-house hybrid email marketing software.
What you’ll need in order to register for email feedback loops:
Email Feedback Loop Forms you can fill out online
AOL Feedback Loop – This page will give you access to the email feedback loop form.Read more about their application information, amongst other requirements and info which is all very important too.
Comcast Feedback Loop – A very simple form from Comcast.net that includes an informative “terms of service” agreement and privacy policy.
Cox Feedback Loop – Another quick form, provided by ReturnPath.
Bluetie Feedback Loop – BlueTie offers a feedback loop service, operated by Return Path, free of charge, to parties sending large amounts of mail to BlueTie members.
MSN/Live Feedback Loop– This Junk Email Reporting Program (JMRPP) encourages large senders to remove unwanted recipients from their email list. Click to read instructions on how to get accepted into the program.
United Online Feedback Loop – This lengthy application form also acts as a white list request. You may need to consult your Email Service Provider or IT team to get the information needed for this form.
USA.net Feedback Loop – Another simple form that also gives you access to existing feedback loops, also run by ReturnPath.
Yahoo! Feedback Loop Form – Yahoo! offers a Complaint Feedback Loop service, free of charge, but you need to log in first.
Rackspace Feedback Loop – Simple form, run by ReturnPath.
Email Feedback Loop Forms you can fill out through email
Common requirements for application:
Charter Feedback Loop – ([email protected]) Charter doesn’t have an official feedback loop, but they do have very strict spam policies. If your message is flagged as spam, you’ll get a notification automatically with a “550 [MESSAGE ID] Message identified as SPAM” message. From there, you can re-send (not forward) the original message with your plea to be unblocked to [email protected].
Earthlink Feedback Loop – ([email protected]) Use the information list above to determine what to send to this email address.
Excite Feedback Loop: ([email protected] and [email protected]) Use both of these email addresses, because as of June 2008, Excite moved over to BlueTie. Use the information list above to determine what information to send to these email addresses.
Gmail Feedback Loop – Just as a note, Gmail doesn’t accept white listing requests nor do they provide feedback loops. Last year they did enact a type of feedback loop, but it’s only available to your email service provider. They use contact lists plus extensive filters to determine what gets delivered to an inbox. They do have a bulk sender contact form however, if you feel that some of your messages are incorrectly marked as spam.
Verizon Feedback Loop – Verizon doesn’t have a feedback loop, but they do offer a whitelist form.
To conclude, keep in mind that nowadays the sender’s reputation question is timely as never before. It’s easy to fool anti-spam filters using some tricks but it’s not easy to restore your good name. Your email sender’s reputation determines the success of your mailings so put your efforts to create a good picture of yourself.
Related:
- How to Track EmailsYou can use G-Lock Analytics service to track your emails so you know if they were opened and read. Email blast tracking reports are presented in the textual and graphical format. You can also view the geographical localization of unique opens of your email message. With…
- Boost Email Deliverability to the Recipient's InboxWhen it comes to email deliverability, we used to talk about big issues: opt-in email list and list hygiene, ISP whitelisting, sender authentication (SPF, Reverse DNS Lookup, and DomainKeys), and email newsletter design. These factors play a very important role in the email delivery process…
- How to Send Marketing EmailsYou can send marketing emails directly from your computer using EasyMail7 email newsletter system without expensive monthly payments for email service providers. Just follow these simple steps: 1. Download and install EasyMail7 2. Create an Outgoing Mail Account in EasyMail7 and enter your sender information…
Tags: How To Get Emails Delivered
Outlook.com is putting my legitimate emails into its junk mail folder. What do I do now?
The Microsoft properties (Hotmail, Outlook, MSN. and Live.com) are obeying Yahoo and AOL’s DMARC p=reject. That means that whenever an email from someone with a yahoo.com or aol.com address comes for someone with a hotmail.com, outlook.com, msn.com, or live.com account, if that email “from” yahoo.com or aol.com isn’t actually sent from a Yahoo or AOL mail server, then it is being rejected (bounced).
So, if you’re sending emails from your yahoo.com or aol.com email address, but not using the Yahoo or AOL mail server, change your “From” domain to prevent message rejection by the Microsoft properties.
So, if you’re sending emails from your yahoo.com or aol.com email address, but not using the Yahoo or AOL mail server, change your “From” domain to prevent message rejection by the Microsoft properties.
As it turns out, with any one of Microsoft’s email addresses – @live.com, @hotmail.com, @outlook.com and others – you’re still really using Outlook.com whether or not you ever visit it on the web.
I’ve created the following checklist and tips that any marketer or person sending email can follow to help them get delivered to the Inbox. So you can optimize your email delivery system and deliver your emails into the Inbox instead of the Junk email folder.
Use G-Lock Apps to discover if you have a deliverability problem and how to fix the problem as quickly and easily as possible to improve your deliverability, and get the maximum conversion rate when you send out an email promotion.
Spam Test Report from G-Lock Apps
1. Set up SPF and Reverse DNS Records to Authenticate You as a Legitimate Sender.
If you don’t have the SPF and reverse DNS records properly setup, it doesn’t always mean that your email is deleted or moved to the Junk folder. But it can affect how Hotmail rates your email and how it will treat your subsequent messages. And furthermore, depending on the user’s settings and the reason why the email was not authenticated, the message may be labeled as “unknown sender” in the Inbox that is not good for your brand recognition.
Therefore, it’s highly recommended that you setup your SPF and reverse DNS records if you don’t have them yet before you send your email newsletter to your Hotmail subscribers. In this article you can read more about the sender authentication and how to get your emails delivered.
Example of a sender authentication test report from G-Lock Apps
2. Ensure the Links in Your Email Aren’t Blacklisted or Inactive.
Check to see if any of your URLs are on URL/domain-based blacklists like URIBL and SURBL. If listed, work to get removed from the blacklist or change the link in your content. On a similar note, ensure all URLs within your content are active and resolve to the proper place. This includes 3rd party URLs, too, like bit.ly and other URL shorteners, and even advertisers.
Check your SpamAssassin report on GlockApps for possible blacklisted and/or inactive URLs/domains.
Example of a SpamAssassin Filter Test from G-Lock Apps
3. Stop Sending to Bad Email Addresses.
If an email returns as a hard bounced, you need to delete it from the list immediately. If an email returns as a soft bounced, you can try several attempts to deliver it. If after a few attempts, the email still bounces, remove it from your list too. If you continue sending to non-deliverable email addresses, your activity may be considered as spamming.
Try EasyMail7 – affordable, self-managed, in-house email marketing software for Windows®. It has a great deal of intelligence built-in, such as bounce handling, feedback loop analysis and automatic suppression lists which can protect your reputation by preventing redelivery to failed or complaining addresses. Download 14-day Free Trial here
4. Sign up for Microsoft’s Smart Network Data Services (SNDS).
SNDS will give you the information about the traffic originating from your IP address such as the volume of sent emails and complaint rates. The data is collected from the log files of the inbound Hotmail servers and other servers at Hotmail and Microsoft. This free service will help you identify campaigns resulting in excessive complaints and spam trap hits. You can then use this information to determine the cause of issues and take the appropriate action to correct the problem. You can get your Hotmail and Outlook.com SNDS report here
Example of a SNDS report
5. Follow Best Email Marketing Practices.
A Outlook account expires if it is not used during six months. After the six month period an email sent to a dead account bounces with the “550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable” error. After one year of disuse, they start using that mailbox as a spam trap.
If a high volume of your email lands in spam traps, your IP address could be blocked.
This is another good reason for legitimate marketers to ensure they follow the best email marketing practices:
- Send only to recipients who explicitly subscribed to your emails (no purchased, rented or scraped list).
- Send an unsubscribe link, so that the recipient can unsubscribe immediately.
- Use consistent sending IP addresses and domains for your email campaigns.
- Use a consistent From name and From email address to clearly identify your brand.
- Make use of Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to authenticate your emails.
- Publish reverse DNS with your domain to help identify your IP addresses.
- Track the temporary and permanent SMTP errors from your mail server and act on them accordingly.
- Have a working process of handling bouncing addresses.
- Periodically remove inactive subscribers from your list.
- Don’t reactivate email addresses that are already on your unsubscribe or suppression list.
Firstly, take a closer look at your email collection process. If you are collecting subscribers on your website, you’ll want to use a confirmed subscription process. It is the best way to avoid malicious subscriptions, mistyped email addresses and surely spam trap emails.
Secondly, it’s now more important than ever to deal with your bounces as soon as possible and maintain a clean mailing list. If a message consistently bounces, remove that email address from your list. If you continue emailing to bad addresses, your IP will end by being blacklisted, and your emails will not be delivered to subscribers. It was just a bad email marketing “etiquette” to send to non-existent emails, but as you see it’s self-destructive now.
Cleaning a list from bounced emails is a time consuming and tedious work. Better if you could collect bounces and delete them from your contact database at one go. EasyMail7 has a built-in system to automatically process bounced emails: collect bounces from your email account and delete them from your contact groups.
6. Check Your Brightmail IP Reputation.
Outlook uses the Brightmail anti-spam content filter. The Brightmail technology learns what email is spam from all mail received in their spam trap network. If a high volume of your mail is considered suspicious, your IP address could be blocked or bulked. You can check your Brightmail IP reputation and request block removal here.
7. Send Emails from IPs with a Positive Reputation.
Outlook looks at your sender reputation. No reputation does not mean a good reputation. As a result, mail sent from new IPs is usually filtered into the bulk folder until a positive reputation is observed.
You can regularly check your IP reputation and the various factors causing any decline via senderscore.org. Return Path research has shown that the higher your Sender Score, the better your chances of reaching the Inbox.
8. Keep Your Subscribers Engaged.
Microsoft has stated they look at the following areas of engagement to decide whether or not to send email to the inbox or spam:
– Messages read, then deleted
– Messages deleted without being read
– Messages replied to
– Frequency of receiving and reading a message from a source
– Messages deleted without being read
– Messages replied to
– Frequency of receiving and reading a message from a source
Make sure you keep your subscribers engaged by setting the proper expectations up front regarding the type and frequency of emails they will receive from you. Deliver on what you promised, what is relevant to them and what they can easily recognize is coming from you.
9. Get Certified with the Return Path Whitelist.
By having a third party like Return Path accredit your sending practices, Microsoft can deliver your email to the Inbox at Hotmail and Outlook, and with images enabled. Acceptance into the Return Path Certified whitelist will positively impact delivery.
To recap, here is what you should do to deliver your emails to the Inbox:
- validate your email list;
- send to confirmed optin email subscribers;
- regularly suppress inactive or disengaged subscribers from your mailing list;
- remove addresses that bounce consistently;
- honor unsubscribe requests as soon as possible;
- have your domain and IP configured properly in DNS;
- send from the IP with a positive reputation;
- don’t send spammy looking emails.
Following these basic rules is a must for any responsible email marketer.
Now it’s your turn…
Test Your Deliverability and Spam Score
Within minutes, GlockApps will show you where your email is placed at different ISPs.
At Gmail, you’ll see whether your email lands in the Primary, Promotions, Social tab in the Inbox or in the Spam folder.
Plus, GlockApps comprehensive test checks your email for:
– risky content;
– authentication problems;
– blacklisting issues.
– authentication problems;
– blacklisting issues.
…and provides feedback for common ISP and corporate filters.
Read through your report and note what score you received for each spam filter. If a spam filter did not pass we’ll explain what’s causing the issue.
Identify and fix issues keeping you from the Inbox
First, send a copy of your email to:
If you need help with troubleshooting information for senders who are having trouble reaching Outlook.com users by email, check out this resource.
Related:
- How to Send Emails to Your MSN/Hotmail ContactsBefore you send an email newsletter to the contacts stored in your Hotmail contact list, you need to export the contacts from your Hotmail account to a common CSV file and import them into your email marketing software. To export Hotmail contacts to a CSV…
- How to Track EmailsYou can use G-Lock Analytics service to track your emails so you know if they were opened and read. Email blast tracking reports are presented in the textual and graphical format. You can also view the geographical localization of unique opens of your email message. With…
- How to Send Marketing EmailsYou can send marketing emails directly from your computer using EasyMail7 email newsletter system without expensive monthly payments for email service providers. Just follow these simple steps: 1. Download and install EasyMail7 2. Create an Outgoing Mail Account in EasyMail7 and enter your sender information…
Tags: bounced email addresses, hotmail email addresses, hotmail email newsletter, junk email, mailing list management, marketing practices, sender authentication, sender id, spam trap emails