E-mail is still considered the best way to reach a large number of people online. Online marketers still prefer the ability of email marketing to reach existing and potential customers in an effective and inexpensive method. However, the many advantages of email marketing also gave way to increased spam volumes. In a recent study by Return Path, an enormous growth on spam volumes drove Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to implement stricter filtering and email deliverability. That is why email marketers are working harder to maintain a higher sender reputation to decrease the chances of spam. Sender Reputation contributes to the business’ ability to deliver email to its customers. The Return Path study also reported that most legitimate businesses have lower sender reputations, averaging on 68% delivery rates with sender scores of 60-89. The 2012 Return Path Global Sender Score Benchmark Report showed (below) that among the trillions of emails being sent every year, majority of them are spam. There are three key components with which Sender Scores are calculated. 1.            Complaints. These are the percentage of recipients from an IP address that mark emails sent as “spam”. Complaints are considered the most important indicator affecting email deliverability. 2.            Unknown Users.  These are the percentage of emails sent from an IP address to non-existent or no longer active addresses. 3.            Spam Traps.  ISPs created spam Traps to catch spammers. The 2012 Return Path Report also revealed that:

• Social networking, banking, retail and corporate services have the highest complaint rates. Those four were the only sectors that exceeded 3% complaint rates on average.

• Social network senders have the highest frequency of spam traps. • Social networking and gaming had the highest degree of unknown user rates. Recommendations: Your email deliverability reputation is important in reaching your customers online. Neglect it and you will fail establishing a good communications channel with your customers. You must remember that even if your emails are delivered, it doesn’t guarantee that all your emails are landing in their inbox. Below are some recommendations on how to improve your Sender Score. • Know your Sender Score. If you want to improve your sender score, you must first know what it is. Email Marketers could use Return Path’s tool, http://senderscore.org in order to assess sender reputation. • Reducing complaint rate. Email marketers should keep their complaint rates low. In order to do this, you could: a) sign up for feedback loops with your ISP(s) and; b) analyze your complaints to locate patterns of subscriber discontent. • Practice the basics of list hygiene. Organize and manage your lists. Remove unknown users, collect clean data and plan a win-back strategy to deal with inactive subscribers. Having said all this, email marketing and email campaigns can be a complicated task to manage and maintain because of the many different lists and email spam checks you need to make. The Northern Office – Innovative Marketing can provide you with solutions to ensure that your emails are filled with good content and are getting high open rates. For further information, email The Northern Office at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call (045) 499 1082.

Posted by John Joe Morgan