The Foundations of Email Marketing

1. THE FOUNDATIONS OF EMAIL MARKETING Part 4 DELIVERABILITY Featuring expertise from:

2. DELIVERABILITY... Is that even a word? If you’re typing this in an email or a Word document, you may find the red squiggly line under the word. Yet, it is a very real term used by email marketers, and is one of the most important terms you’ll find in the email space. Deliverability is crucial as a success metric because it tracks specifically how many of your email messages get delivered into your subscribers’ inbox folder. If you have a poor deliverability rate, it doesn’t matter how great your creative, your design, and your calls to action are. Deliverability is the only way to get recognized by your recipients and get those opens and conversions you’re hoping for. Deliverability is constantly changing. That’s why we asked our friends over at Inbox Pros for a fuller explanation of what email deliverability really is and how you can improve your delivery rates and email marketing program successes. Here’s what you'll find in this eBook: What is Email Reputation? So, You’ve Been Blacklisted? Now What? Bringing Your Email Program Back from the Brink This eBook is the final part in our “Foundations of Email Marketing” series. 1 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

3. About Inbox Pros Leading the Charge in Email Deliverability for Over 15 Years! Inbox Pros is your partner in Email Deliverability. We offer a number of services to help get your emails into the inbox. Our mission is to provide unparalleled education, service, and performance to our clients and their email marketing programs. Our services include: Whitelisting Assistance 24/7 Monitoring & Alerts Feedback Loop Analysis Deliverability Audits Content Analysis Reputation Building Block Removal Assistance IP & Domain Authentication Improve your email performance. Contact Inbox Pros today. (678) 214-3739 | info@inboxpros.com | www.inboxpros.com 2 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

4. Featured Expert Chris Arrendale CEO & Principal Deliverability Strategist Chris Arrendale has more than 16 years of experience in the technology and software industry and has worked directly with many different ISPs, webmail providers, spam filter providers, blacklists, and partners to resolve email deliverability and privacy issues. He maintains several professional certifications including Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPM, CIPT, CIPP/US, CIPP/G, FIP), Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK), as well as many marketing automation and email service provider certifications. Chris is actively involved with the Email Experience Council (EEC), Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG), Email Sender & Provider Coalition (ESPC), International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), and the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AIMA). Since founding Inbox Pros, Chris has worked with a variety of clients across many verticals solving their deliverability and compliance challenges. Chris works to ensure his client’s emails reach the inbox by providing strategic guidance as well as hands on support. He works with many leading organizations and enterprises to ensure regulatory compliance and maximum deliverability across all systems. 3 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

5. What is Email Reputation? Arguably, the most important aspect of your sending infrastructure that can affect deliverability is reputation. Your sender reputation can either make or break you when it comes to deciding inbox placement by spam filters and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Overall, if you are following best practices, monitoring all campaigns, creating content that is eye-catching, and taking action whenever necessary, you should enjoy a positive reputation. However, you can do everything according to the book and still not reach the inbox folder. How is that possible? Positive and negative ways to affect your reputation Positive Negative Sending to a clean and engaged list that hits zero spam traps Sending to unengaged users with a list that is full of spam traps Using a list validation service to remove invalid addresses Using no list validation service Being added to blacklists No blacklistings Utilizing purchased lists for email marketing sends Avoiding purchased lists While ISPs will typically send messages to the inbox that have historically good open rates/engagement, reputation, no blacklistings, etc., it is, at the end of the day, the ISPs’ decision where the message will land. Whether it is the inbox, spam folder, or bouncing the message completely, ISPs have algorithms in place to determine where the message will land. IMPORTANT:Every email you send can affect your reputation. So, it’s important to remember that your past as a sender can and will follow you! 4 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

6. Laws & Regulations Laws and regulations must be kept at the forefront of your overall sending patterns. As senders, we must understand and follow the directives for the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act. Deliverability and reputation are important, but if you’re not following the rules (laws and regulations), you may find yourself in more hot water than just an IP/domain that has a bad reputation. CAN-SPAM CAN-SPAM It’s important to note that the CAN-SPAM Act does not prohibit the sending of spam in terms of requiring an opt-in. It does, however, require the following: An easy, working opt-out mechanism. This can be offered via a link, preference page, or an email address/reply-to. It must not require undue effort—in fact, we recommend the process only require one click to avoid spam complaints. Opt-Out requests be honored within 10 business days. It’s recommended that unsubscribes are honored as soon as possible as continuing to mail during the window can lead to a high volume of spam complaints. Messages are upfront about their nature. It’s unlawful for there to be deception in terms of message content, headers, subject lines, etc. For example, it’s unlawful to disguise a marketing email with a correspondence-style subject line. 5 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

7. Include a legitimate physical address for where you’re located. CAN-SPAM does not provide for a private right of action, meaning only the FCC may pursue a perpetrator—meaning suits are rare. The law does offer stiff penalties—and ISPs enforce the provisions themselves through filtering and blocking offenders, whether the sender is caught by the FCC or not. Common Deliverability Questions Deliverability is the difference between meeting your goals and coming up short for your fiscal year projections. As a rule of thumb, always follow best practices and review each and every email marketing campaign for success. Also, don’t forget about the laws and regulations that have been put forth to combat spam. Here are some common questions that we receive regarding email deliverability: Q. Will a high bounce rate affect my email reputation? Yes. Bounce rates affect your reputation on your IP address. If your bounce rates are too high, the ISP may think you are trying to spam them and block your domain or IP address. There is no “magic number” that can get you blocked/bulked. List management is crucial and marketers should scrub lists regularly to remove the hard and soft bounces. A. 6 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

8. Q. Why did my message get blocked? It’s the exact same message I sent last week and it wasn’t blocked then. There are many reasons why this could have occurred: A. Did you send to a new list that you haven’t sent to before? Did you receive a lot of abuse complaints/hit a lot of spam traps? Has the reputation on the IP address gone down? ISPs can and will change their filters thousands of times a day. A word/phrase that was accepted 2 hours ago may be blocked now. Remember to test your content before sending to your live lists. Q. Will my deliverability change if I change my from domain? There is a high likelihood that you could have deliverability issues if you change your from domain. Here are some reasons: A. Your new from domain is not set up with the proper authentication includingSPF, DKIM, and DMARC Your subscribers have already whitelisted your previous from domain with their internal filtering systems. If so, your email may go to the bulk folder. Your subscribers may not recognize you and they may be more likely to click the abuse button. 7 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

9. Q. What are some steps I can take to reduce the number of abuse complaints I receive? There are many ways to reduce the number of abuse complaints: A. Only send to those recipients that signed up. Never purchase lists! Don’t send to those recipients who have asked to be removed from your list. (unsubscribed) Don’t send to old lists. These recipients may not remember signing up and complain. Send relevant content to your subscribers. Personalize your content with subject lines. Add an opt-out link to the top of your email. This will allow those users who may not know where the opt-out link is to find out and opt-out versus complain. 8 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

10. So, You’ve Been Blacklisted? Now What? You and your team have worked countless hours on your next best email marketing campaign. You know the time and effort you put into it is going to pay off once you hit the send button and you begin to see the positive results. But then…that doesn’t happen. In fact, you begin to see a higher number of bounces and messages being routed to the spam folder. What? Why?... HOW? After doing your research, you find out that your sending IP address has been listed on a blacklist. While the example above may have never happened to you, there is always a possibility that your brand’s sending IPs and/or domains can be blacklisted, wreaking havoc on your sending infrastructure and your email marketing program as a whole. What is a Blacklist? A blacklist is a list of IP addresses/domains that are not allowed access into a particular network. While there are hundreds and hundreds of blacklists on the internet, there are some you don’t have to worry about being listed on—and some that should be avoided at all costs, like: Spamhaus You’ll end up listed here if you have a poor sending reputation. Whether it is spam traps or content that reflects spam, Spamhaus keeps a pulse on all senders and posts its list publicly. 9 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

11. SORBS This blacklist uses partner spam reports and spam traps to identify less than desirable senders. SORBS is very popular among ISPs and corporations worldwide, with over 200,000 companies using the blacklist. SpamCop As an email spam reporting service, SpamCop tries to catch senders that are disseminating unsolicited bulk or commercial email. What can a blacklist do to my email campaigns? Spam filters and ISPs use blacklists (especially the three mentioned above) to determine whether a message is worthy enough to land in the inbox. If you’ve been listed, you may not know right away. That said, you will typically be able to tell something is amiss because you will begin to see a rise in rejections and bounces. This means you will not be reaching as many inboxes as you should. Depending on the blacklist, the effects can be dire on your email campaign performance. In fact, Spamhaus is the worst blacklist to be on. It majorly affects inbox placement, especially at Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, ISPs in Europe, and many corporate email servers. 10 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

12. How do I avoid blacklists? STAY AWAY Following best practices should help you and your brand steer clear of blacklists. To avoid blacklists, you should: Monitor each email campaign for opens, clicks, bounces, spam trap hits, etc. Remove hard bounces and repeated soft bounces. Vet your list often and have it run through a list validation service, such as BriteVerify or Webbula. Monitor your feedback loops (FBLs). Keep abreast of the changes in the email deliverability world. Spam filters and ISPs are constantly changing what they are looking for in email campaigns. Historically, email marketing has proven to produce the most amount of leads and ROI (based on a B2B survey), leaving live events, SEO, content marketing, even print marketing behind. With today’s ever-changing times, it is of the utmost importance to stay abreast on your email deliverability and take any and all action to reduce challenges, such as blacklists. 11 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

13. Bringing Your Email Program Back from the Brink You are walking to your weekly review and you are in a panic. Email conversions took a dip over the weekend and aren’t recovering. While you anticipate the disappointment your boss will feel when she hears the news, you brainstorm potential solutions. You say to yourself “Maybe the content wasn’t well received.” or “Maybe we sent it at the wrong time.” Upon speaking with the boss, you are able to temporarily satisfy her concern with run-of-the-mill solutions and a quick re-send. Flash-forward another week: Conversions have slipped even further. At this point, you are at a loss for an explanation and worse, you have to break the news to your boss. The cycle continues until you’ve tried everything in your arsenal: new content, new schedule, new A/B test, and a new email list. Heck, you even looked through the bounces and unsubscribes for the first time in months. Does this sound like you? You are not alone! Everyday, thousands of marketers just like you struggle with email deliverability as Mailbox Providers (MBPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) invest more in their technology. Accordingly, the increasingly complex algorithms designed around user experience in email delivery continue to baffle marketers. However, here’s a little secret: most marketers make their decisions based on an extremely limited mindset—namely, engagement metrics. 12 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

14. The Problem Classic email delivery models revolved around a crude approach: More emails means more money. While this may have been true at one point in time, it is far from true today. Successful email campaigns are multi-faceted and rely on a more holistic approach. True, you can start a free account at an Email Service Provider, dump in your list, and get amazing results. However, if you want to consistently create results that scale then it’s time to take a step back and focus on the big picture. The Approach Start by adopting core values. By adhering to these basic principles, you will be able to, in most cases, survive the continuous algorithm updates and changes implemented by MBPs and ISPs. These principles are: Focus on the user experience Users must want your messages. Don’t surprise people Spamming will be punished eventually You can’t hide bad practices Shortcuts lead to shortcomings Understand how deliverability truly works 13 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

15. The Process Most email marketers still don’t fully understand everything that goes into getting in the inbox. Indeed, most experts cut their teeth on “shared pools“ where things such as A/B testing represent the outer knowledge limits. In our scenario below, we’re assuming you’re fully in control of your own IP, domain, and ultimately, sender reputation. So, let’s show you just how complex deliverability really is: FR33 MON3Y CONTENT FILTERING IP USER ENGAGEMENT THIS IS SPAM REPUTATION 192.168.1.1 BLACK- LIST SPAM TRAP? www. DOMAIN REPUTATION ASSET & LINKS AMAZON CLOUD AUTH- ENTICATION P=REJECT THE GAUNTLET OF DELIVERABILITY inboxpros.com As you can see, if your program is “at the brink,” there are many intricacies that could factor into why. To survive this gauntlet, a more holistic approach is required when establishing or investigating your email infrastructure. What does this holistic approach look like? It’s really about asking the right questions and investigating from there. 14 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

16. The Right Deliverability Questions Q. Did you just add new contacts to your list? It is common for companies to attempt to increase their bottom line by increasing their email list. While there is nothing wrong with growing your list the right way, pressure from the top can sometimes lead to bad decisions. When we say bad decisions, we most often are referring to buying email lists. Purchased lists can contain spam traps and other potential sources of harm to your sender reputation. Plus, these folks haven’t subscribed to your mailing list, which creates a big disconnect between recipients and your marketing. To help keep tabs on new entries into your mailing list, we recommend that you: Check on your feedback loops, and monitor your complaint rate. Complaints will hurt your deliverability. Practice list hygiene. Follow CAN-SPAM regulations. Also, periodically remove unengaged users. This can help you protect your sending reputation. Q. Is your Authentication set up correctly? While emails can be delivered without 100% perfect authentication, this may be the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” We recommend monitoring your email’s authentication with tools such as 250ok and dmarcian. If a paid monitoring service is not an option you can always check by sending a test to your personal account and reviewing the header information. For this process we recommend sending to Gmail since its super easy to use. Simply open the message in Gmail and click the little arrow on the top right next to the reply button and select “show original.” 15 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

17. 12.55 AM (9 hours ago) Below, you’ll see Gmail’s interpretation of your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, if you are using them at all. Ideally, you would see something like this: Message ID Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 10:33 AM (Delivered after 2 seconds) Created at: From: <email@ To: andrew@inboxpros.com Subject: SPF: PASS with IP Learn more DKIM: PASS with domain Learn more DMARC: PASS Learn more We primarily want to focus on the last 3 blocks. If you do not see a block for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, or they are failing the check, then you will want to investigate that further. 16 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

18. Q. Did your sending infrastructure change? One of the most common reasons we see for decline in deliverability is infrastructure changes—particularly a change in service provider. Before sending emails from a new setup, we want to make sure that the both the IP address (if dedicated) and the domain are sufficiently “warmed up.”Otherwise your deliverability might take a big hit and you could see low opens/clicks. Q. Have you been blacklisted? If you do not monitor blacklists already, you need to start now. There are numerous blacklists out there that can affect deliverability in both the B2B and B2C world (as discussed in the previous section). We recommend regularly checking these blacklists. If you have been blacklisted, go through the proper channels to request removal or consult with a deliverability expert for assistance. For your email marketing program to be successful, your emails need to reach the inbox. Your emails will only reach the inbox consistently by ensuring your sender reputation is strong through proper infrastructure setup, list hygiene, and good content. 17 INBOXARMY | 2017 © InboxArmy | www.inboxarmy.com | In collaboration with

19. INBOXARMY YOUR EMAIL MARKETING ARMY InboxArmy is an elite, full-service Email Marketing Agency offering transparent email marketing packages for all your email marketing needs. OUR TRADEMARK SERVICES INCLUDE Full-Service Email Deployment Email Template Production Email Marketing Strategy Email Marketing Audits Email Automation & Custom Integrations hello@inboxarmy.com 800-276-9253 @InboxArmy www.inboxarmy.com