Short blog this time — it\’s been a crazy week. The majority of my time has been spent primarily on two areas:
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1. Helping to set up our clients on our system – meaning setting up their email, DNS, and authentication settings.
2. Working with potential and current customers on delivery best practices – maintaining clean lists and using a confirmed email opt-in method.
Folks, I can\’t stress enough the importance of these two items. If you send email, and want to have good deliverability, you have to follow some simple rules:
- Use a dedicated IP address – don\’t share IP space with someone that could potentially damage your sending reputation
- Make sure your IP address has correct reverse DNS set up on it
- Make sure your \”mail from\” or HELO domain is correct
- Implement all methods of authentication (SPF, SenderID, DomainKeys, DKIM)
- Remove invalid email addresses that bounce
- Only send email to people that really asked for it (confirmed opt-in)
- Ensure your subscribers have a clear understanding and expectation of what emails they will be receiving
- Send relevant content – make sure your subscribers know that the email they are receiving is coming from you and that you\’ve already established a relationship in some way with them.
- Don\’t share your lists between properties. If someone signs up with you for a newsletter about the stock market, don\’t send them emails about business opportunities. Even if your Privacy Policy allows you do this, don\’t – it\’s simply bad practice.
- Make it easy to unsubscribe, and honor those requests in a timely manner
Again, if you want to have good email delivery, all you have to do is follow the rules of email best practices. I will be at MAAWG next week, and these will be the types of issues that will be discussed between email senders and receivers. I\’ll look forward to giving you a great report of the events.
Until next time,
Drink Responsibly, Drive Responsibly, Email Responsibly
Jaren Angerbauer
Director of Deliverability
mobileStorm