Communicating with large groups or lists of contacts requires a more focused approach to the message- both in content and delivery. And when using GrowthZone as your communication provider, you need to be doubly aware! Transgressions on the part of one customer affect ALL GrowthZone subscribers, as there is a shared pool of email servers in use; when one gets flagged for a violation, it affects ALL customers using that server pool.
Here are some detailed recommendations to help avoid being flagged as spam and/or avoiding being filtered out by firewalls and servers.
- Text to images ratio. Messages that are over 40% images do generally get flagged with a higher spam score, contributing to messages ending up in recipients' junk mail or being caught by firewalls. You can test your text-to-image ratio using this tool. *This is a third-party site we use for best practices. GrowthZone has no control over third-party sites and is up to your own judgment on further use.
- Missing Alt Text tags. Adding details to the alt text field of an image improves spam scores, indicating that your message is attempting to follow ADA guidelines. Here are some excellent Alt Text suggestions. *This is a third-party site we use for best practices. GrowthZone has no control over third-party sites and is up to your own judgment on further use.
- Active Email List Management. Just like database maintenance, Email List Management is not a destination- it is a journey. GrowthZone provides multiple reports and actions to help keep your email lists up to date and as clean as possible.
- Arbitrary Limit. Messages older than 6 months will have a high spam score. There is an arbitrary limit of 6 months for an email reply. Replies after this time period are given a high spam score and may restrict your ability to respond to a message. Old threads are often candidates for spoofing, which can lead to real spam.
Email List Management Tips
Email list management is the best regular task anyone can do to maintain a high email-sending reputation, which increases the chances of an email reaching the intended recipient's Inbox. Removing those who no longer want to receive your emails, updating outdated email addresses, and reaching out to request corrected addresses should be done on a routine basis.
Below are the steps you should take after sending out a mass email to keep your email list up to date.
- Check the email delivery stats of your mass email. Find your email in the Communication module on the Browse tab. Click the ... in the Actions menu in the row of your mass email. Click Delivery Stats. See more about the Email Delivery Stats screen.
- View Delivery Failures (Soft Bounces and Rejections). Soft Delivery Failures that remain 3-4 days after a mass email has been sent should be evaluated error by error to determine whether they are due to someone marking this email as spam. See the FAQ on rejection errors below for ideas on what to look for.
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Download the Soft Bounces and Rejections list and act on it. Click the download icon in the top right corner of the Soft Failed Communication Details window. Use this downloaded list to reach out to them or as a checklist of whom to remove from your list.
Tip! The downloaded list creates a handy call list for you. It includes the contact's phone number and any additional email addresses on their contact record to make it easier to reach them.
Other Cleanup Tips to Improve Engagement
GrowthZone automatically marks hard bounces as invalid for you because these emails are definitely not making it through. We also do not attempt to send to contacts on your recipient list that do not have an address, are set to 'Do not contact', or are duplicates. So from an email reputation standpoint, nothing more needs to be done with these contacts; however, the state of these contacts means that your contacts may be missing out on receiving your communication. Spending time to update these to better, confirmed email addresses will improve their engagement with your association.
Check these additional locations for addresses that might need your attention. Once you've located the email addresses on these lists, reach out to these contacts and get updated email addresses from them or remove them from your mailing list.
- View Delivery Failures (Hard Bounces) on the Email Delivery Stats.
- View "Removed Due to Flood Protection, Invalid, Do Not Contact, or No Email Address" on the Email Delivery Stats.
- Review addresses on the Invalid Email addresses Report to see a list of everyone with invalid addresses in your entire database! Filter to the most recent marked as invalid to start with your most current customers. Old email addresses marked invalid may just be able to be deleted.
Additional Recommendations
- Segment your list of active members from non-members, and, where possible, further into smaller groups. Sending to these groups separately will help if further tracking of issues have to be done.
What is GrowthZone doing to help?
GrowthZone continually checks to ensure that those you send to are not getting us added to blacklists, such as the SORBS list. If you send an email that puts us on a blacklist, most likely, there is a spam trap (known as a "honeypot") in your email address. Email checking programs or delivery failure reports cannot tell you whether they are valid (that is why they are a trap!). Black list owners will buy/sign up for an address where they specifically do not subscribe it to any lists, and if they get an email, they know it was unsolicited. That is just one of many ways they do this.
GrowthZone will only know the date and time and the sending domain of the email that caused the listing (yours or other customers). We can generally match the listing's date and time to the email message that caused it. However, the date and time can also be the date and time of a previous email that is now retrying (usually a few days after the original email was sent). It can be difficult to know exactly where the blacklisting is coming from, which is why the best practices are to keep up with good mailing list management and to know that your lists are made up of real people who are expecting emails from you. Having lists segmented and sending separate emails to smaller groups could point to the culprit, if one exists.
What we do know is that if we find an entry on a black list due to an email from your domain, there may be no other way to get out of that issue without removing the lists entirely. We can track which list was sent at what time, so we know which list is the offending one. If you have your list segmented into smaller groups and send those at different times, it might help us wipe out a smaller list should this happen.
FAQs
Q. Why does the Email Delivery Stats screen have different numbers today for soft bounces than it did yesterday?
A. After an email is sent, certain bounced emails are retried several times. As those emails become successful, the bounce count on this screen decreases. Note that the Email Delivery Failures report will show those bounces and will not be cleared from the report. So, looking at the Email Delivery Stats three to four days after the email is sent is the best place to look for the final list of soft bounces.
Q: Is it OK to delete an email address of one that is marked as invalid?
A: Yes, adding an email address that was once marked as invalid will continue to retain that invalid status if re-entered into another contact.
Q: Why don't I need to look regularly at the Hard Bounces?
A: You certainly can actively reach out and make corrections to any of these, but these addresses are no longer damaging your email reputation because GrowthZone automatically marks hard bounce emails as invalid.
Q: Is it ok to remove or delete contacts that you no longer want?
A: Not usually. We don't generally recommend deleting contacts- ESPECIALLY if there is additional historical data such as event registrations, payments, membership history, etc. attached to the record! However, deleting that contact's email address if it's causing issues is perfectly acceptable.
Q: What do the various Rejection errors mean when looking at the Soft bounces?
A: Rejections: These can vary in why they occur, but often are due to the recipient viewing you as a spammer. These errors come from the ISP (Internet Service Provider), and there is no standard message to look for. Here are some examples:
550 - 550 Rejected by header based manually Blocked Senders:
550 - 550 Envelope blocked
550 - 550 Envelope blocked - User Entry
550 - 550, we do not accept mail from this address
550 - 550 blocked