In today’s fight against spam, many ISPs filter emails using a technique called “content filtering”. Content filtering looks at the words, links, and images to determine if that message is likely spam. That ISP may block the message from being delivered to the subscriber if they believe it may be spam. A message that is incorrectly filtered is called a “false positive”. This occurs when a subscriber has specifically opted in for the email but the ISPs filtering program mistakenly classifies it as spam.

Hurt by your own subscribers

Members of AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Earthlink, Outblaze, Road Runner, Excite and others can push a button to report a message as spam. Unfortunately many people push the button when they no longer wish to receive the newsletter rather than unsubscribing. Some don’t realize what they are doing and just do it so your future emails go into their spam box. If the number of complaints gets too high, ISPs may block your messages altogether.

Advertisers can be the death of your ezine

Quite some time ago we sold solo ads to advertisers to help offset the cost of running our sites and programs. We put a stop to those solo ads because one of our advertisers had apparently used a website link that was known for spamming and we had over 170 undeliverable emails. It happened again with a subscriber’s text ad we sent out with our ezine but this time the bounce numbers were much higher. We started using our own Short URL/Ad Tracker service to insure that didn’t happen again but that would only be a temporary fix. So beware of third party links, they can even get you banned and you don’t want that headache.

Getting through the road blocks

Email deliverability is about as important as it gets when sending to a large list. While using a creditable service like AWeber can do wonders for your open and click thru response rates, there are still a few factors to take into consideration.

ISP’s incorrect spam filter classification can be a frustrating hurdle and the rules change so fast and frequently that the ISP’s themselves don’t seem to know what’s going on. It’s similar to Google’s ranking formula, a mystery to so many you have to wonder if Google even has the answers.

So while writing your newsletter the content begins to suffer due to so much attention going to choosing your content wording carefully trying to avoid known key words and phrases that will get the publication filtered out before it ever reaches the subscriber’s inbox (or even their spam box). Once the final draft is complete we find ourselves editing and re-wording even more to increase our email deliverability.

You see the endless editing daily with publishers and advertisers trying to fool the spam filters. Words like medication, free, mortgages, making money and even the word spam seem to trigger the filtration process. You see free turn to f.ree and money looks like m*ney. I’m not sure how effective these tactics are and I suspect they may do more harm than good.

Another thing we all see when it comes to opt-in lists is list owner’s attempt at getting subscribers to whitelist their email. This poses another problem because the more steps required for someone to receive our emails the more likely they’ll simply decide it’s not worth the trouble. I’ve seen several publishers with an entire page dedicated to whitelisting their URL for their subscribers. Every major service such as Yahoo Aol, Hotmail ect. are covered with step by step directions. I hate to be negative but I have to wonder just how many hoops the average subscriber is willing to jump through to get access to even the best of publications.

So what’s one to do?

I wish I had all the answers. I do have a couple of tips to offer but other than that I’m hoping one of you will be able to help. Feel free to comment below with any advise. 

1. My first tip would be to avoid mailing your list from your domain. That includes list programs that are designed for mass emailing. Unless you know how to prevent it you will eventually find that more and more people can’t receive your emails. Uncle Bob using Comcast and your best friend Benny using Earthlink can’t get a single email from you. You eventually don’t even receive hundreds of bounces, the emails just disappear into the virtual abyss. As a side note, if you are using a shared server you may find additional problems with mass mailing. Uncontrolled mass mailing puts a large strain on server resources so most hosting companies have strict email policies.

2. Number two is to run, don’t walk, to a quality third party list management/autoresponder service.  When I say quality I mean a service like AWeber. An example of where NOT to go for your list management, in my opinion, are those useless membership sites that are run like a multilevel marketing schemes and let you mail your so called downline. If your subscriber did not opt-in to your list then it’s not your subscriber.

3. Another option is to go web based for your newsletters. By that I mean you place your newsletter on your website and send a short note with the link taking the subscriber to the newsletter online. We actually tried this for a while but our click rate dropped significantly. To be fair we didn’t really look into making it work. We just went back to sending the entire publication via email.

4. My fourth tip is going to make this post look like a sales page but I do recommend a short ebook that a friend of mine wrote. It’s called Email Delivery Secret. Yes, that’s an affiliate link and it will cost you seven dollars. It’s a short ebook packed with valuable information that’s worth every penny. Valleyken doesn’t waste everyone’s time with a bunch of fluffy filler to make it look bigger.