Tag Archives: Inbox placement

The Double-Edge Sword of Generative AI and Email

For most people doing creative marketing work, Generative AI can be a huge asset. You can write white papers, create tag lines for ads, and develop new email campaigns quickly and easily. But, there are downsides to all of this productivity…

Losing your voice

Your voice, your brand, your identity. Losing this is easy if you are not careful how you deploy generative AI. Generative AI has its own voice, so you need to apply your brand to it before deploying the content it generates. Make sure it uses your verbiage, your terms and reflects your brand. If you don’t, you risk blurring into the background noise from all the other brands deploying generative AI in their campaigns. While Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com have not disclosed policies or filters looking for generative AI, they are at the forefront of the technology, so you can be sure they are!

Going All -In

It may seem like a good idea to ramp up your outreach programs, especially email, now that you have a virtually unlimited source of content. Unfortunately, that can make your email delivery worse. Higher volumes of email can trigger greater scrutiny at Inbox Providers like Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com, which could make it more difficult to make the Inbox. Further, you could induce email fatigue in your recipients. Fatigued users are:

  • Less likely to open your emails
  • More likely to mark them as Spam
  • More likely to Unsubscribe

Rather than increasing the quantity of your interactions, you should be looking to increase the quality: Better content yields better results.

Generative AI Phishing

If you can use Generative AI to create content for your legitimate business, rest assured that spammers, scammers and fraudsters are already fully embracing the ability to generate huge quantities of malicious content. This means that it is even more important to educate your teams about phishing scams and improve your email security.

In addition, it is now more important to protect your brand from being used in phishing attacks by adopting a DMARC Reject policy. Adopting DMARC and setting your DMARC policy to Reject will tell Inbox Providers to trash any email that appears to come from your domain that is not DMARC compliant. This makes it harder for phishing scammers to send email that appears to come from your domain. DMARC reject policies also enable you to adopt BIMI, which will get your brand logo into the Inbox alongside your email.

How MxToolbox Helps

MxToolbox is the expert in email delivery and email technologies. Our suite of email tools, Delivery Center, provides you with everything you need to:

  • Adopt DMARC
  • Get DMARC to a Reject policy
  • Adopt BIMI
  • Measure Inbox Placement
  • Manage the on-going maintenance of adopting new email technologies
  • Notify you of issues while they’re occurring to enable quick resolution and damage control

If this sounds complicated, MxToolbox also offers Managed Services team that can help you setup DMARC, DKIM, SPF, BIMI and get your domain aligned with Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com bulk sender policies.

Why Blocklist is really the correct term

For decades, the industry has used the term “blacklist” to refer to IP addresses that have sent spam or domain names included in spammy email, but that’s not really what these lists are. Aside from other issues with the term “Blacklist” (ahem, thank you James Spader) it really is not the most appropriate. Let’s examine the real definitions for email:

Blocklist/Blacklist

A list of IP addresses or domains that should not be trusted because the IP address has sent email to a spam trap, sent email repeatedly marked as spam or may be misconfigured in such a way to encourage spam or other nefarious activity. Domains listed have been included in spam emails or are known to host malware.

Note: MxToolbox is not a blacklist/blocklist. We are not blocking your email, but curate a list of blocklists to provide information about who has listed your IP address or domain as problematic. In some cases, we can help you get delisted, but, in general, you’ll need to work with the blocklist to be removed. There are details on how to be delisted on the Problem Details page for each blocklist. As always, DO NOT PAY to be delisted.

Allow-list/Whitelist

A list of IP addresses that are highly trusted. This is usually used for VPNs, internal traffic, etc. where that IP address should always be allowed.

Note: When dealing with Blocklists, do not ask to be “Whitelisted” as you are not completely trusted. Ask to be “Delisted” and be prepared to prove that you have fixed the issue that caused your IP to be listed.

De-list/Greylist

If you are not 100% trusted, or not mistrusted by being blocklisted, then you are unlisted, or as some would say, “greylisted”. In reality, no company is going to go through the exercise of listing every single IP address that is not Blocklisted or Allowed, so those IP’s are simply unlisted, but still not 100% trusted. Typically, email from an unlisted IP goes through a multi-step process to determine if the email should be allowed in the inbox.

MxToolbox Aids Email Delivery

Focus on the basics of Email Delivery: Technologies like SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and Best Practices in email list management and content relevance. Once your DMARC configuration is really set, then issues like blacklisting are actually more rare and less damaging to your email delivery. Get started today with MxToolbox Delivery Center to get to the Inbox.

Email Definitions: Bulk vs Transactional

In an effort to weed out spam and make email more relevant, Google and Yahoo! have recently made changes to their Bulk sender requirements that affect all legitimate email senders. But, what are the definitions of “Bulk” sender and “Bulk” email and how does that affect your email mix?

The Effect

Google and Yahoo! will now require bulk email from bulk senders to pass will SPF, DKIM, and DMARC compliance checks to be considered for delivery and provide a 1-Click Unsubscribe button. Failure to meet these requirements will result in short-term warnings, medium-term placement in Bulk or Junk folders and long-term email rejection. Normal business correspondence, Transactional Emails and senders who do not meet “Bulk Sender” status are exempt from the requirements.

What is Transactional Email?

A transactional email is any email sent with to a single user or account for a single purpose, typically in response to that user’s actions or interactions with the sender and typically with user or account specific content. Good examples of transactional emails are:

  • Account Creation Acknowledgements
  • Account Update Notifications
  • Login/2-factor Notifications
  • Password Changes
  • Order Acknowledgement
  • Invoices or Order Summaries
  • Shipment Notifications
  • Usage Summaries
  • Billing or Credit Card Issues (failure, update necessary, etc.)
  • Account Termination
  • Reminders

What is Bulk Email?

Bulk email is any email that is sent in large quantities or with marketing content. Examples of bulk email include:

  • Newsletters
  • Limited-time Offers
  • Sales/discounts Campaigns
  • Event Announcements 
  • Vouchers, Coupons and Giveaways
  • Transactional Emails with any of the above content

That last one is the kicker. Any transactional email that contains marketing content could count as a bulk email. If you are layering your marketing content into transactional email, you should stop now.

What is a Bulk Sender?

The definition of a Bulk Sender requires sending bulk email but also varies across Inbox Providers. We’ll use the parameters that are the most conservative. The important thing to know: Once you’re labeled a bulk sender, you are forever a bulk sender. Therefore, it’s important to use email best practices when sending messages.

Email Volume

You could be classified as a bulk sender for sending any email to more than one person. While Google requires a single 24-hour period volume of at least 5000 emails to be classified as a Bulk Sender, Yahoo! has refused to define a volume limit. MxToolbox therefore recommends adhering to the bulk sender limits if you send any bulk/marketing email.

Emailing Domain

Email counts are by primary emailing domain. This means that all subdomains are included. So, emails from example.com, and email.example.com and marketing.example.com are all included in the message count.

Email Content

Email volume limits only look at Bulk Email. But that definition is based upon content. Again, most importantly, remove marketing content from transactional email to ensure that it is not classified as bulk.

How Can MxToolbox Help?

Tools like MxToolbox Delivery Center provide deep insight into your DMARC, SPF and DKIM configurations allowing you to meet basic requirements for Bulk Senders. In addition, our Inbox Placement feature will tell you if your campaigns are being sent to the Spam/Junk folders or actually making it to inboxes, as well as which Inbox Provider(s) you are having trouble sending to.

MxToolbox is the Expert on email delivery. We offer a wide range of email delivery services, including a fully managed email delivery service, so be proactive now and take advantage of them before these Bulk Sender guidelines affect your email.

Think that you’re on Google’s Blacklist?

Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that… 

Blacklists have been losing relevance

Blacklists have been a first line of defense against malicious emails since the dawn of the Internet. Every marketer knows that if their sending IP addresses are on a blacklist, their messages are going to be denied. Most email marketers long ago moved to 3rd party senders with large blocks of IP addresses to limit the risk. If legitimate senders can easily change IP addresses, so will spammers, somewhat limiting the long-term value of an IP-based blacklist. Google, Yahoo! and other Inbox Providers know this and have been developing alternative technologies for years.

Blacklists are only the first layer of protection

Blacklists are still relevant for blocking large networks of bad actors and increasing the difficulty of sending spam, however, Inbox Providers like Google and Yahoo! have long taken a layered approach to Inbox Placement. Rather than relying on a simple binary approach with a Blacklist, Inbox Providers use:

  • TLS Encryption for connection
  • Blacklists (both internal and external)
  • DMARC Compliance (SPF Authentication, SPF Alignment, DKIM Alignment)
  • Spam Content Scoring Rules
  • Bulk Sender Spam Reporting Rules
  • Individual Spam/Junk Rules

If you are a legitimate sender of emails, more than likely, you are not on Google’s Blacklist. More likely, your email is being filtered by these other layers of their inbox protection.

Google is making changes to Bulk Sender Rules

Both Google and Yahoo! have announced changes to their Bulk Sender policies for 2024. Bulk Senders are any senders with more than 5000 emails per day. These senders will now be required to:

  • Maintain SPF, DKIM and DMARC Compliance
  • Have a 1-Click unsubscribe link on every email
  • Maintain a rate of messages marked as Spam less than 0.3% (or 1 in 333 message marked as spam

While Google and Yahoo! represent a large portion of hosted Inboxes, other Inbox Providers will keeping a close eye on these changes. Expect similar conditions for accessing Office365/Outlook.com and other major Inbox Providers in the near future. In addition, we expect that Google and Yahoo! may revisit and strengthen the volume and spam rate requirements.

How Can MxToolbox Help?

To maintain access to the Google Inbox, you need tools like MxToolbox Delivery Center. Our suite of email delivery tools helps your sending domain achieve the best possible email delivery rates, including issues with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. More importantly, our Inbox Placement feature will tell you if your campaigns are being sent to the Spam/Junk folders or actually making it to inboxes, as well as which Inbox Provider(s) you are having trouble sending to.

MxToolbox is the Expert on email delivery. We offer a wide range of email delivery services, including a fully managed email delivery service, so be proactive now and take advantage of them before these new 2024 guidelines are applied to your outgoing newsletters and marketing campaigns.

Getting to the Inbox

The Inbox is The Target for email marketers. If the email doesn’t make the Inbox, then no one can open it or click on all our wonderful pitches. Getting dumped in the Spam or Junk folder can be a death sentence for your email marketing. There is a taint of suspicion to legitimate email that ends up in Junk or Spam folders. Is the email real or an exceptionally good phishing attempt? Is the sender spammy and not to be trusted? It leaves unanswered questions to your recipients.

Best Practices for making the Inbox

To achieve Inbox Placement, you need to develop an email marketing strategy based upon relevance, supplemented by good technology. The days of scatter shot email are gone. Emails must be tailored…

  • Target your Marketing to a Specific Persona – Know who you are communicating with. Too often email is used to attempt engaging a broad audience and fails miserably.
  • Have a Clear Objective – What is your goal? Engagement, a sale, a return to the shopping cart, the store, the site, a whitepaper, etc.?
  • Use Engaging Subject Lines – Do not be generic. Avoid “we have a sale” unless you are targeting bargain shoppers.
  • Make the Content Relevant and Interesting – How many emails do you receive every day that are completely irrelevant to your business or your interests? Those go in the trash right? (We call that Stealth Unsubscribing) Write content that resonates with the interests of your target persona.
  • Be Brief – Rather than have a laundry list of things to discuss, make it simple, direct and brief. Add too much and it reduces engagement.
  • Make Clear Calls to Action – Clearly ask for the click, the sale, the download, etc. Whatever your metric, make it clear.
  • Limit Your Linking – A few links are good to drive traffic to your website. Add too many links and you become confusing. Which is the most important? If there is really ONE objective, why do you have 20 links? This is just another scattershot approach.
  • Be DMARC Compliant – DMARC compliance allows you to demonstrate clear ownership of your emails and provides a level of trust for recipients. Inbox Providers are increasingly wary of non-compliant email and favoring compliance. To have the best chance to make the Inbox, your email must be DMARC compliant.

Why do “soft” factors matter as much as technology?

Relevance keeps the recipient from ignoring your email, marking you as spam, deleting your email without reading it or unsubscribing. Inbox Providers are now factoring in behavior across their inboxes for future email delivery decisions. A boring, irrelevant email might just be the last one that makes the inbox.

How can MxToolbox Help?

We provide free tools and paid to help you with email delivery. Most people start with our free Blacklist lookup tool to see if their sending domain or IP addresses are on a blacklist. While Blacklisting can prevent your email from making it to the inbox, it is no longer the most important factor. Two other tools have become important to Inbox Placement.

DMARC Compliance

To make the inbox, not only do your marketing campaigns need to be DMARC compliant, but all your email must be DMARC compliant regardless of source or volume. To achieve DMARC compliance for your email domain, you need a solid DMARC Reporting tool, like MxToolbox Delivery Center, and regular monitoring and management of your DMARC compliance.

Inbox Placement Analysis

Our Inbox Placement feature allows you to send a test email or campaign to us. We determine if the email will make the inbox at major Inbox Providers like Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com/Office365. We also analyze important technology and soft factors like:

  • DMARC Compliance
  • Broken or copious links
  • Wordiness
  • Broken or too many images
  • Spammy verbiage
  • Other indicators of spam

Fortunately, Inbox Placement is a feature of all Delivery Center plans, so you can test your marketing emails and improve your DMARC compliance all in one place.

Does DMARC and email deliverability seem too complicated?

MxToolbox Experts are here with a Managed Services approach to your email configuration issues.

Does your email make it to the Inbox?

Inbox Providers are constantly adapting their algorithms to detect and eliminate spam while simultaneously elevating wanted email. This arms race puts Email Marketing at a disadvantage – we typically only receive a few data points:

  • # of Sent Emails
  • # of Emails Opened
  • # of Click-Throughs

While these leading indicators of sales are very valuable, they miss out on two key details:

  • Was the email delivered at all?
  • Was the email delivered to the Inbox or Spam/Junk Folder?

If you can’t answer those questions, then you may be missing out on simple methods to improve sales! Every email that fails to make the inbox is a conversation that did not happen!

MxToolbox Inbox Placement

The newest feature of MxToolbox Delivery Center provides you with direct insight into the inbox placement of your newsletters and campaigns at major inbox providers like Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com. In addition, MxToolbox will analyze the each email for potential issues with content, format, sending configuration, etc that will impact email delivery. Learn More

How does it work?

MxToolbox Inbox Placement works in two ways:

  • Send a Test Email to our list of email boxes when creating new campaigns to see how they might perform. Refine your campaign to get better performance.
  • Include our email list in your newsletter and campaign lists to gain insight into how they perform in real-time.

Our tool aggregates campaigns/newsletters by subject and sending date, analyzes the contents and provides a clear, concise report of placement (Inbox, Junk/Spam, Not Delivered) and potential reasons for lower placement. Learn More

How do you get Inbox Placement?

Simply subscribe to MxToolbox Delivery Center to begin analyzing your Inbox Placement!

The Flavors of Successfully Delivered Email

Email delivery is a complicated thing. There are multiple layers of technology protecting an inbox at modern inbox providers like Google, Yahoo! and Outlook.com. For example:

  • Blacklists are used to identify IP addresses that have spammed or otherwise should not be trusted
  • SPF identifies legitimate sending IP addresses for a domain
  • DKIM allows a domain to sign email to ensure the integrity of the email
  • DMARC enables a sending domain to get feedback from Inbox Providers on SPF and DKIM compliance
  • Inbox Providers maintain internal Unsubscribe Lists
  • Inbox Providers maintains internal Spam Lists
  • Inbox Providers run proprietary Spam Content Analyses
  • Inbox Providers monitor engagement with emails from a domain

Email Delivery Standards

Technically Delivered

In the email world, a message is considered successfully delivered when the recipient can access the email. The email could be delivered to any subfolder for example:

  • Junk
  • Spam
  • Quarantine
  • Bulk
  • Promotions
  • Customer configured Filter or Subfolder

While this does not seem optimal to the recipient or sender, the email is accessible, just not in the main Inbox.

Undelivered email is completely inaccessible to the recipient. An email could be undelivered for multiple reasons, depending on how the Inbox Provider’s algorithms work:

  • The sending IP was blacklisted so the system declared the email Spam and rejected it.
  • The Sending IP was not listed in the Sending Domain’s SPF record. This is either a misconfiguration or a sign of a deliberate spoofing attempt.
  • The DKIM signature does not align with the Sender’s signature.
  • The recipient mailbox is full
  • The recipient mailbox does not exists

Marketing Delivery Success

Marketers only see email delivery as getting the email to the recipient’s Inbox. That makes sense as their mission is only accomplished when the email is Opened, Read and relevant links Clicked.

Obviously, there’s a bit of a disconnect between how IT sees delivery and how Marketing sees delivery. Both are correct for their purposes. They are simply not speaking the same language.

MxToolbox Helps you Reach the Inbox!

MxToolbox has long developed tools and services around Mailbox Delivery. Our early Delivery Center service focused on the primary technologies supporting email delivery: Blacklisting, SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Our newest features of Delivery Center change this focus to help the Marketer reach the Inbox.

Complaints

Inbox Providers often have a list of complaints leveraged by their users against Senders. Some even allow access to these complaints, which often include email reported as spam, dead email inboxes, full inboxes and even unsubscribes done only through the Inbox Provider. Delivery Center now includes a feature to integrate and aggregate complaints and make them visible and actionable for you to improve your sending reputation with Inbox Providers. Lowering your complaints goes a long way toward making your email deliverable to the Inbox. Learn more about Complaints.

Inbox Placement

Ultimately, Marketing looks at metrics like Open Rates, Click-through Rates and Purchases to judge an email campaigns strength. However, these indicators lag something more important: Placement in the Inbox. Delivery Center now contains a tools that enables you to test the inbox placement of an email campaign both before sending it to your customers and simultaneously with the bulk emailing. Inbox Placement works across the large Inbox Providers like Google, Yahoo and Outlook.com. Learn more about Inbox Placement.