Primary marketIs Your e-Mail Being Delivered?
A growing frustration among professional e-mail users is the fact that
much of what they send, may very well never be delivered. While many
are aware of this problem, few realize how much legitimate e-mail is
being blocked, and why.
For the most part, failed e-mail is primarily the result of attempts
to cut down on the amount of junk email (SPAM) that is being sent
today. Such efforts to reduce unwanted e-mail by Internet Service Providers
(ISPs), companies and even individuals all have such unintended consequences.
Road Blocks Ahead
When a legitimate e-mail is blocked from delivery, this is referred
to as a false-positive, as the message was falsely labeled as SPAM,
and blocked as a result.
When it comes to false-positives, the biggest offenders are systems
that rely on commonly available e-mail "Blacklists" which have been
show to have false-positive rates as high as 34 percent. Unfortunately, many
ISPs, companies and even individual anti-SPAM software programs use
such Blacklists.
My own ISP is ATT, and its servers are often erroneously blocked by
such "Blacklists." When this happens, all e-mail originating from the
entire ATT network can be blocked as SPAM.
Another problem with "blacklists" is that if you have a Web site hosted
on a "shared server" (this would apply to almost every agent Web site,
and most company sites, as well) and another site on the same "shared-server"
is "Blacklisted" as a known sender of SPAM, then your e-mail will likely
be blocked by many ISPs simply because your site is on the same server
as the offenders.
Final proof that mother was right: You ARE known by the company you
keep, even if you don"t know them!
While many ISP"s now use filtering technology that goes beyond simple
"Blacklists," these systems still often have false-positive rates
in the 6 percent to 8 percent range. While better than relying on "blacklists" this
is still a lot of legitimate e-mail that"s being blocked.
Another issue is the growing number of anti-SPAM software programs
that can be used by individuals. These programs tend to have false-positive
rates in the 2 percent to 8 percent range, and that"s for the best of them, and
only when the user is skilled in their implementation, configuration
and maintenance of such programs.
Further, the e-mails that are blocked by desktop software programs
first have to survive the filtering processes used by ISPs, so the
effective false-positive rate is likely much higher.
Finally, many users and anti-SPAM programs rely on simply keyword
filters that will result in a great number of false-positives, as
well. While most users don"t consider all of the ramifications of
their filters, it"s important to realize that even the most obvious
words that you might think of blocking all likely have legitimate
uses.
For instance, a subscriber to my Canale"s Tips & Tricks newsletter
recently related that all e-mail from me was being blocked because
their anti-SPAM filter misread my name and interpreted it as cANALe
which, understandably, seemed like a good candidate for their banned
word filter at the time.
The bottom line is that when you send e-mail, its delivery is at the
mercy of:
Blacklists that block up to 34 percent of e-mail
ISP filtering that knocks out another 6 percent to 8 percent
Desktop software that will remove another 2 percent to 8 percent
Keyword filters that may remove another untold percentage of legitimate
e-mail
The lesson: Just because you send it, don"t assume it was delivered!
Further, and maybe of greater importance, be very careful about the
anti-SPAM solutions that you personally implement (as well as those
used by your ISP) as you are probably blocking legitimate inquires
from customers, clients and prospects alike.
In a best case scenario, even blocking just 2 percent of your business leads
could cost you a small fortune!