2007-07-20

Email Blocked as Spam


Your email can be blocked primarily, if it is unwanted or it contains salacious content. But because of the demand of recipients and concerned parents for protection from offensive messages, spam filters distinctively check your message. In addition, these spam filters can block opt-in promotional email.

Blacklisted domain experiences blocked email. Once you get blacklisted, your message will be flagged as spam and it will not reach the desired recipients. Whenever you get blacklisted, your clients’ with a mail administrator which uses the blacklist on which you are on, will not receive any of your mailings.

Email Blocked as SPAM by Content Filters

Another reason why your email is blocked, other than blacklisted domain, is content filter. These content filters are programs which vividly check the words in the subject line of of your message, the date and time of mailing and even the number of email sent at a given time. Furthermore, content filters also check the HTML code, font size, graphic quality, and other factors that will make your message appear spammy.

There are a lot of ways you can use to prevent your message from being blocked. EmailReach can help you know more about blocked email solutions. Try our free trial today and see how you can prevent your message from being detected as spam.

2007-07-12

Optimizing Your Automated Messages


Autoresponders are designed to help you manage your online business and internet marketing campaign. Generally, autoresponders can do the sending of your quick messages to your clients/website viewers. These quick messages can be a ‘simple thank you’, which can serve as a relationship builder between you and those who viewed your site. These website viewers are prospect customers, and should be followed up properly. Another thing is, those quick messages can just be a confirmation of the viewers’ intention of subscribing in your mailings, which will prevent you from getting reported as spam sender.

Indeed automation of messages is time saving, giving you more time to focus on other factors that can help in the growth of your business. You can even do business while sleeping or doing other stuff. The primary consideration in this type of messaging is how you fashion your message for the benefit of your prospects. In other words, for you to convert more leads into sales would require a good structuring of your messages – updates, promotions, etc. Furthermore, to prevent your automated message from being flagged as spam, you should send messages that cater your prospects’ need and can penetrate stringent spam filters.

For the meantime let’s just focus on ways to prevent your autoresponder emails from ending up in spam filters or from getting reported as spam. The first thing is, introduce your company to your prospects and tell them how you obtained their email address. Together with this, you can embed a link – say revisiting your site, to make sure that the email you have added in your list came form legitimate viewers. You also need to place a short description of the message you are sending as well as the reasons why they receive such mails. If you are planning to send follow ups for the purpose of marketing your products, make sure to inform your prospects about your follow up mailings – what they can expect from your company and when are you mailing them. Termination of your prospects’ subscription must be plain and simple. For example, you can just have your prospects mail you an empty email for undoing their subscription. If you make unsubscription tedious to your prospects, they might report your automated message as spam to hasten the unsubscription process, even if your message doesn’t appear like one.

In other cases, your message is filtered out by spam filters. It means that your message landed in bulk folders instead of landing in your prospects’ inboxes. Most of the time it’s in the content of your message and the like. To know further about proper structuring of you message as well as content assessment to avoid getting flagged as spam, try visiting www.emailreach.com.

2007-07-11

Companies and their services


EmailReach


EmailReach can help you optimize your mailing procedures. EmailReach offers delivery audit, this will help your email message reach your clients inboxes. Furthermore, blocked email , blacklisting problem, email marketing strategies are just some of the topics discussed in this site. You can visit the site for further information.

Return Path


Return Path can cater your need for an improved email delivery. It uses delivery monitor program, delivery manager program and bonded sender program. Return Path can help you with your internet marketing. To know more, try checking their site.

EmailAdvisor

If you want to have an accountability partner in your email marketing campaign, one who can assure you of a fast and efficient email delivery, EmailAdvisor colors the picture. Email Snapsot,Delivery Monitor, Content Analyzer , Blacklist Monitor and ISP status are features of EmailAdvisor. To know more about EmailAdvisor,try checking their site .

Pivotal Veracity

If your are having a problem with unethical marketers, in that your message can't reach your clients because of stringent content filters which supposedly filter out unsolicited messages only. Then, Pivotal Veracity can help you solve your problem by providing your message a highway directed to your clients' inboxes. Some of their services include e-Delivery Tracker , e-Delivery Scorer and IDEA . If you want to work hand in hand with Pivotal Veracity,visit their site

2007-07-03

...in HTML


The format of your newsletters can help in converting more leads to sales. Most online marketers consider the use of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) messaging. HTML messaging gives your more control over your news reports by giving you more alternatives as to how you want your message to appear – layout, color, font, graphics, etc. HTML can make your emails for your clients look like web pages and can be browse as web pages. HTML messages can contain links, images and any kind of content viewable to the web. And things as such can make viewers enjoy looking at your updates.

HTML messaging does have benefits as mentioned but it has also disadvantages once used improperly. Usage of external editors like FrontPage or Netscape Composer can increase flexibility but can undermine your online campaign since these editors have different effects on the final outcome of the message because their codes are not all the time compatible. In order to avoid this problem have a programmer code your email template by hand. In addition, graphics embedded improperly in your HTML message will cause your clients to see a small red X and an empty graphic box instead of the graphics you intend your viewers to see. This can tarnish your reputation. In some cases slow loading time and image blocking are experienced by your clients, make sure to have a short tag describing the image so that you clients will have the idea of what they’re about to see.

Furthermore, virus outbreak is very offensive that is why mail administrators reject anything that might carry a virus. In HTML messaging, usage of scripts such as java script, visual basic, etc is discouraged.

Another friendly advice, use visuals sparingly so that your prospects won’t get distracted. Make your graphics fitted to your report – promotion or updates.

If you would like to try HTML messaging but has uncertainty of your message deliverability, or you have already tried HTML messaging for the purpose of making your emails more enjoyable for your prospects but have delivery problem. EmailReach can help you fix your problem. EmailReach checks the content of your message as well as its HTMLcodes.

2007-07-02

Different Types Of Spam Filters


Spam filters are designed to block unwanted messages generated by unethical senders. Presently, there are different spam filter programs in the market available for email users to purchase. These programs are designed differently, which means that their methods of detecting spam vary.

Businesses which require email messaging for information dissemination would find it helpful to know the different methods used by spam filters. This will in turn help them tailor there message’s content as well as their mailing procedures. Thus, being aware of spam filter programs can help in the optimization of any internet campaign.

The most common type of spam filter is the Content-Based Filter. This type of filter as the name suggests, looks on symbols, words or phrases in the subject line, headers and content of the message which are suspicious. The filtering process is very dependent to phrases and words chosen by the user as spam, this means that spam messages with words or phrases not included in the list of the user will make it to the inbox time and again unless the user creates another filter to deal with those words and phrases. The good side of this filter is, it can be fashioned in anyway the user wishes to.

Another type of spam filter is the Bayesian Filter, unlike content-based filter; Bayesian filter undergoes ‘training’ where the filter learns the difference between a spam and a legitimate email. During this ‘training’ messages are broken into tokens and these tokens are then stored in databases (tokens of good messages are separated from those of spam). This type of filter requires minimal maintenance and can adapt easily to users’ usual message, just like if the user is a medical practitioner, anything that relates to medical field will be considered as good. The primary drawback of Bayesian filter is that optimum filtering will not take place immediately, since the filter is dependent on the messages on which it is trained.

In addition, there is a Blacklist-Whitelist filter where the whitelist is composed of the ‘good’ email addresses and the blacklist is composed of email addresses believed to send spam. This kind of filter ensures that received emails are from whitelisted senders only and any address aside from the whitelisted ones will be blocked. With this, email users can expect a zero false negative. The main disadvantage of this filter is that, whenever a real-time blacklist (RBL) is used, there is a tendency that the whole IP is considered as spam sender, though only a part of it used to send spam.

Challenge-Response Filter on the other hand sends messages to unknown senders asking them to do further action/step to justify their intention of sending the email. These further actions can be a request for the senders’ website to ensure that the email is legitimate. This type of filter is quite applicable to low traffic email users.

Community filter is another type of spam filter. This filter has a central server where users can send suspected spam; the server itself then saves the ‘fingerprint’ of the message to the database. When enough users flagged the message as spam, the ‘fingerprints’ of the message will be blocked in the future. But before a spam is blocked, many users have already opened it.

If your business makes use of email in sending promotional or newsletters, you should at least know if your email address is in the real-time blacklists so that you can apply for whitelisting. And at least know the basic symbols, words and phrases to be avoided in sending emails. Try visiting www.emailreach.com for more information about spam filters.

2007-06-27

Sender Policy Framework



American Online (AOL) is one of the major mail administrators in the internet industry. AOL like other mail administrators provides a quality service in terms of its mailing procedures and formats. Optimizations of emails as well as spam filtering are also part of AOL’s service. Indeed AOL makes a clear runway for their users emails.

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) has been adopted by AOL to fight spam. SPF doesn’t literally block spam unlike spam filters and spam busters. What an SPF does is that, it keeps the real addresses from being forged, and thus prevent misdirected emails (bounced emails) on legitimate senders – protected return path. Spammers forge addresses to hide their true identity and as well prevent bounced emails from their inboxes. Through SPF user can know if the sender’s address is authentic or fake.

Furthermore, SPF let the users specify their sending policy. Whenever a policy is made by a user, the domain owner publishes this policy. And when someone’s mail sever receives a message suggesting to came from that domain, that recipient sever can check if indeed the message is legitimate by checking the published stated policy. With this, proper assessment of emails can be made. Once a message is proved fake, then it can be marked as unwanted or unsolicited. Indeed sender policy framework helps greatly in protecting legitimate emails from spam. With SPF, legitimate senders can be free from bounced emails.

If you’re planning to have an email account, AOL is a good suggestion. Try visiting www.aol.com. But if you’re running an online business which uses email marketing and you want to check if your emails are permitted to pass in AOL and other major mail administrators try checking www.emailreach.com. Email reach has services which can help you optimize your emails and make your online promotion flourish.

2007-06-26

Autoresponder


If you are running an online business, then I guess you are pretty aware of online marketing. Through online marketing your business can progress to full measure. One of the primary things needed in an online type of marketing is sending promotional and updates. With thousands of email address embedded in your mailing database, a lot of work is required - from sending opted-in promotional, to answering questions, to following up requests, or even just the confirmation of their subscription for your mailings.

Autoresponder is a computer program (message can be structured in any way you want) that automatically answers email sent to it. With this type of software, answering same questions or requests time and again can be eliminated. Autoresponder can either reply immediately to emails of your clients so that they will know that you have received their message and you are going to tend to it when you’re available. Or you can send price listing of your products, answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) and other fixed information about your business. Just make sure to place a message informing your clients why they are receiving such mailings. This will prevent them from reporting your message as spam.

If you just need an autoresponder that will send a single message such as assuring your clients that you have received their emails, then you can use the autoresponder that comes along with the web hosting package. The set- up might vary from one web host to another, but the activation usually involves your host’s control panel. In some cases, more than one message are to be sent in a definite time interval, with this you can use a commercial or a free autoresponder which can meet the magnitude of the service required. These free autoresponder services serve as a third party, which means that you don’t have any control over them. These services are freely offered in exchange of the advertisements which will be placed in your autoresponders.

Another consideration is making sure that your autoresponder message will not be considered as spam. A simple tag such as “I’m not available” might not appear as spam, but that is not the case most the time. To ensure you of a correct tag message try visiting www.emailreach.com.