Spam Filters - A Legitimate Email Marketer's Friend?


by:  Joe Halbrook
http://www.CleanMyMailbox.com


In the "early days" of email marketing, it was easy:

Quality content - delivered at a frequency readers want it.

But, in the past 18 months, legitimate email marketers are
finding that the rules of the "early days" just don't work
any more.  Why?  Because of the plethora of email filtering
solutions that have come on the scene to combat the flow of
unwanted email.

Brightmail, spamarrest, Mailblocks, MailWasher, SpamEater,
Singlefin, oddpost, and others all help mailbox owners reduce
the amount of time they have to spend scanning and deleting
unwanted email.  Practically each month, we read about others
who are offering ways to filter unwanted email - and for
good reason.

But, as legitimate email marketers are finding out,
publishers are suffering from those same filters.  Why?
Because of an inherent flaw that results in an endless cycle:

1.  Email recipients install client-side filtering software
    or server-based solutions that filter unwanted email
    from their mailboxes.

2.  The spammers also install and use these same filtering
    solutions.  They study them. And they find out exactly
    how to get past these filters.

3.  The filtering solution vendors figure out how the spammers
    are able to get past their filters and they come up with
    new logic to foil the spammers.

4.  Repeat steps 2. and 3. forever.

No real solution is ever achieved because  1) the filtering
software is attempting to make decisions as to whether an email
is spam based on ever-changing heuristic tests, and 2) the
spammers use the same software to test their filter
"stealthiness" and always find ways to get their refuse past
the filters and into your mailbox.

Legitimate email publishers are being hurt by these spam
filters.  And these days, many have touted the infamous spam
filter as the beginning of the end of the legitimate email
marketing industry, as defined in the "early days."

But, is this true?  Or can legitimate email marketers turn
this kind of thinking on end, and prove that today's spam
filters are actually a godsend for legitimate email marketers?

Are there ways that legitimate email marketers and publishers
can insure that their publications always can get past the
spam filters, allowing the filters to do their job in removing
all the noise, and putting their legitimate publications in
the spotlight - where they belong?

We're happy to inform you that it's easy to accomplish!
Using just a few precautions, legitimate email publishers can
easily prevent spam filters from affecting their email
marketing efforts.  And by applying these suggestions,
legitimate email publications can easily survive the dreaded
spam filters, and become the shining stars that they
rightfully are.  Here are five precautions that make this happen:


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1.  Provide Whitelisting Instructions For Each Publication.
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Here's a free tool you can use to generate custom whitelisting
instructions for your publication:

Generate Whitelisting Instructions

Just because legitimate email publishers receive those challenge
response messages (you know the ones that say "Your email has
been filtered. Please enter the text imbedded in the image above,
and click the Submit button to prevent future filtering.")
doesn't mean that your publication is doomed to never be read
by those subscribers.

In fact, if your publication consistently adheres to the principles
of excellent permission marketing, it will be anticipated and
your readers whose spam filters catch your publication will
immediately whitelist it, based on some criteria that will prevent
future mailings.  So, there's no need for undue stress when you
see those challenge response messages after you distribute your
publications.

All legitimate email publishers should provide the ability to
whitelist their publications by one or both of two criteria:

A.  Subject Line whitelisting.

This is where you provide instructions that explain the use of
one or two keywords that will always be present in the subject
line of each mailing of your email publication(s).  By always
including that one or two keywords, your readers can setup a
whitelist entry or specification that tells their filtering
solution NOT to filter YOUR publication(s).  Of course, you will
always use two or more keywords in sequence, so that the
whitelist entry can be defined as a phrase, i.e.:

TechBits:
I-Sales Digest

B.  Sender Address whitelisting.

If you always use the same From:  mailing address in your
mailings, let your readers know this.  They can simply add
a single Sender address whitelist entry or specification that
will prevent future filtering.  If you use another scheme
in your From: email address such as an imbedded date or
volume/issue number, be sure to tell your readers what portion
of those addresses will remain constant.  Any good spam
filtering solution will provide a way to whitelist on this
"partial" email address.  For example, if you use:

From:  issue-20031214@my-site.com

consider changing the From: addresses to this format:

From:  20031214-issue@my-site com

and provide instructions that a Sender address whitelist
entry could be setup to use:

issue@my-site com


Be sure to include a prominent link to your whitelisting
instructions web page in each mailing you send out. You'll
see those challenge response messages decrease quickly.


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2.  Clean Your Mailing Lists Periodically.
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We all know how our mailing lists can get "dirty" in just a
short time, as people abandon email address (most likely
because of spam) or their mailboxes exceed their ISPs
allowable quotas.

This means that every time we send out a mailing, we get
bounce-back messages from each addressee who can no longer
receive our mailings.   While continuing to mail to these
addresses may keep our subscription numbers high, it really
serves no purpose.  Advertisers want results; they're not
inclined to spend more money with you just because your numbers
are high.  With the advent of CPA and CPC strategies, big
numbers hold little weight.  Advertisers want results - not numbers.

So the need to keep our lists "clean" of undeliverable addresses
is of utmost importance.  Not only do we want a quality list,
we then do our share in not wasting bandwidth both in mailing
and receiving bounce-backs from invalid addresses.

Many listserver solutions provide built-in bounce-back processing
that allow you to remove addresses after a set number of
failed delivery attempts.  If yours does not, there are
list cleaning services available to do this for you.  Just do
a search in Google using the search term:  "list cleaning" and
you will find more than a few companies who offer list cleaning
services.


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3.  Make Use of Spam Checking Software.
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Today, there are more than a few ways to make sure your email
publication is fairly "filter stealthy."  Of course, if you take
care of points 1. and 2. above, this precaution is not quite as
imperative.  Still, it can make a huge difference for readers
whose filters that are not as whitelist-friendly, and for those
newer filtering solutions may take a few months to mature.

There are a few spam filter analysis services, as well as stand-
alone programs that you can purchase to pre-test each mailing for
it's spam filter stealthiness.  Most will return a weighted score
that indicates the characteristics that make your publication more
or less likely to be caught in the spam filters.

Again, a quick search at Google using the search terms "spam filter
trigger words" or just "trigger words" will reveal resources
that can help you make sure your mailings are optimized to prevent
filtering.


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4.  Watch Out For HTML Mailings.
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Most email client software today can be configured (and many are,
by default) to filter HTML emails, simply because of the threat
of malicious email-borne viruses.  Unfortunately, many users of
such email software such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora,
Netcape Messenger, etc. do not know that their email clients are
configured to do this, and do not know how to change the
configuration setting.

Therefore, publishers of HTML email, while many enjoy the format,
will lose readers simply because they do not offer text-only
versions of their publications.

Our Recommendations:

1.  Offer an optional text-based version of your HTML publications,
    and offer your readers a choice of which format they wish to
    receive.

2.  Explain to your readers how to adjust their email clients to
    NOT filter or alter HTML emails.  (Of course, many may not
    take advantage of your suggestions, because of the preeminent
    fear of email-borne viruses.)

3.  Continue to use HTML publications, only put them on a web site,
    and send out only a text-based "ticker" email to your list
    which contains a Table Of Contents for the publication, and
    points them to your full web-based version.


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5.  Promote:  CleanMyMailbox Web-Base Anti-Spam Solution
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While some of today's spam filters provide the functionality that
facilitate whitelisting using the methods described today - not
all do.  Therefore, we recommend that you promote the use of the
CleanMyMailbox permission-based filtering solution to your readers.

Not only can you rest assured that your mailings will be delivered
to gain their "light in the spotlight" where they should be,
but your subscribers will thank you for pointing them to the
only permission-based filtering solution that does away with
today's awkward blacklisting - which have been proven to fail
time after time.

Additionally, CleanMyMailbox makes sure that spammers can no
longer use the same spam filtering solutions that rid us of unwanted
email against mailings of the plethora of excellent legitimate
email publications.  They cannot get past a filtering solution that
is based on a permission whitelist by design.

CleanMyMailbox is a premier filtering solution that is a Friend of all
legitimate email publishers, as they strive to get their publications
past the spam filters.


Sincerely,

Joe Halbrook, CTO
Permission Technologies
http://www.CleanMyMailbox.com


p.s.  Know someone else who complains about spam filtering?  Why
      not pass this information on to someone else who could use it?
      It's as easy as forwarding it right now.

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