Getting into the inbox, part three: The secrets behind Whitelisting     New SpamScore tool

Email Deliverability Series, Part Three.

Getting into the inbox:
The secrets behind whitelisting

Whitelisting is not all black and white, here's what you need to know.

As a legitimate email sender trying to get your message through, it pays to understand how and why email gets blocked.

In the battle against spam, the primary arsenal deployed today is a combination of content filtering, white lists and black lists. The email industry is moving towards authentication and certification methods with the advent of authentication technologies such as SenderID, Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and DomainKeys.

Here we will examine the issue of white lists and their effect on email deliverability. In part one of this series, we reviewed how spam content filters work along with some specific advice on avoidance techniques. In the previous issue we discussed a particular challenge one customer faced getting their email through to the Yahoo inbox. Future issues will cover blacklists, authentication, and other email deliverability topics.

Do I have to be whitelisted to get my email through?

Companies that provide email services to their customers, such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo use whitelists to help identify legitimate email senders from spammers.

For example, if you send a high volume of email to AOL for example (many thousands of messages from your IP address to AOL within a short time frame), then AOL will check their white list to see if you are an approved bulk sender. If you are, the email goes through, if not, it disappears into the void. Being on a white list however, is no guarantee the email will go direct to the inbox, as some ISPs will still route all white listed email through their spam filters before delivery.

You have to apply for whitelisting by filling out some forms and detailing your email configuration, policies and opt-in/opt-out procedures. If you don't qualify, that doesn't mean your email is automatically blocked. It just means your email will go through all of their spam filtering and this may limit the total number of messages their server will accept at one time. Once your IP/domain is accepted, it remains under scrutiny for any spam complaints or other non-compliant activity and may be removed at any time.

The reason most online email services promote their whitelisting efforts and ISP relationships is because they have to. All of their users are essentially mailing from the same mail server, so the total volume of email sent from that IP address is typically higher than your average email server, and the content and lists are sometimes questionable. Who knows what the other people sharing the same server are sending? Any complaints related to email sent from that server has potential negative consequences for everyone else who sends from that server. Perceived spammers are identified by IP address, so once that IP address gets blocked, everyone sending from that same server is also blocked regardless of their own practices.

When you are sending from your own email server, the total volume of email sent is likely to be less, and therefore less of a threat to any ISP who is trying to protect their customers and their email infrastructure from spam. And, as you control both the content and lists, there is less risk of spam complaints (depending of course, on what you are mailing and to whom) so long as you abide by the CAN-SPAM regulations.

If you are sending hundreds of thousands to several million email messages, then you will likely benefit from becoming whitelisted by the ISPs you send to, or subscribing to one or more of the paid white list services.

How do I know if my email is delivered to the inbox?

The issue of whitelisting is really about deliverability–which is another way of saying reaching the inbox and not the junk folder.

If you mail from a static IP address (an email server with a dedicated IP, not a dynamic IP that is assigned at random when you connect), follow email best practices, clean your list of invalid and opt-out addresses, avoid spam filters and send with CAN-SPAM compliance, your actual inbox delivery rates should be excellent. But actual inbox delivery is notoriously difficult to measure.

Some email vendors may claim numbers like a 96% delivery rate, but you have to ask how they calculated that number. Typically, a delivery rate is most often calculated as the difference between the number sent and the number bounced (undeliverable). Using this metric, a high delivery rate really just tells you the mailing was sent to a clean list with valid addresses. That calculation tells you nothing about how many messages were put into the junk folder.

There is no way of calculating the true delivery rate with 100% accuracy. There are some services available to help you estimate delivery by using seed lists and monitoring the junk folders. You can employ a similar method yourself for free, by setting up a number of email addresses (at Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, and other ISPs for example) and adding them to your mailing list. Simply check the mail boxes from time to time to determine if your message makes it through to the inbox or not.

Another way to check for deliverability issues is to use the delivery by domain report feature, and look at the open rate. If you see a zero open rate for email sent to a particular domain (such as yahoo.com) over a two-week or longer time period, then you likely have a deliverability issue with that domain or ISP.

The secret benefit of sending from Outlook.

Simply by using Outlook to send email you actually stand a better chance of getting your message into the inbox.

In our internal tests, even a standard auto-response email from a web site (for example, a newsletter sign-up confirmation) is 50% more likely to be directed into a junk folder than the same message sent from Outlook.

Why? The answer lies in the email header, which is invisible to you and me as part of the email message, but is code used by the email servers to identify and direct the message. The information contained in this header plays an important role in deliverability. Outlook messages are identified as coming from Outlook within the email header, do not typically have a reply-to address different from the senders address (as would be the case using any online or automated email service), and also include all the information an email server uses to identify the message as coming from an individual.

You can easily test this yourself. Just send the same email message from Outlook and some other email systems to a set of your email inboxes, including your free email accounts at Hotmail and/or Yahoo.

By using PoliteMail, you gain these email delivery benefits while being able to send to lists.

The most effective, but least used, white list option.

Most email clients now offer a personal white list feature, including Microsoft Office Outlook (safe senders) and HotMail (safe list). With AOL, Yahoo and Gmail you simply add the address as one of our contacts, and they are considered safe. Getting on a personal white list allows you to bypass all the ISP filtering, but does require the recipient to take the steps necessary to add your address.

You may notice some newsletters ask you to include their address on your safe list, but of course you only see this request if their email actually made it into your inbox, reducing any motivation to take the necessary steps. A better place to ask would be at sign-up, but again you are still dependent upon the recipient taking the action. I've never done it. Have you?

Is there a benefit to paid whitelisting services?

Paid whitelisting services are an interesting and controversial business.

In some cases both the ISP and the white list service split the income, resulting in alarm over it becoming a method to collect email postage.

Unfortunately at this stage, the primary benefit of a paid white list service goes to the service who collects your money, as you may or may not see a difference in your actual delivery rate. Typically paid white list services do not include any measurement.

Some have referred to paid white list services as black mail or extortion, and I do wonder about a service that anyone can pay (spammer or otherwise) to get their email delivered. Also, if your competitors are clever enough to get on your list and then file spam complaints against you, what's to stop them?

The bottom line is that some major ISP's are now using these services, and depending upon the volume of email you send and the revenue you derive from it, you may benefit from participating, if you can afford it.

Next issue: Black lists.

The About.com email marketing guide rated PoliteMail 2.0 4½ stars out of 5.

PoliteMail Pricing and Product Literature

How to get whitelisted for free:

Generally, major ISPs and email providers maintain their own whitelisting services for legitimate bulk senders.

Each has their own application process. If you are sending a high volume of email to particular ISPs or email providers, it may be worth your time to get your email IP address whitelisted.

Generally, you will need to provide details about your email server setup, opt-in/opt-out policies and procedures, and show a history of mass email sent from your IP with few complaints (less than 0.1%).

AOL whitelist guide and form

Yahoo request form or send a request via email abuse@yahoo.com to apply for whitelisting.

MSN Hotmail requires a SenderID/SPF record set-up for your email server. Hotmail also uses the paid whitelisting service of Sender Score Certified ($400 set-up and $1,000/year to start) with no guarantees of delivery.

Gmail relies upon their users to control spam and does not support whitelisting.

Verizon whitelist application

Paid white listing services:

If you send lots of email and can afford the additional expense, you may consider using one of these paid whitelisting services.

Goodmail Certified Mail

Habeas

Sender Score Certified

SuretyMail Email Accreditation

New SpamScore™ tool released

Wondering why your legitimate commercial email isn't making it to the inbox? Now you can send it to SpamScore@politemail.com and find out.

The SpamScore™ service will run your email through a spam filter, and send you back the resulting score, along with reasons for any spam points it accumulated, allowing you to adjust your content.

The SpamScore service is built into PoliteMail 2.0 and is also available as a free service.