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Archive for the ‘Spam Topics’ Category

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Most Common Spam Filter Triggers

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

We’re working on an experiment in the MailChimp Lab to help us automatically detect when someone’s about to send something too spammy from MailChimp (no, this is not what the supercomputer is for). We’re using Cloudmark, Barracuda, and Spam Assassin (and possibly Postini in the near future). We picked those, because they’re the most commonly used—and vexing—spam filters.

We’re not planning to expose any secret formulas, or help customers “get around spam filters.” It’s more of a behind-the-scenes, “big brother” tool to help us catch exceptionally bad campaigns before they get sent. That’s the idea, at least, and we’re not sure when this’ll go live.

For now, we’re doing research. We’re currently scanning a few hundred thousand campaigns sent through MailChimp over the years, to see how many “false positives” we might trigger.

In the process, we’re uncovering a lot of innocent mistakes made by senders, plus a few surprises.

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Posted in Abuse Desk Stories, Deliverability, MailChimp Labs, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 35 Comments »

Email Marketing Etiquette: Lesson 1

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Here’s a little clip from an upcoming new series of MailChimp Training Academy videos we’ll be launching soon:

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Posted in Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | No Comments »

Firm Sued Over Tradeshow List

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Ken Magill reports that the firm Email Appenders is getting sued for allegedly selling an unauthorized list of attendees at an Internet Retailer tradeshow. The full story link is below, but here’s my fav quote so far, from the president of Email Appenders:

“We have the list because we sent one of our sale executives there,” he says. “Is there anything wrong with collecting business cards and selling the list?”

Um. Speechless.

Found via Deliverability.com

I ran a search on “tradeshow lists” on the MailChimp blog to try to find old articles that talk about why they’re dangerous. The search tool almost exploded. Tradeshow lists are probably the most common reason we have to shut down accounts on MailChimp (they generate too many abuse complaints). Here’s a handful for you:

Posted in Spam Topics | 1 Comment »

MailChimp Helps Bail Out Mailman Steve

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Mailman Steve Padgett, age 58, stood before a Federal Court judge recently to receive his sentence. The crime? Delaying and destroying the very mail he was supposed to be delivering– third class mail, or more commonly, the JUNK.

This spring, authorities were contacted by a utility worker who noticed what appeared to be an excessive amount of mail piled at Steve Padgett’s home in Raleigh. When postal authorities went to investigate, they discovered third-class mail stacked in Padgett’s garage and buried in his lawn.

According to Padgett’s attorney Andrew McCoppin, it wasn’t a conscious stand against waste or a junk mail protest that spurred the mailman to hold onto the mailers. Rather, it was the inability to meet the demands of a job in a growing part of the county while contending with heart problems and complications from his diabetes.

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Posted in Deliverability, MailChimp News, Spam Topics | 19 Comments »

Desperation Marketing

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

It’s the holiday season, and that means more people than ever will be procrastinating until the very last minute to “get started in email marketing.”  And that means they’ll be in a rush to “get this email blast out.” If this sounds like you (or one of your clients), be sure to read this:

Desperation Marketing Courts Email Hell

Waiting till the last minute is one of the most common email marketing mistakes.

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Posted in Emarketing, Business, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | No Comments »

Major Spam Source Knocked Offline

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Is your spam folder surprisingly empty this morning? This might be why:

Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline (Washington Post)
“We looked into it a bit, saw the size and scope of the problem you were reporting and said ‘Holy cow! Within the hour we had terminated all of our connections to them.”

And have you ever wonder how spammers make money anyway? And how much?

Study shows how spammers cash in (BBC News)

“After 26 days, and almost 350 million e-mail messages, only 28 sales resulted…the response rate for this campaign was less than 0.00001%…these conversions would have resulted in revenues of $2,731.88—a bit over $100 a day for the measurement period,” said the researchers.”

So how do spammers send so many emails, anyway? If they can do it, there must be some legal loophole allowing anyone to do it, right? So that means we can all buy emal lists and blast out spam. Right?

Um, no. Spammers have to hijack computers to do their dirty work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet (scroll down to “Formation and Exploitation”)

If spammers can get away with this, then so can I, right?
They don’t. And no, you can’t:
Authorities Shut Down Spam Ring (NYtimes.com)

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Posted in Spam Topics | 1 Comment »

Comcast Delivery Tips

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

A couple days ago, Comcast sent an email asking for feedback about their feedback loop. Rare to see an ISP genuinely asking email senders what they think. Anyway, this meant I got to speak with one of their senior spam analysts on the phone today. Now I’ve spoken with a lot of ISPs, and I can tell you this was unlike any other conversation I’ve ever had. Comcast was human. Friendly, even. It was refreshingly Comcastic.

He gave me some tips that I could pass on to our readers. So here you go:

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Posted in Abuse Desk Stories, Deliverability, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 11 Comments »

What makes a good permission reminder?

Monday, October 27th, 2008

A “permission reminder” is a little blurb in your email campaigns (usually in the footer) that helps your recipients remember how you got their email address. In some cases, it can help prevent you from getting reported or blacklisted as a spammer.

Here’s a good permission reminder:

And here’s a bad one from a campaign that received 300+ abuse complaints:

I wouldn’t go so far as to say this “bad” permission reminder is what caused hundreds of abuse complaints. It’s more of a symptom of a much larger problem. But that’s a topic for another blog post.

Back to the original question: What makes a good permission reminder?

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Posted in Abuse Desk Stories, Email Design, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 15 Comments »

Is Your Email an Invited Guest or a Drunken Frat-boy?”

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Neil Schwartzman from ReturnPath asks, “Is Your Email an Invited Guest or a Drunken Frat-boy?”

“Now, when an invited guest comes into my home, and I suspect yours as well, they must ring the doorbell, be polite on their way in and during their visit, perhaps bring me a bottle of wine or other consideration, and thank me upon departure…Do you act like a honored guest, or a drunken frat-boy who shows up for 

the fifth time this week with a keg at 1 a.m., pounds on the door, breaking in through a window, vomiting on the couch, and finally passing out on the kitchen floor, and refusing to leave when roused?”

That’s the difference between permission email marketing, and “I-have-a-right-to-email-them” marketing.

If you request permission, send a proper welcome email message (with gift), and send relevant, expected emails to your subscribers, you’re an invited guest.

If you tell your sales team, “Okay, we’re blasting out an email campaign tomorrow, so everybody export your Outlook address books and CRMs and send me your batch of prospects asap,” you are that drunken frat boy.

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Posted in Emarketing, Business, IMHO, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 2 Comments »

Webjam 2008 Session – Email Design 101

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Last Friday I spoke at WebJam Session 2008. My session was “Email Design 101.” I was a little nervous talking about anything “101″ to a group of experienced web designers, but fortunately, email marketing is still fairly nebulous. So it seemed to be new material for a lot of people. The session went well, except for two things:

  1. I ran out of time, and
  2. Someone chimp-napped our lifesize MailChimp sign from the lobby of the conference center, and is now posting ransom messages on twitter.

Re: the MailChimp sign, I *wish* we had the foresight to plan this kind of “gorilla marketing,” but we’re not that smart. Someone actually stole Frederick von Chimpenheimer IV from the event. Of course we don’t mind, but it’s fun playing along.

Anyway, I promised attendees to my session that I’d post some resources here on the blog, so here goes…

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Posted in Email Design, Emarketing, Business, MailChimp News, Spam Topics, Tips, Tricks, Best Practices | 4 Comments »

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