Chad White from The Retail Email Blog (a great place to get commentary on popular retailers’ email marketing efforts) posted some notes from a recent email marketing event.

Interesting tips re: email authentication (a free, built-in feature in MailChimp) and how it affects your deliverability:

Deliverability and Authentication:

1. “If your mail is not authenticated, it will go through more filtering,” said Ken Takahashi of Return Path. “If you want less filtering criteria, get authenticated.”
2. “We’re going to get to the point very soon where ISPs will just dump the mail if it’s not authenticated,” said David Daniels of JupiterResearch. He added, “Deliverability is usually the marketer’s fault. It’s your own list.” When choosing an ESP, marketers should put more emphasis on the ESP’s sender reputation than their deliverability.
3. Email marketers should key code their [email address acquisition] data sources and invest in those that perform, said Takahashi. “Grade your partners on the quality of data they give you, not just the volume.”
4. “A clean IP starts with a negative reputation,” said Matt Elliott of Listrak. So you’re better off rehabilitating your reputation.