Deliverability Making it to the inbox Peter Ingelbrecht Marketing Manager Citobi

Agenda Citobi in a nutshell The Deliverability challenge The path to the Inbox Building a reputation with the ISP Relevance at the customer Q&A

Belgian company founded in 2000 Combining 3 activities Citobi in a nutshell Belgian company founded in 2000 Combining 3 activities CRM & Relational Marketing Consulting Interactive Projects: conception, creation & execution Actito : Marketing Automation & Campaign Management software € 4,3 million sales in 2007 Multi-disciplinary team of 50 professionals 50+ clients: Toyota, Wolters Kluwer, Pfizer, Kinepolis, Touring, Kia, Brico, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, MSN, Sony, Rossel, Scarlet, Spandex, Basell, RTBF, Deutsche Bank…

The Deliverability challenge % of sent emails that make it to the Inbox Only 82.5% of permission based email !! Source: Email Advisor Report Card Q1 2007 - Europe

It is not just an issue of spammers… 7.6% of permission based mail end in Spam folder !! Not spam

How do you know whether YOU have a problem? Set & track benchmarks for your campaigns Bounce, open, click, conversion rates Surveys Setup test accounts at key ISPs Quid corporate accounts (BtB)? Inbox monitoring service Pivotal Veracity, Return Path,…

Understanding the Path to the Inbox Mailer ISPs User Mail Customers Mail service Web based mail Bounces Spam reporting Feedback Loop Corporate Silent Deletes Safe Sender List

Successful Delivery Building a Reputation Characteristics At ISPs Amongst Users Characteristics No Silver bullet Positive / Negative « deposits » Negative reputations follow

Reputation Building at ISPs (1) Correct mail / DNS server configuration Reverse DNS lookup Abuse protection Rigourous bounce processing Global suppression file (across lists) Get authenticated User Spam reporting Feedback loop Complaint handling & monitoring Black list monitoring & issue solving Whitelisting

Reputation Building at ISPs (2) Consistent & prudent mailing patterns Volume ramp-up & frequency Limited connection pooling SPAM reduction tools Integrated SPAM validator in campaign tool Inbox delivery monitoring features Sender score certification Paid Delivery Goodmail, Habeas Outsource or ensure dedicated resource !!

« Is the sender really who he says he is? » 2 protocols: Authentication « Is the sender really who he says he is? » 2 protocols: IP address based SPF (Sender Policy Framework) + Microsoft SenderID Verifies whether the sending domain has authorised the IP address as valid source Cryptographic signature based Domainkeys, DKIM (Domain keys Identified Mail) In the mail header:

Reputation Building at the User SPAM IS NOT: « I didn’t give my permission » SPAM IS: « This mail does not interest me and I don’t know who it is from » Be rigourous about RELEVANCE: Profiling & Preference Management Move beyond Mass-eMailing: segmentation, life-cycle and event based campaigns

Building User reputation – Checklist (1) Recognisable « FROM » address Consistent Leverage your Brand « Subject » line Avoid spam words (free, win, …) Pictureless rendering should already convince Remind users why they receive the email Stimulate whitelisting/Safe Sender List Timing: spammers send late at night

Stimulating Safe Sender List / Whitelist inclusion

Pictureless emails already communicating key elements

Building User reputation – Checklist (2) Make unsubscribing easy Opt-out is better than hitting the spam button Put at the top of email Unsubscribe procedure should be easy (e.g. no password) Follow best practices for the body Correct HTML Image / text ratio … Pre-test for SPAM filters > 50% of users have a spam filter Test and refine

SPAM Validation needed prior to sending

Peter Ingelbrecht Marketing Manager Citobi For more info… peter.ingelbrecht@citobi.com