1. Deliverability Making it to the inbox
Peter Ingelbrecht
Marketing Manager Citobi

2. 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

3. 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…

4. The Deliverability challenge
% of sent s that make it to the Inbox
Only 82.5% of permission based !!
Source: Advisor Report Card Q Europe

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

6. 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,…

7. 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

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

9. 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

10. 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 !!

11. « 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:

12. 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- ing: segmentation, life-cycle and event based campaigns

13. 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
Stimulate whitelisting/Safe Sender List
Timing: spammers send late at night

14. Stimulating Safe Sender List / Whitelist inclusion

15. Pictureless emails already communicating key elements

16. Building User reputation – Checklist (2)
Make unsubscribing easy
Opt-out is better than hitting the spam button
Put at the top of
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

17. SPAM Validation needed prior to sending

18. Peter Ingelbrecht Marketing Manager Citobi For more info…