// Crunch Mode

Tips for Improving Your Site's Mass Mailing Delivery Reliability

Well, for the last two weeks,  I've been working very hard on improving the delivery reliability of all the emails I send from my site IRateMyDay.com.  The problem when having a very high number of users (>7000), is that sending 1 daily email can get out of hands very fast. 

Almost from the start of my site, many mailing services (like Hotmail) started to consider my emails as SPAM.  At first, I didn't care much, since I was sending a very low number of emails and many messages got through the users' mailbox.

But recently, I saw a decline in my user's activity.  I first thought that the summer period was the main reason, but in the last few weeks, the activity level didn't get back to a normal state.  The reason is now that most of my emails get to the Junk folder of my users.

I was looking for a solution.  Here are some tips that I implemented myself and that are already doing a difference.

Tip: The most basic fact: in EVERY email you send, make sure you include specific instructions on how to unsubscribe from your mailing. 

My experience: The truth is, I didn't consider this seriously from the start, and to unsubscribe, I asked the user to login in their account and edit their profile.  This was an error, as this was way to much complex.  KISS (Keep It Simple & Stupid).

Solution: Include a 1-click unsubscribe link in all emails you send.

Tip: Make sure you have an SPF.

My experience: I took way too long before considering adding a SPF in my domain's DNS entry.  The day I added mine, emails got through most anti-spam filters.

Solution: Today's mail server checks the validity of your IP.  Make sure you create one. See Microsoft Sender ID Framework SPF Record Wizard.

Tip: Keep your mailing list clean.

My experience: again, I didn't consider cleaning my mailing list until a few weeks ago.  This was an error, as most anti-spam filters will consider you a spammer if you send too many emails to un-existing mailboxes.  Since I started cleaning my mailing list, I can already see a difference.

Solution: Read, read and read some more the error codes you receive from your SMTP emailing software.  Reply codes like 450 and 550 should be taken care of quickly.

Tip: Read more about the most used providers.

My experience: In my case, Hotmail's users are almost 50% of my mailing.  So I got interested are to know what makes them consider my emails as spam.  As it turns out, they give quite a few tools to help you to improve your mailing list.  See my previous post on the topic.  I also have many Yahoo users, so I started approaching Yahoo to see how I can improve my delivery.

Solution: There's no secret here: visit the providers' sites and follow their good-behaviour recommendations.

Conclusion: Doing legitimate bulk mailing is not an easy task.  These tips are a first step in the good direction.

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