Improve Your Email Marketing Program by Leveraging Subscriber Complaint Data

Tom Sather Sr. Director, Research Return Path @tom_sather @returnpath

#Complaints

What are spam complaints?

"Feedback loop (email)" by Ale2006-

Subscribers Mark Emails As Spam

• Contact the Postmaster • “This is Spam” button • Feedback panels

Why Do My Subscribers Complain?

#1: I didn’t think I signed up with your email program

Solution: Use an Opt-in Mechanism for Consent

#2: I don’t know who you are

64% Open Emails Based on Who It’s From

Brand Recognition - Start with the “From:”

Avoid people’s names, unless it’s well recognized.

Lacks any branding, and comes off as unfriendly.

Uses First Name, but also includes Brand Name

Brand Recognition

#3: This Isn’t What I Expected

Customize Subscriptions

#4: It’s not you. It’s me. I’m just no longer interested.

40% How many people unsubscribe using the “this is spam” button

Source: ExactTarget

List-Unsubscribe

Know when it’s time to say goodbye

How can I manage complaints?

AOL Bluetie/Excite Comcast Cox Fastmail Hotmail Mail.ru OpenSRS/Tucows Rackspace (formerly Mailtrust) RoadRunner/Time Warner Cable Synacor Terra USA.NET United Online/Juno/Netzero Yahoo! Zoho.com • See more at: http://blog.returnpath.com/blog/henry-gutierrez/what-is-a-feedback-loop

Sign up for feedback loops

ARF - Abuse Reporting Format

From: <abusedesk@example.com> Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2005 17:40:36 EDT Subject: FW: Earn money To: <abuse@example.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=feedback-report; boundary="part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary" --part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is an email abuse report for an email message received from IP 10.67.41.167 on Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 EDT. For more information about this format please see http://www.mipassoc.org/arf/. --part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary Content-Type: message/feedback-report Feedback-Type: abuse User-Agent: SomeGenerator/1.0 Version: 0.1 Original-Mail-From: <somespammer@example.net> Original-Rcpt-To: <user@example.com> Received-Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 EDT Source-IP: 10.67.41.167 Authentication-Results: mail.example.com smtp.mail=somespammer@example.com; spf=fail

Prepare for Feedback Loop formats - ARF

Reported-Domain: example.net Reported-Uri: http://example.net/earn_money.html Reported-Uri: mailto:user@example.com Removal-Recipient: user@example.com --part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline From: <somespammer@example.net> Received: from mailserver.example.net (mailserver.example.net [10.67.41.167]) by example.com with ESMTP id M63d4137594e46; Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 -0400 To: <Undisclosed Recipients> Subject: Earn money MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain Message-ID: 8787KJKJ3K4J3K4J3K4J3.mail@example.net Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 12:31:03 -0500 Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam --part1_13d.2e68ed54_boundary--

Feedback-Type: abuse User-Agent: SomeGenerator/1.0 Version: 0.1 Original-Mail-From: <somespammer@example.net> Original-Rcpt-To: <user@example.com> Received-Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2005 14:00:00 EDT Source-IP: 10.67.41.167 Authentication-Results: mail.example.com smtp.mail=somespammer@example.com; spf=fail

Identify subscriber from ARF and then suppress from future mailings

Yahoo! FBL Complaints: Sample Only

If Yahoo! isn’t sending me

all of my complainers, how can I lower my complaint rate?!?!

1.  Analyze Yahoo! Sample 2.  Unsubscribes 3.  FBL Complaints from

other ISPs

What should I be analyzing?

Who did we send the email to?

What was the content of the

email?

When in the lifecycle of our

overall campaign did they

complain?

What’s the acquisition source?

Questions to ask yourself:

Complaint Percentage by Subscriber Vintage in Days

Subscriber Vintage: How long have subscribers been on your file?

Email Frequency and its Effect on Complaints

Average # of messages sent per week 5+ 4 3 2 1 Average subscriber spam complaint rate 0.005% 0.020% 0.026% 0.037% 0.571% Average retailer Sender Score 62 86 89 86 83 Average "This is not spam" Rate 0.40% 0.22% 0.73% 0.89% 1.07% Average Inbox Placement Rate 71% 96% 98% 94% 92%

Source: Return Path, Inbox Insight, October – December 2013

Subscription Source: Where did the subscriber sign up?

Subscriber Complaint Percentages by Source

Case Study: Using Data to find Complaint Source

1.  Segmented FBL complaint data by source

2.  Looked at offline sources of email address collection as well

3.  Found the suspect - Point-of-sale email addresses were generating complaints 3x higher than the next highest

4.  Found that employee’s quota to collect email addresses was causing high complaints, and spam traps.

Campaign

1. Welcome emails 2.  Promotional 3.  Invitations 4.  Incentives

Demographics

Gender: Women more likely to Unsub versus Men 17% vs 7% Are women more likely to report email as spam?

1.  Day of the week

Timing’s Impact on Complaint Rates

Other Tactics to Reduce Complaints

Target Mobile Users

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

iPad

iPhone OS 7

iPhone OS 8

Source: Return Path, Email Client Monitor

“This is Not Spam” – Rarely used, But Highly Trusted

Ask for Help

Let’s Connect!

Tom Sather Sr. Director, Research

@ReturnPath @Tom_Sather

Tom.Sather@returnpath.com

www.returnpath.com

Contact Us! http://www.returnpath.com/contact-us/