One of the top challenges of any coordinated e-mail marketing program is maintaining a "clean" reputation with ISPs. Indeed this task can consume so much time and energy that many companies choose to abandon e-mail marketing efforts altogether. However, through the effective management of spam complaints, a good reputation can be preserved and e-marketing campaigns can be strengthened.
Why do recipients complain?
The common belief is that no one really knows why, but this is a misconception. There are very concrete reasons why recipients believe they’ve been victims of spam. It starts before your recipients ever receive a single message from you. How did you get their email in the first place? If you work from an opt-in list (one in which subscribers voluntarily provide their email address to you through a secure web page) you’re already taking a step in the right direction. Yet, this isn’t always enough. Remembering all the different companies you’ve provided with an email address is difficult – and often recipients simply forget they signed up to receive communications. This is where double opt-in lists are exceptionally helpful. With a double opt-in, a user provides their email address through your secure web site, then receives a confirmation email to the address that was provided. If your web site notifies customers of this policy, and then sends a confirmation email with a formatted subject line this will dramatically help reduce future spam complaints. What a formatted subject line means is that there’s a consistency across all emails that look similar to that first confirmation email so that there’s less chance a recipient forgets you. For instance, if your confirmation email subject line says, "XYZ Industries Invites You to Confirm Your Subscription" then it’s helpful if your future emails say "XYZ Industries" somewhere in the subject line as well.
Beyond opting in and proper subject lines, limiting spam complaints comes down to being a responsible marketer. That means resisting the urge to send too many emails and giving users the opportunity to easily unsubscribe. Most third-party email marketing companies recommend a clear unsubscribe link as part of every message. Some even recommend a link at the top of the email as well. "Not interested in receiving our emails anymore? Please click here to unsubscribe," is usually all that’s needed. What you want to do is give users any other option besides reporting your message as spam.
Why ISPs Care About Spam Complaints
ISPs are businesses, and just like any business managing customer satisfaction is a key to their success. Not only will customers that receive a lot of spam likely discontinue using that ISP, an ISP may have to spend a lot of time and money to manage customer complaints. So, it’s understandable that ISPs want to limit complaints as much as possible. Instead, they rely heavily on their spam filters and customers "sorting" emails to help them identify companies to blacklist. Getting placed on a blacklist is the inevitable result of too many reports of spam associated with your company. So how many complaints are too many? It varies from one ISP to another, but generally, you want your percentage of spam complaints to be below 1.5% (this means that out of 100 recipients, only 1 complaint is acceptable). Why such a low tolerance? ISPs know their clients are more willing to take extra steps to permit the emails they want than they are to take steps to limit unsolicited emails. They know that clients can add senders to their whitelists or "safe senders" list if an email happens to get mistakenly filtered. On the other hand, when a client receives spam emails, they’ll start complaining to the ISP. The more you can do to show the ISP, and your recipients, that you’re their partner in eliminating spam the less likely it will be that your messages will be reported as spam.
What Do I Do If I’m Reported?
Part of a smart complaint management system involves what happens after a client clicks an unsubscribe link. Will you just remove their name and address from your list? Or will you try and find out why the customer is no longer interested in your communications? It can be as simple as providing a few check boxes or a response area for your recipients to tell you why they’re leaving. Some third-party companies even recommend a "help" or "report abuse" email link that’s separate from an unsubscribe link. By monitoring the emails that go to this address, you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make changes to further enhance deliverability and reduce complaints. The other simple step you can take is to unsubscribe users immediately and without a lot of hassle. True, it can be hard to see a subscriber go and it’s certainly unfortunate if it happens by mistake, but send an email confirming an un-subscription and you can expect a spam report. The same goes for emails that get sent after a user un-subscribes. In addition to monitoring your own spam feedback, make sure you’re checking the feedback loops provided by ISPs. AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, they all have feedback lists that you can check to see which users are reporting your content as spam. Be sure you check these feedback loops often, and that you follow the instructions carefully, since they vary from one ISP to another. If you see a subscriber that’s reported you as spam, remove them from your list immediately. Even if they’re a double opt-in subscriber, they’ve reported you once so they’ll do it again. And repeat offenses are the quickest route to an ISP blacklist. And blacklist issues are some of the most difficult deliverability issues to resolve. Even though these various tasks can be time-consuming to manage, they’re vital to your success as an e-marketer.
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