If you talk to anyone who works in email marketing, they will tell you that deliverability is a moving target and that standards and best practices are always changing. Many of these best practices are implemented to reduce spam, but done without warning and the legit email marketer is forced to react on the fly. Current standards for deliverability include email authentication, sender reputation, and email accreditation or certification. Internet service providers (ISP) such as AOL and Yahoo, can use multiple variations of these, so for many email marketers the differences can be confusing.
E-mail authentication is the effort to equip a persons email marketing messages with enough verifiable information so that the recipients can recognize the nature of each incoming message automatically. Authentication is normally looked at in two different forms, IP-based and Cryptographic. In short, IP-based authentication systems rely on DNS records that identify a set of trusted IP addresses for sender validation. Cryptographic authentication, on the other hand, is the embedding of a digital signature in your email, and that signature is used to identify and confirm the sender’s identity and authenticity.
There are no universal authentication standards in place, but by authenticating your outgoing emails and thus making your identity clear and verifiable, you are also accepting accountability for those emails. Doing so is seen as a best practice and is a huge part of deliverability and being viewed as a good sender.
Sender reputation is another standard used by many ISP providers as a way to verify good senders. Reputation consists of the monitoring of many variables including complaints, percent of bounces, spam trap hits, as well as a working unsubscribe link. The sender can monitor these variables, allowing them to consistently improve their overall sender score.
The majority of ISP providers use a combination of email authentication and sender reputation to determine the overall quality of the email marketer. The constant moving target is created by how much the ISPs rely on each one of these and what other variables play a role, such as email content. To overcome this constant moving target, another deliverability option has emerged and that is email certification or accreditation.
Email certification is different than authentication because an independent third party is now responsible for the mail, and in a sense, vouching that the mail is legitimate. To become certified, there are certain requirements that you must meet including: demonstrating your email program, sending opt-in emails only, having low bounce rates and spam complaints. Most certification programs make the senders continually prove themselves before they can start mailing to their full list. Once this is achieved, the sender is “white listed” and can bypass spam filters when sending e-mail messages to its subscribers. As long as they constantly meet the policy, practices and performance requirements, the sender should have no problem delivering their message.
The road to great deliverability can be tough to find for many email marketers, but understanding the current standards is the first step to finding that road. We must focus on our authenticity and reputation, and continually concentrate on our current standards. As technology evolves, hopefully there can be a defined step-by-step process to validate the legitimate sender, but for now, we must continue to aim for that moving target.
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