How Tough Are Corporate Spam Filters?
Here“s what you“re up against when you send email to corporate addresses. Since the numbers add up to more than 100%, you can assume companies are using more than one tactic to block suspect email:
1. 61% of IT execs said they use a readymade commercial filtering application or appliance.
2. 49% said they create their own rules to block spam based on message weight /size, keywords, attachments or message type.
3. 37% said they run each message sender through their own blacklist, while 34% said they use public blacklists. The most frequently cited blacklists are Mail Abuse Prevention Service (MAPS), Open Relay Database (ORB), SPEWS, SpamCop, Spamhaus and WireHub/Easynet.
4. 27% use a client-side application like Norton Anti-Spam (about a quarter of respondents said they use that application, the largest single bloc in the study)
5. 10% use an open-source application like SpamAssassin.
A couple other findings:
— Nearly half of respondents who filter say they customize the settings on their filtering application or appliance to be more stringent than the default settings.
— 23% of the people who said they use a public blacklist to screen out spammers didn“t know which blacklist they use.
Return Path has packaged the findings in a free three-page whitepaper which you can download here.
Survey Says: Shoppers Would Sacrifice Privacy for Personalization
How much data can you extract from your customers and prospects on your mailing list before you scare them away? More than you might think, especially if you market to a younger audience.
More than half the respondents to an online survey said they would give up some personal info in order to get more relevant shopping and content, and people under age 35 are more likely to blab than the over-35 set.
Here are a few data points from a new survey on online-personalization from ChoiceStream, a Cambridge, Mass. company that specializes in designing personalization systems for e-retailers and online content providers, as reported Monday in Internet Retailer’s email newsletter:
— 64% of people who filled out an online survey said they would share some of their personal preferences in order to get “a more personalized shopping experience” online
— 56% would hand over some demographic data for the same end.
— 71% of the 18-34 age group would provide personal preferences and 63% would share demographic data.
— In contrast, 57% of everybody over age 35 would specify preferences, and 49% would share demographic data.
— Although people were less likely to permit Web sites to track their clicks or purchase histories (40% said that was okay), younger people had less of a problem with (47% to 32%).
Age also determines the kind of personalized content people want online. The youngest online adults (18 to 24) wants personalized recommendations on music (45%), DVDs (29%) and books (26%).
Personalized Web search results ranked highest with over-50 respondents (35%), followed by books (30%), news (22%) and travel (21%).
Boosting Newsletter Open Rates with Reply Required Contest
Chuck Woodbury, editor at RV Travel newsletter is testing adding a regular reader contest as an involvement device. (We do the same thing at our SherpaWeekly.)
Chuck’s taken it one step further and stolen an idea from radio. If you win his contest, you have to click on a link to fill out a form to get your $50 prize. Which means you have to watch your email like a hawk, looking for a note from Chuck to see if you’ve won.
Plus, he gives a reply deadline. And he notes “And for the record: this newsletter is typically issued at 8:45 a.m., Pacific Time, every Sunday” so folks know when to start watching their in-boxes.
Great idea! We’ll contact Chuck to see how things are going with this in a couple of months when he has some good before-and-after data.
'Spam King' Fined $50K
Oh, and he also has to stop using bogus headers and deceptive routing and domains from now on, and turn over customer records and copies of all emails he sends so that Spitzer“s office can monitor him for three years.
NY Attorney General and anti-spam firebrand Eliot Spitzer made big news last December when he sought a $20 million fine against the self-described Spam King, a figure he said at the time would “wipe out whatever profits he made.”
The fine breaks down to a $40,000 fine plus $10,000 to cover lawsuit costs.
Martha Stewart Changes Email From Name
Yes, MarketingSherpa is on Martha Stewart’s opt-in list (we’ll join anything to gather samples and look for stories for you.) Anyway, today we got our first broadcast since the prison sentence was announced on Friday.
Before now the emails always came “from” Martha Stewart. But today the name that popped up in our inbox was, “Martha Stewart The Catalog for Living”. Can you say brand separation? Now we’re wondering if open and click rates will differ….
It's 2004. Do you know where your leads came from?
Everybody knows spammers are bad, and the only people who are worse than spammers are the uneducated goobers who help make the spam problem worse, and you would NEVER go into business with a spammer, right?
(The correct answer here is “Right!” in case you’re unsure.)
Well, not so fast. Where are you getting your business leads from? We’re not even talking about rogue affiliates but lead-generation services whose collection practices might not stand up even in the weak glare of CAN-SPAM.
A story in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune outlined the business practices of Ryan Pitylak, 22, of Austin, Texas, who apparently is responsible for a big chunk of those emails offering to refinance your mortgage, sell you health insurance or a burglar alarm or extend your car’s warranty.
Instead of actually doing the deal, though, the emails from any of over 200 shell companies Pitylak and a partner set up directed clickers to a form that collected name, address, household income and other identifying data.
Pitylak and his partner then sold the information as leads for $3 to $7 each. Companies the Trib ID’d as buying the information include IndyMac Bank, ADT Security and MEGA Life and Health Insurance.
Although the Trib couldn’t get Pitylak on the record to talk about his business, one of his clients had no problems discussing it.
“‘I just buy them from the lead companies,’ said Kathy Mobley, regional director for MEGA Life and Health, based in North Richland Hills, Texas. ‘I don’t know how they get them. And I don’t care. As independent contractors, we can market our business however we want to by legal means.'”
Legal? Maybe. But the practice definitely creates a murky permission trail, since nowhere in the Trib story does it say that the emails notify the respondents about the companies that will be getting their personal information.
It's 2004. Do you know where your leads came from?
(The correct answer here is “Right!” in case you“re unsure.)
Well, not so fast. Where are you getting your business leads from? We“re not even talking about rogue affiliates but lead-generation services whose collection practices might not stand up even in the weak glare of CAN-SPAM.
A story in Sunday“s Chicago Tribune outlined the business practices of Ryan Pitylak, 22, of Austin, Texas, who apparently is responsible for a big chunk of those emails offering to refinance your mortgage, sell you health insurance or a burglar alarm or extend your car“s warranty.
Instead of actually doing the deal, though, the emails from any of over 200 shell companies Pitylak and a partner set up directed clickers to a form that collected name, address, household income and other identifying data.
Pitylak and his partner then sold the information as leads for $3 to $7 each. Companies the Trib ID“d as buying the information include IndyMac Bank, ADT Security and MEGA Life and Health Insurance.
Although the Trib couldn“t get Pitylak on the record to talk about his business, one of his clients had no problems discussing it.
““I just buy them from the lead companies,“ said Kathy Mobley, regional director for MEGA Life and Health, based in North Richland Hills, Texas. “I don“t know how they get them. And I don“t care. As independent contractors, we can market our business however we want to by legal means.“”
Legal? Maybe. But the practice definitely creates a murky permission trail, since nowhere in the Trib story does it say that the emails notify the respondents about the companies that will be getting their personal information.
How to get editorial pros to contribute content to your house email newsletter
Per today`s Case Study, Lewis Weiss was able to trade on a long-standing advertising relationship in order to get custom-created content from a recognized industry expert in each issue of his email newsletter.
It’s a sweet deal, but other marketers can copy it if they swing the same kind of heft among trade magazines or vendors.
Some considerations:
— Are you a major advertiser in a trade magazine, Web site or email newsletter? We’re talking a regular contract for display ads of at least a quarter page in print or skyscraper-size online, not one-time deals, or co-op or classified ads.
The next time the publication’s ad salesperson comes around looking to get extra money from you to underwrite a special issue, ancillary program (like the audiocassette program for Weiss) or the like, see if there’s room to barter away some of the cost by picking up a key writer.
You should try to get the writer to produce something special for you. Failing that, try to negotiate the rights to rerun a column by a popular writer.
— If you don’t have that kind of ad-dollar pull, look at your own vendor relationships. Do any of them have exceptional knowledge to share that your customers would also appreciate?
Although he doesn’t have a separate contract with his writer — terms are covered under his ad contract with Purchasing magazine — I recommend that marketers who use talent from outside their companies work with a contract that specifies the following work conditions:
— Pay: How much, how often and how much if any should the company cancel an issue?
— Copyright: Does the marketer or the writer own the copyright to the material the writer creates for the newsletter?
— Editorial content and control: Who has the final edit on copy, the newsletter publisher or the writer/editor? Who determines the editorial calendar, solicits articles and artwork and works with the newsletter designer?
Here’s a link to a standard freelance writer’s contract template (modify for your own needs)
Spammers Named in Arial Study
We were wrong when we told you last week that Arial Software didn’t ID the three spammers it uncovered in its six-month undercover study of email marketing practices.
The three got busted in a related report intended to reassure consumers that they won’t get spammed if they opt in to email newsletters from reputable companies.
The three, all freebie-giveaway sites, are Prizeomatic.com, freebiepeople.com and memolink.com .
The report suggests that no consumers “in their right minds” would mistake any of these for Fortune 500-level emailers, but that’s beside the point.
Consumers will report even opt-in email from Fortune-500 companies as spam when it comes too often, becomes irrelevant or irritates them in some other inexplicable way.
What’s the most likely way? Forcing consumers to uncheck the box giving permission to share their names with third-party advertisers.
Check out Arial’s spam audit and the CAN-SPAM compliance survey mentioned last week (you don’t even have to register for them):
http://www.arialsoftware.com/whitepapers/SpamAudit2004.pdf
Gmail Watch Week 9: All Quiet on the Western Front
Either people are all talked out over the opportunities and challenges that Google’s email service Gmail presents, or else everyone’s going quiet as Google heads into the final stretch leading up to its IPO.
It also looks as if Google has reined in its viral expansion program for now — we’ve received no new invitations to pass along for over a week. Previously, new ones would be handed out as soon as the old bunch were used up.
Some big emailers have been stressing over the possibility that the emails they send to Gmail addresses will pick up contextual ads from their competitors, but let’s consider that problem in reverse:
If YOU are a Google Adwords advertiser, YOU are the one who could end up on a competitor’s page.
Another big potential headache can also turn into a benefit: Your competitor could be featured for free in the list of “Related Pages” that appears under the sponsored text ads to the right of the email’s message.
This can also happen in reverse: At least once in the last week or so, an entry for MarketingSherpa.com has shown up in the Related Pages list on the daily email messages from our friends at MarketingVOX.com.
We’re still checking to see if our site saw any kind of traffic spike on that day.
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