Email Marketing News and Tips

As an email marketer, you know that getting your email into the inbox can be a challenge. However, more and more companies, organizations and individuals are implementing email filtering to reduce unwanted emails. As a result, these filters can impact your ability to get emails into the inbox when using any Email Service Provider. In this series of three blog articles, we will explore the various levels of filtering and offer explanations and suggestions on how to get your message through the filters.

There are several levels of filters you will encounter in your email marketing campaigns. The following lists the most common locations or levels of filtering you will encounter:

Locations of Filters

1. Mail gateway filters
2. Server level filters (i.e., Exchange managed)
3. Client level filters (such as Outlook or Thunderbird)

Description of Filters

1. The mail gateway filter is usually the most problematic type of filter for an email recipient. These gateway type of filters are optimized and built by the mail administrator over a site. These filters are usually implemented to help reduce unnecessary traffic to the mail server and reduce the overall processing load. The main issue with this type of filtering is that the owner of the email address has no control over these filters and, in many cases, does not know the filters exist. Usually, the recipient finds these filters exist only after an expected email has gone missing and goes looking for it. If the system administrator has built this system correctly, the filter will retain the missing email in a location usually called a quarantine. The quarantine isn’t always available at all sites, however. So, without a quarantine, the email could simply go missing without a trace.
2. Server level filtering are filters that the email account owner can build themselves directly onto the email server. These types of filters are usually editable through a web based interface. For the email address owner, these are the best filters to use. These types of filters work 24 hours a day / 7 days a week without the client running. Because the recipient is in control, the recipient knows exactly what is being filtered. Thus, the recipient can create new filters to allow wanted emails through.
3. Client level filters are filters that get built in the client using message rules (such as within Outlook or Thunderbird). These filters are typically only installed in one single client. So, the trouble begins when you want to read emails using several different devices or with different computers (i.e., at home, on the web, at work and on your iPhone). With client filters, you have to build the filters for each client or, alternatively, you must leave one email client running 24/7 to support the filters. Even still, these types of filters can be slow to respond (depending on how often Outlook or Thunderbird checks for email). This is the least effective way to filter emails.

Continue to Part II