Email Marketing News and Tips

As more and more companies attempt to stem the tide of spam, spam appliances have become almost common  place in business.  Here’s what you need to know to help your mail get through.

Today’s Filtering Appliances

Commercial filtering appliances are not really new, but they are becoming more turn-key (and low cost). This means that smaller and smaller companies can afford to purchase one of these devices, install it and have it running in only a few days (in some cases, the same day).  In the early days, spam filtering was complex.  With appliances such as Barracuda’s spam firewall, this system allows an administrator to set up spam filtering in a very short time without too much work.

How do these appliances work?  

These appliances have web based front ends that allow you to configure exactly how you want your mail to be filtered.   These appliances combing Real-Time Blacklists (RBLs) with, as an example, Barracuda’s own reputation filters.  In essence, these interfaces are completely customizable by the system administrator.  During each configuration step, Barracuda offers recommendation tips on how to define a particular setting on the unit.

Where’s my email?

How the administrator chooses to configure the spam appliance is entirely up to the administrator.  This means that while there is a default configuration that comes on the unit out-of-the-box, it really isn’t very usable that way.  So, the administrator is forced to make choices to set the unit up. 

The main settings for how to handle a piece of email is in the following:

• Do Nothing
• Quarantine
• Tag
• Block

 
The setting that does the most damage without people’s knowledge is ‘Block’.  This setting is extreme and harsh.  While it may prevent unwanted emails, there is also a chance it could also block legitimate email.  If you are a business, this may not be the best setting to use.  This is particularly true if you are a small business and a missed email could blow a deal in the works.  That’s why there are also other settings.
 
Tag is the setting that allows the recipient to decide what to do with the email once in the mail client.  Tagging is how many older systems worked including Spamassassin.  Tagging is the least problematic, but it also pushes off processing of garbage email to the recipient.

Quarantine sidelines the email until it can be reviewed.  Most administrators use this technique to sideline unwanted emails for a time and forward on an email if a user complains something is missing.  Unfortunately, this setup requires the mail administrator to manage the quarantine and keep it clean and functional.  So, this method can be time consuming for the administrator.

Your email campaign

These spam filtering appliances use many methodologies to block emails.  Because these methdologies can be enabled or disabled by the administrator, you will need to ensure that the users in your list are aware of the symptoms of a spam filter and what to do should they suspect false positives.

If your users suspect false positives, they will need to contact their IT department to discuss the issue.  Sometimes, it’s a matter of looking through the quarantine and the administrator will find undelivered emails.  They can release the emails and send them on.

Content

There are things you can do to help reduce your chances of being caught in the net.  Make sure that your HTML syntax is correct (no long lines, all tags are closed, etc).  As far as content goes, make sure you aren’t using trigger phrases like “FREE’ or ‘20% Off’ or ‘$9.99′.  Phrases like this in the subject line are almost immediately flagged as problematic.  When you create your campaigns, be sure to give them a subject that’s relevant to your body content.

Boomerang can help you improve your emails to get better responses.  Our sales and customer care staff work dilligently to help you get the best results possible.