EMAIL BLACKLISTS’ IMPACT ON EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN

There is one downside to email marketing that you should know about – email blacklist. Let’s talk about emails. Yes, you read that right. We’re referring to the oldest form of communication done online. You might think that it’s old school and no longer relevant. There are a lot of different and much easier ways to reach your customers, right? After all, they’re just a bunch of messages sent to an inbox that may or may never be opened. Is email marketing still worth the effort?

The short answer to that is a resounding yes and we’ve got the stats to prove it. According to DMA, email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing channels with a 3,800% ROI (that’s an average earning of $38 for every $1 spent). How is that possible? Well, for one thing, half the world’s population have email accounts. According to Statista, there were 3.7 billion global email users in 2017. It is expected that there will be 5.6 billion active email accounts by the end of 2019.

Here’s another startling fact about emails – billions of them are sent every single day. In 2017 alone, there were 269 billion emails sent and received daily. By 2022, that number is expected to balloon to 333 billion.

And here are a slew of other facts that you should convince you that email isn’t dead yet:

• 99% of consumers check their email every day.
• According to Campaign Monitor, people are 6x more likely to click-through an email campaign than one sent from a tweet.
• According to McKinsey, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.
• According to Marketing Sherpa, 72% of people prefer to receive promotional content through email than any other means.
• A study from McKinsey & Company shows that employees spend 13 of their working hours every week on average in their email inbox.
• According to Forrester Research, 90% of the email gets delivered to the intended recipient but only 2% of your Facebook fans will see your posts on their feed.

We could go on and on about all the statistics that prove how email marketing is still a very relevant and highly effective tool in growing your customer base. But we think we’ve proved our point. Because of the popularity and effectiveness of this tool, it can easily be abused (we’re talking about SPAM email here). If you’re thinking about starting an email campaign, it’s a good idea for you to be aware of the pitfalls so you won’t find yourself in one. Below, we discuss what email blacklists are, how you can check if yours is, and how you can reduce the chances of getting on that list.

What Is an Email Blacklist?

If you think that an email blacklist is a list of email addresses that have been blacklisted, then you’d be partially correct. It is, in fact, a real-time database that uses set criteria to determine if an IP address or a domain is sending spam emails. The database then compiles this data which is referenced by email servers, blocking any emails that come from any IPs and domains included in the database from reaching the intended recipients.

To put it simply, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) monitor all the IP addresses and domains that send an email. So, every time you send an email, your IP address or domain is logged. This creates a history of sorts on your email activity. From this data, ISPs create a list that they refer to like a cheat sheet to see if you have a history of sending a good or bad email. That cheat sheet is the email blacklist.

So, why is this relevant to email marketing? Well, an email marketing campaign consists of a series of emails sent by organizations to communicate with current and potential customers and persuade them to engage with the company. If your IP address or domain is included in an email blacklist, one of two things can happen. Your emails can end up in the spam folder or not get delivered at all. Both of which will lead to zero engagement.

So, how does one avoid getting on this list? Take note that there are several blacklist sites such as Spamhaus, SpamCop, and Involvement. There are several ways that you can optimize your email marketing campaign and avoid getting on an email blacklist. One of the most important steps to take is to make sure that you do not send emails to dormant or inactive email addresses. These have probably been recycled into spam trap addresses. Sending emails to these addresses indicate poor email list hygiene which can cause you to become blacklisted. If you send messages to email addresses that have typos (i.e. @hitmail.com instead of @hotmail.com) or those that have never been used to sign up to receive email, chances are you’ll also end up getting blacklisted because this again indicates that you used poor list acquisition practices (scraped or purchased the email addresses from someone). Fortunately, there’s an easy surefire way to avoid all this trouble by simply using an email verification tool for cleaning up your list. Doing so reduces your bounce rate which, in turn, makes your campaigns more successful.

Other methods you can employ to avoid getting your IP blacklisted is to build your email list naturally, include an unsubscribe link in your email, send content that’s relevant to the reader, and don’t send emails too often.

Is My Email Blacklisted?

This is a question you need to ask yourself regularly if you are running an email marketing campaign. It’s not unheard of that due to the automated algorithms used to detect bad senders, it is easy enough for a good sender to be mistakenly included in the database. Then again, a lot of the time, it’s the senders who are not placing enough importance on how they are sending their email campaigns and the possible repercussions of their actions. Below are some triggers that can result in getting blacklisted:

• A sudden increase in the volume of email sent from your IP may indicate that you’re a spammer.
• High spam complaint rates. All email marketing campaigns will get a bit of flak from some of the recipients. However, ISPs usually have a limit and if you receive more complaints than their accepted limit, they may just start sending your messages to the SPAM folder or even block them.
• Poor email list hygiene which we’ve already explained above.
• Bad content. Some certain words and phrases are often associated with spam emails such as “money back offer guaranteed” and “free.” Messages in all caps with a lot of exclamation marks and red color may also indicate your message is spam.

“So, is my email blacklisted or not?” It’s easy enough to check. A low open rate is a good indication. To be certain, you can easily check one or more of the blacklists. The MultiRBL is a free multiple DNS blacklist service that checks all other lists by IPV4, IPV6, or by domain. The CBL Lookup Utility allows you to check if your IP has been listed by Spamhaus. For the most part, you can get your IP “delisted” by getting in touch with the owner of the blacklist through their website. Be proactive and address any issues as soon as possible. This helps prove to ISPs that you are serious about your email reputation and want to do everything you can to remedy the situation.

Once you are off the list, you need to reduce the chances of getting on that list again. The key here is maintaining your email reputation. Reputation management means keeping an eye on your complaint rates and making sure you’re adding new subscribers the right way. To do the latter, you need to apply the following practices:

#1: Implement a validation API and/or send a confirmation email. This enables you to only get valid email addresses on your list. It helps prevent typos or recycled spam traps from getting on your list. And it helps reduce the number of spam reports as well as unsubscribes.

#2: Send to opt-in, permission-based lists. These are lists that contain the email addresses of customers or subscribers who have expressly given their permission to be added to your mailing list and receive emails from you.

#3: Remove any email addresses from your list that have not opened or clicked a message in a while. This not only improves your sender reputation (because you are only sending emails to people who are engaged with your company), it also helps lessen spam reports and unsubscribes. Plus, it reduces the risk of invalid email addresses staying on your list.

#4: Don’t send too many emails in a short amount of time. And don’t send out emails erratically. Stick to a consistent email sending schedule.

#5: Send relevant content. As we’ve already mentioned, you need to provide value to your recipient. Otherwise, you may get reported as spam. Moreover, relevant content will increase open rates and clicks which, in turn, can improve your email reputation.