An email campaign is a marketing concept that aims at establishing contact with multiple recipients at once — usually to offer promotional materials or special offers. Email campaigns are engineered to reach out to both existing customers and users who have yet to come into contact with a brand and spread the word about an existing product. Email campaigns are some of the cheapest and most relevant ways of reaching out to a demographic since they use one of the most common online resources available, which is email.
Establishing a functional email marketing campaign is hard work. It takes a substantial amount of manpower and long hours to build up the framework and make sure that the presentation of the message is right for the end customer. However, certain scenarios in which your email may not reach its end goal negate all the hard work put into the campaign. Having the wrong email address could result in an email bouncing and not reaching the recipient. Full inbox folders could also be a cause for an email to bounce. These are just a few reasons that could hinder your email campaign; most of these are either out of your control or do not cause a large enough impact to cause trouble.
The biggest enemy of an email marketing campaign is the blacklist.
What is an email blacklist?
A blacklist is an online database that consists of email addresses and IPs that have been or were suspected of being involved with the generation and spread of spam content. The goal of an email blacklist is to categorize and log every potential spam source, not allowing them to contact other users. Blacklists function very similarly to how a user block functions on social media: the user still has a functional profile but they can no longer contact you or other members of your circle.
But how does it actually work? Simply put, the IP address of a suspicious account is added to an enormous online list that consists of hundreds of thousands of other IPs. These lists create a DNS or Domain Name System ban on the email accounts which blocks outgoing emails. Every email sent from a blacklisted account is sent to a spam folder.
Blacklists have done wonders for reducing the number of spam emails that regular users receive daily. Unfortunately, while this technology can be helpful, it can also do a lot of harm to email marketing campaigns. Often, a company email could accidentally find itself on a blacklist. Depending on the database type, the blacklist could proactively search and locate other emails associated with the company and ban their IPs as well. This will result in a severe reduction in outgoing emails that are delivered to customers. As we all know, email marketing campaigns live and die by their ability to contact as many customers as possible.
Who operates and maintains blacklists?
These days you can do a basic Google search for blacklists and come up with at least 30 different companies and tools that claim to help reduce incoming spam towards your Inbox. The problem with most of these tools is that they are either independent and small or not entirely recognized by your MSP (Mail Service Provider). MSP’s such as Gmail and Yahoo allow you to upload and use any spam filter you like as long as you can configure it yourself. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that any of the smaller blacklists will have any effect on the spam to mail ratio.
There are eight critically recognized email blacklists online that have proven to successfully reduce spam flow. As you will see, Gmail and Yahoo are not included as they do not make their blacklists available to the public. Bigger MSPs use their own blacklist database that cannot be moderated or changed by the user. We will be focusing on the top 4 blacklist databases.
1. Composite Blocking List
This blacklist is maintained by Spamhaus. Their database mostly blacklists IPs that feature malicious spam bots, third-party email applications, and open proxy attacks. Becoming blacklisted on CBL is quite easy, especially if your email was dragged into a web application compromise accident. De-listing from their blacklist can be done by submitting an inquiry to their website. Be warned that you will be blacklisted again if the underlined issue (such as spamming) is still present.
2. Spamhaus Block List
Spamhaus is a proactive blacklist operation that takes the fight against spam to the next level. Not only does SBL have an extensive data file with known offenders, but they also own thousands of fake email addresses used to attract and target known spammers. These fake email addresses are known as spamtraps, and their goal is to identify and blacklist users who spread malicious malware or phishing scams.
Becoming de-listed from their blacklist is a little harder than in most other companies. You will have to contact Spamhaus directly and request a lift on your IP ban; in some cases, Spamhaus might require you to submit your email metadata for analysis to determine whether you are an offender. If your IP is shown to have been used as a relay for spam attacks, only your MSP can request removal.
3. XBL Exploits Block List
XBL mainly lists corrupted IP addresses and personal computers that are relaying spam software through their MSPs. Some malicious attackers create ‘sheep’ out of personal computers. A sheep, in these terms, is referred to as a hacked computer that, unknowingly to the user, is using its servers as an SMTP gateway for spreading spam.
To request a de-listing from their blacklist, you will need to submit a request through the Spamhaus Blocklist Remove Center. In some cases, this request needs to be initialized by your Internet Service Provider.
4. Spamcop
Similar to Spamhaus, Spamcop uses a proactive method of dealing with spam. They own thousands of spamtrap addresses that catch incoming spam and report the activity to the mother server. They feature a merit-based system for personal email addresses that allows further usage before an email is completely blacklisted.
These four blacklist companies manage the bulk incoming spam attacks. Most of them are integrated into larger MSP and work seamlessly behind the scenes to reduce incoming threats to your email. The following are similarly useful, yet not as widely used blacklists:
- Invaluement
- Barracuda
- Passive Spam Block List
- SenderScore
If your sender IP is featured on any of these lists, you will most certainly have problems with reaching out to customers.
How to find out if you are on an email blacklist and how to remove the IP ban?
Landing yourself in one of these blacklists is easier than you think and occurs on a daily basis. Most of the blacklist companies work on a ‘single complaint’ basis, which means that all it takes is a single spam complaint from a notable user to make your personal or company email go into the blacklist. Here is a comprehensive list of several reasons why a blacklist could have marked your personal or company email:
- Frequent spam complaints;
- Inappropriate email name or email content;
- Unusually high number of bounced emails;
- An enormous email list accumulated over a short time;
- Attached phishing details in the email body;
- Low open and click rates;
- Low domain opens;
Since there are so many blacklists out there, there is no need to panic if you land yourself on one or two of them. If you create and operate email marketing campaigns, sooner or later, you may get blacklisted by at least one.
Key steps to determine whether you’ve been blacklisted include, but are not limited to: email open rate, frequent bounce rate, and sudden drop in email analytic engagement. You can use publicly available tools such as DNS lookup to check if you’ve been blacklisted.
- MX Toolbox
- DNSBL
- MultiRBL.Valli.org
- DNS Stuff
These tools are easy to use and available to the general public. However, if you are not sure how to operate with DNS, make sure you contact your MSP. More often than not, larger Email Providers will answer any inquiries regarding blacklists and give you helpful tips on upkeeping your email hygiene. Proper email hygiene means that you only use the appropriate ways of correspondence with the end customers.
There are plenty of tips and tricks not to get blacklisted, but the essence is rather simple — send out quality content your recipients will find useful. This, first of all, implies segmenting your CRM contacts into relevant groups, personalizing the email contents and its subject line, and sticking to an adequate email sending schedule.
Always remember that it’s primarily individuals who report your emails as spam, not larger companies. Make sure to analyze your email campaign for clues that could be causing such sudden drops in customer satisfaction. We suggest you take a look at Marketing Database Building and How to Score Leads Online since both articles deal with the appropriate techniques for approaching the end customer and increasing your email marketing success.
Image source: pixabay.com
