Best Practices in Email Deliverability

Act-On Best Practices for Email Delivery

Best Practices in
Email Deliverability

How to maximize email deliverability for
greater campaign success

Act-On Software
www.actonsoftware.com
© Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved

Best Practices in Email Deliverability

Table of Contents

Introduction: Best Practices in Email Deliverability 1

I. List and Contact Management 2

II. Spam Filtering 6

III. Content Filtering: a Deeper Look 10

IV. Authentication 14

V. Reporting and Tracking 15

VI. Sending Email 16

VII. Top Ten Delivery Best Practices 17

Appendix A: Email Delivery Glossary 18

Appendix B: CAN-SPAM Compliance Guide 20

Appendix C: Tips to Avoid False Positives 22

Deliverability failures remain a challenge for commercial email senders,
with an average 1 in 5 emails never reaching the inbox.
—Return Path’s “The Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report,” 1H 2011

Copyright 2012 © Act-On Software. All rights reserved.


Introduction: Best Practices in Email Deliverability

For an email campaign to be successful, marketers must blend art and science to reach
the right person at the right time, with the right offer. Much planning, analysis, and creative
work go into creating a campaign that can motivate people to take that next step on the
buyer’s journey. But no matter how compelling your email is, if it doesn’t reach the inbox –
you’ve lost that opportunity. If you know the basics of deliverability, you’re better prepared
to build emails that will actually reach your potential customers.

What is deliverability?

Deliverability is simply the measure, usually expressed as a percentage, of how many
emails actually make it into the inbox. Deliverability is affected by the business process
of an email service provider, but the most critical factors rest with the sender.

Who should read this paper?

These best practices are intended to provide the marketer who is directing, managing, or
creating email campaigns with practical recommendations to improve email deliverability.
The emphasis is on useful tactics, not technology.

Best practices

Further sections of this paper get more granular, but at a high level, these are the key best
practices:

1. Send only to prospects who want and expect your email

2. Send meaningful, relevant content to the right person, at the right time

3. Practice good list hygiene

4. Comply with all legal requirements

associations, and/or consider joining an organization such as the American Marketing
Association (AMA), Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Marketing Automation Institute
(MAI), et al. The Email Experience Council, the email marketing arm of the DMA,
maintains a helpful website: https://www.emailexperience.org

This is a living document. If you have best practices to share or comments, please contact
us at support@act-on.com.

Copyright 2012 © Act-On Software. All rights reserved. 1


I. List and Contact Management
Your email delivery results improve when you send only email that is wanted and
expected, and purge old, inactive contacts.
For practical reasons, sending email that recipients want and expect dictates that bulk
email should be opt-in. People who are interested in your offers and expecting them will
generally engage with your email in some way, enhancing your deliverability rates. Mailing
to people who aren’t expecting your email increases the odds that your email will be
deleted or ignored. That penalizes your delivery rates. Here’s why:

Webmail providers often track engagement
Some webmail providers track how engaged subscribers are
with an email and its sender. Positive actions tracked may ESPs and
include opening a message;; adding an address to the contact Webmail Providers
list;; clicking through links;; clicking to enable images;; and An email service provider
scrolling through the message. Negative actions may include (ESP) sends, receives, and
reporting the email as spam;; deleting it;; moving it to the junk stores email for end users
folder;; and ignoring it. or organizations. A webmail
Webmail providers may use these metrics (and more) to provider furnishes and
determine whether your email should be blocked, delivered to administers Internet access for
the inbox, or delivered to the junk folder. When receivers interact end users, including small and
medium businesses, and is
that email from this sender is generally wanted, and should be almost always an ESP as well.
delivered. Mail that receivers ignore or delete may be delivered “Commercial” ESPs provide
to the junk folder...or not at all. Some webmail providers take third-party email marketing
abandoned email addresses and turn them into spamtraps. services.
What this means for the marketer is:
A spamtrap is an email
If you have too many unengaged or abandoned addresses on
address used to lure spam, so
your lists, webmail providers may mistake your email for spam
it can be added to a blacklist or
and block it, or route your email to the junk folders, or throttle
other blocking mechanism.
the number and/or rate of emails you can send.

In an ideal world, all the good leads would subscribe to your lists, and you’d always send
email that recipients want. If a recipient stopped wanting email, they would unsubscribe
and stop receiving the email. Recipients would never change email addresses, or if they
did they would notify you of their new addresses.

Alas, the real world is messy, and addresses of even engaged recipients can go bad.
Subscribers don’t always remember to move subscriptions to new addresses. People lose
their passwords and get locked out of their email accounts. Recipients ignore email they
don’t want instead of unsubscribing. Employees leave jobs, and their email accounts may
not be deleted. Given time, even a good list will develop “list fatigue.”



The rules of engagement
Maintaining high recipient engagement requires active contact
management. Disinterested or inactive receivers often don’t An Internet Protocol
bother to unsubscribe from email that they don’t want to receive;; address (IP address)
they just delete or ignore it. As a list ages, more and more of these is a numerical label
unengaged users accumulate on the list, degrading delivery. assigned to each device
(e.g., computer, printer,
One best practice is to purge unengaged addresses before too server) participating in
many accumulate. Determining how long a contact should stay on a computer network;; it
serves as host or network
inactive contacts, requires an understanding of your particular
market and demographics. For instance, marketers working with and location addressing.
products or services with long buying cycles will have different
Every email sent comes
business and marketing processes than marketers working with
short buying cycles. All marketers need to be cautious about
IP address.
mailing too often, no matter how engaged contacts are.

What to purge
The overall goal of purging emails is to remove those email addresses that no longer
deliver to potential customers. Sometimes that means removing addresses abandoned
by their users;; other times that means removing addresses belonging to users who are
no longer interested in your products or services. It’s a good practice to remove role-
based email addresses, such as “info@company.com” or “sales@company.com.”

You can use metrics to identify abandoned or unengaged accounts, based on available
data. “Available data” on a known prospect might include email activities such as
opens and clicks. If you’re using a marketing automation system, it might also include
website visits, downloads, and webinar attendance.

How to purge
How a sender implements purging from their email list is just as important as deciding
what to purge. The two viable options for purging are:

1. Simply remove any addresses that meet purging criteria (usually time and activity)
from all future mailings

2. Send a re-engagement email asking users to take an action to stay on the list

Removing addresses that meet purging criteria from all future mailings works for some
senders. These senders typically have low ROI from each individual address, so
spending the money and time to send a re-engagement campaign isn’t cost effective.



When to purge
Many delivery experts advise purging any address displaying no activity for an arbitrary
time, typically 12 months. But the time that’s right for you depends on the buying cycle for
your products or services. Your organization’s sales data can provide a trustworthy guide
to the typical engagement period for buyers;; let that dictate the right time to implement a
purge campaign.

Depending on your industry, lists containing addresses that are three or four years old
are generally prime candidates for purging. Standard industry metrics indicate that up to
30 percent of addresses on a mailing list may turn over in just one year. Most of these
addresses are not unsubscribed and never bounce;; they’ll just register as not engaged.

problems have surfaced. If you wait until your email is blacklisted or delivered to the junk
folder, you risk having to make much more aggressive purging decisions than marketers
who proactively manage their data.

delivered to the junk folder, with no clear indication as to why. Some email may be delayed
or rejected. These minor delivery problems signal it’s time to consider implementing a list
hygiene process.

Re-engagement
Sending a re-engagement message offers a chance to win back the recipient. A re-
engagement message usually alerts a recipient that their subscription is expiring due
to lack of activity, and entices the user to opt in again to continue receiving the email.

spamtraps from your list. Your list will lose some numbers, but usually the people lost were
unengaged, poor prospects anyway.

recipient to come back. This can have a better response rate than a single email. In a B2B
environment, sales development reps may call inactive recipients. This has the advantage of
getting direct feedback from the recipient about their current business needs, and can result
in an internal referral if there is a new or better contact.

If a subscriber doesn’t interact with the re-engagement email or series of emails, then it’s
time to remove their address from future sends. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the
subscriber is lost to you forever. If you’re using an integrated marketing automation platform,
when a former subscriber’s interest re-ignites and they visit your website, you’ll still know
who they are. You can send that purged subscriber an email to make a special offer or tell
them what’s new, with the goal of signing them up again.



Maintaining list cleanliness
Purging is not a one-time event. In order to maintain list hygiene, senders should have an
ongoing process of data maintenance, including monthly re-engagement campaigns. An
initial purge may be large, particularly for lists that have a lot of very old email addresses
on them;; subsequent purges will likely be limited to a fraction of the subscribers acquired
in a single month. Passive list maintenance, through bounce handling, feedback loop
management, and unsubscription handling also helps keep a list clean.

Best practices for list management
Mail to people who want and expect your email. Contacts who opt in are your best
prospects

Encourage recipients to add you to their address books;; make it easy to do so
Have a clear privacy policy for subscribers
Build lists, don’t buy them
Develop online forms that encourage people to indicate their interests;; use this
data to create targeted subscription lists
Make it easy and obvious for contacts to opt out (beyond CAN-SPAM
requirements)
Honor “unsubscribe” requests immediately
Determine an optimal mailing time and frequency, and stick to it, for consistency

Best practices for list cleaning and maintenance
Clean your lists on a regular basis
Understand the engagement cycles of your sales process
Identify the point where recipient engagement drops;; segment disengaged
subscribers by useful criteria, such as whether they ever made a purchase
Re-engage inactive contacts with messaging and offers targeted to their
specific segment
Purge inactive, unengaged contacts when necessary



II. Spam Filtering
Email Marketing Reports suggests that deliverability is a branding issue, and asks:
“If you have delivery issues and land in the spam folder, will people start to think of
you as spam, even if you’re not?”

from unwanted bulk email. They’re also useful for blocking malicious email, including virus

target markets.

the process. While there is overlap, we can conceptually divide the process into three stages.
Stage 1: Should this email be accepted?
Stage 2: Where should this email be delivered? To the inbox or the junk folder?
Stage 3: How should this email be displayed?

Stage 1: Should this email be accepted?

receiving webmail server. The receiving server must decide whether to accept the email
or not. At this point, the only thing the receiving server knows about the email is the IP

reputation of that address.

Reputation check
When it comes to IP addresses, past performance is an indication of future results. If an IP
address consistently delivers good email, then it is very likely this new email is good, too.
If an IP address consistently delivers bad email, then it is very likely the new email is bad,

using IP addresses with good reputations.

Most IPs send a mix of good and bad email;; your reputation may fall somewhere in the gray
area. This is where blacklist (see next entry) tagging comes in. If the email is in the gray
area, and is tagged on a blacklist, then it may be rejected. If the email is in the gray area but

Most webmail providers do check domain reputation during this stage of email delivery.
They look at domains (example.com), URLs (www.example.com/landing_page) and email
addresses (john.doe@example.com) in the email. Domains can be checked against
internal or external blacklists.



Blacklists
Webmail providers build internal blacklists (sometimes called “blocklists”), which are
lists of IP addresses that will be blocked to prevent spam, viruses, or phishing emails
from reaching the end user. Different types of blacklists identify different types of harmful

like spamtrap hits or complaints. Some list domains commonly found in spam. Some list

Many organizations use “external blacklists.” These are industrial-strength (and often
expensive) blacklists compiled by third-party specialists. Checking an IP address against
a blacklist is a simple way to look at an email, but the action taken after the check varies.
Email servers may block all subsequent email from blacklisted IP addresses, or simply

Botnet check
Many viruses and botnet infections masquerade A botnet is a collection of compromised
as servers, but have characteristic behaviors or computers connected to the Internet (each
compromised computer is known as a
email servers. The receiving server checks for ‘bot’). When a computer is compromised
these characteristics. If the sending server looks by an attacker, there is often code within
like it is infected, then email is rejected. the malware that commands it to become
part of a botnet.
Decision and action
Depending on the answers to each test during the evaluation phase, the receiving email
server will make one of three decisions: to accept the email, reject the email, or defer
delivery for some period of time. The email server also evaluates its own current state. If
there is a heavy load on the server, more email may be deferred, with deferrals completely
unrelated to any spam status of the email. The feedback that the sending server receives
will be one of three states:
We accept your email
We’d like you to wait and try later
We don’t want this email

Email that passes all the evaluation checks gets accepted into the receiving email
server and is passed on to the next filtering stage. Email that fails all evaluation
checks is rejected. Email that is in a gray area can be tagged;; accepted and passed
onto further filters;; or deferred for later.

Deferrals
Some deferrals are done based on reputation alone;; others are based on server overload;; still
others on some combination. When email is deferred, the receiving server can collect more
information in preparation for the next delivery attempt. Deferrals do not automatically mean
there is an actual problem with the email. Deferrals over long periods of time may indicate a
problem with the sender’s IP reputation.



Stage 2: Where should this email be delivered? To the inbox or the bulk
folder?

reputation becomes a less important factor in these decisions.

Content evaluation
A soft bounce is an email message
that makes it to the recipient’s mail
to the complex: word use, misspellings, the ratio of text to
images, font colors, the subject line and actual text in the
but is bounced back undelivered before
message, and much more, including the hidden structure
it gets to the recipient. This can happen
of an email.
if the content didn’t pass muster, the
receiving server is overloaded, or the
receiver’s mailbox is full.
and known good email, and determine how like spam
A hard bounce is an email message
the email is. Some tests look for distinctive features from
that has been returned to the sender
particular pieces of software. For instance, there was a
and is permanently undeliverable.
piece of spamware that used a fake time zone value in its
This may be due to an invalid
email headers. Email with that value was always spam.
address, or perhaps the email
Another type of spamware forged an MS Outlook string.
recipient’s mail server has blocked
Email containing this string was always spam.
your sending server.
Other tests look for features that are in both spam and
non-spam email. A lot of spam advertises diet pills, so legitimate email mentioning weight
loss may receive a positive score (indicating spam) due to the word “diet.” Likewise, email
that mentions loans or business cards or Viagra may also receive a score simply for
mentioning things often mentioned in spam.

are evaluated based on the reputation of the domain, and sometimes the IP address the
domain or hostname points to. Domains and URLs have their own reputations separate
from the reputation of the sending IP address.

Once all tests have been run, the server has a compiled numerical value for the email. This
value is compared to the internal standard value and the email is delivered either to the
inbox or the bulk folder. On rare occasions the email server may determine that this email is
very malicious, and throw it away without notifying either the sender or the receiver. This is
uncommon and should not happen to legitimate mailers.

address books, so the ISP delivers all email from that address to this user’s inbox. Users



Stage 3: How should this email be displayed?
In this stage, the webmail provider determines whether or not it will display the email with

on the email content, the result of any authentication test, and the user’s preferences.

Some webmail providers display authentication results to the end user in the email client.
Senders that pass authentication get a green check mark or other signal that the email is

box or no comment at all.

The business inbox, and a note about large corporations
Businesses often protect inboxes with third-party systems such as those by Symantec,
McAfee, WebSense and others, which can impede delivery;; it’s estimated that only 80
percent of email is delivered to the inbox through these enterprise systems.

Large corporations often have email systems that rival webmail providers in recipient size
and complexity. They may use third-party blacklists, and/or other third-party spam appliances
or software. The vendors of these various systems sometimes share threat information

Small- and medium-sized businesses sometimes outsource their email systems to commercial
webmail providers and so are subject to that provider’s rules and restrictions.

Send to people who want and expect your email
Use a consistent “From” address
Make sure your company name and contact information is obvious
Craft a clear, strong subject line and create compelling, concise content
Make sure links point to valid domain
Have a high ratio of text to images;; avoid image-only email
Avoid hard-to-read color combinations
Don’t use all caps
Minimize or avoid Flash and JavaScript
Make the opt-out process easy and obvious
Comply with all CAN-SPAM requirements
Identify your brand in the subject line
Use email authentication (see page 14)



III. Content Filtering: a Deeper Look

email through when it comes from a “partially good” sender.

things;; good content can compensate for poor structure, or vice versa.

to the end user. Headers, footers, pre-headers, HTML structure, text parts, images, and
domains are all analyzed as part of the content screening, and compared to other email,

poor or unknown reputation.

reputations and using them to send unwanted email. There are a number of spammer
techniques that borrow the reputation of an email server in order to attempt to get spam

without hurting the authentic email coming from that IP address.

How software affects content analysis
Some of the distinctive content differences between wanted and unwanted email are due
to the sender’s use of written language. Some of the differences are due to senders of
unwanted email trying to hide their identity or their content. Many of them are due to the
different quality software used to send each sort of email. Mail clients used by individuals,
and content composition software used by high-quality ESPs, tend to produce well-written
code, complying with email and MIME RFCs, and common practices for email composition.
The software used by spammers, botnets, viruses, and low-quality ESPs tends to write bad
code that’s noncompliant with the RFCs. (See the glossary for information about RFCs.)

not cause you problems.



Header analysis
Email headers record the technical steps of email delivery as part of the email. Most
email clients hide the email headers from the recipient by default. Filters and email

the headers must contain in order to be valid email. The standards also allow for some
optional information to be included in headers.

Some spamware puts in distinctive headers, thus any email with that header in it is
most likely spam. Examples of this include a header with a fake version of Microsoft
Outlook, or a date header referencing a time zone that does not exist. Often spamware

email software.

Body analysis
The email body is that part of the email displayed to the user;; it is also the unseen HTML

displayed and behind-the-scenes data and metadata.

HTML structure
HTML structure is an important part of the analysis. Legitimate senders should use valid
and correct HTML in all their emails. Spammers have long used fake HTML tags in an

the HTML standard. Other spammers put random content in HTML comments as a way

Filters also look at the pattern of HTML and the layout of an email using a technique

certain bits of software or certain people. Content creators are consistent in how they

Spelling and grammar errors

look at the type and number of misspelled words. Too many misspellings, use of foreign



Domains, links and images

Has this domain ever been seen in email before?
Has email with this domain generated complaints?
Does the plain text part of the link match the domain listed in the <a href> tag? (the
href
Has this domain been listed on any domain based blacklists?
Have we blocked this domain in the past?

T

Brand your emails so that recipients can clearly associate the email with your brand,

general guidelines:

and act on an offer without having to load images in the email client.

downgrade for text that’s hard to read.

Avoid linking to or mentioning domains or URLs you don’t control. Just mentioning

Use a consistent “From” address. When subscribers add you to their contact lists, your

Identify your brand in the subject line. Senders have a few seconds to grab the
attention of the recipient. Branded and consistent subject lines help the user know
this is wanted email and encourage them to open it.

There are entire classes of content (Viagra, loans, diet anything, Rolex watches) that are
so heavily spammed that any email, even the cleanest opt-in email, mentioning those
products is treated suspiciously. Senders with products that could trigger suspicion can try

data hygiene.



and evaluate your email by its aggregate score. One element of your email may look
suspicious, but if the rest of it is good, and your reputation is good, it’s likely that your
email will be delivered.

Best practices for content creation

Short, compelling emails are more deliverable (and tend to get better results)
Don’t use “Dear” as a salutation
Don’t use “click here” or “click below” to offer links to people. Use link title,
color, and placement to signify links
The phrase “for only” followed by a dollar sign is a sign of spam. Mention
pricing using other terms, such as “reduced to” or “Member price” or a
phrase you’ve used before that works, or simply state it
Other words and phrases that might make your legitimate email look
spammy include “free”, “bonus”, “amazing”, “buy direct”, “bargain”, “no
investment”, and so on
Toll-free phone numbers may get your email tagged as spam if there are
additional suspicious signs
Use ALT text for your images, so people can see why they might want to
view them
Using ALL CAPS is a spam characteristic
Use exclamation points sparingly, and don’t use several in a row!!!!
Your unsubscribe link should be conspicuous



IV. Authentication

a validation of identity.
Email authentication is a practice that tells receiving email servers that an email
actually does come from the place it says it comes from. Senders use it to establish and
underscore their authenticity, which aids in delivery. It’s a very good thing to have.

Most organizations using a commercial ESP generally use the ESP’s authentication.
In other situations, an organization’s IT department will set up authentication. For solid
technical data about authentication, see the Internet Engineering Task Force, www.ietf.org.
Here’s a quick sketch of the most common methods:

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) allows administrators to specify which hosts are

Domain Name System (DNS).

Sender ID is based on SPF, but has additions, such as verifying the header
addresses that indicate the sending party.

DomainKeys is an email authentication system that goes a step further;; it’s
designed to verify the DNS domain of an email sender and the message integrity.

name to an email message, thereby allowing a person, role, or organization to
claim some responsibility for the message. The association is set up by means of a
digital signature which can be validated by recipients.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical distributed naming system for
computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network.

An often-used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves
as the phone book for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer
hostnames into IP addresses.



V. Reporting and Tracking
If you know what your average results are, you’ll quickly know if something is going
wrong with delivery.
Make sure your email creation tool (or your ESP) has reporting capabilities, and use
them. You should be able to track deliveries, clicks, responses, non-responders, bounces,
and actions taken on any external links that are in an email. Reporting is the key to
understanding and improving your campaign performance, and it has a role to play in
delivery assurance as well.

It’s important to know what your average delivery, bounce, and engagement rates are,
so you’ll see anomalies clearly and quickly. The rates below are industry averages;; bear
in mind that numbers vary widely from industry to industry, and that various ESPs (and
marketers) may calculate them using different formulas. Develop and use your own
benchmarks.

B2B email newsletter clickthrough rates generally range from 5%–15%. Low open
and clickthrough rates may indicate that your content isn’t interesting, or you aren’t
giving people obvious links or good reasons to click them.

B2C email marketing promotional campaign clickthrough rates generally range from
about 2%–to 12%. Low open and clickthrough rates may indicate that your list or offer
isn’t good.

The more targeted and personalized your email is, the higher your rates will be;; in
B2B, a clickthrough rate of 10%–20% is good.

Trigger emails (those sent as an automatic response to an action a prospect takes, such
as a website visit) also have high open and clickthrough rates.

Consistently low rates suggest that your email is uninteresting or your list is bad. This will
lead to higher “delete” rates, which will affect your reputation and delivery.

For a clean and healthy list and “wanted” content, here are industry averages:
Typical unsubscribe rates run around 2% or less
Bounce rates average less than 3%
Spam complaints run under .1%

A “spam complaint” occurs when a recipient marks your email as spam, not when a

deliverability, but spam complaints and hard bounces do.

Sudden changes

Your ESP may be able to provide feedback about probable or actual causes from webmail
providers, and should share that information with you.



VI. Sending Email
Don’t send on Tuesday morning just because you read that’s the best time.Test
and benchmark your own mailing schedule.
The basics

own messaging, plan according to your own results, and set your own benchmarks. As for
actually sending email, be aware of these factors:

Clean up your lists before sending. If a list has a lot of suppressions, it will take

how your ESP charges you, it may cost more as well.

Understand that the sending process is not instantaneous. Messages go through
processing steps prior to send, including personalization, suppression, and some
system level checks. These quality assurance processes add to the total message
send time.

take less time to process and launch.

If a given message is time sensitive, give it extra time and schedule it to start
earlier than you normally would. For example, if you normally schedule the launch
for 10 am, schedule for 9 am instead.

Spammers send frequently, to big lists. If your patterns are the same, make sure your
IP address, content, and list are squeaky clean.

Preview your emails, to see how recipients will view them in various systems.

Most people’s email programs display HTML, but the programs of some government
agencies and corporations, and many mobile devices, don’t display HTML, so it’s still
best to include a plain text version. The text should be close to the HTML (it doesn’t
have to match exactly), to avoid looking like spam.

Best practices for sending emails
Clean your lists before sending
Allow enough time

Preview and test emails
Test and benchmark your own mailing schedule
Include a plain text version



VII. Top Ten Delivery Best Practices – How Act-On helps

1. Abide by all CAN-SPAM rules and Act-On has built-in CAN-SPAM defaults that
guidance. help you comply with CAN-SPAM.

2. Maintain your lists assiduously. If you're Act-On helps keep your lists clean. It tracks
re-sending to soft and hard bounces, your and removes duplicates, hard bounces and
IP's reputation will suffer. Don't buy or use a
list scraped off the Internet.

3. Whenever possible, mail to opt-in Act-On helps you make it easy for people to
subscribers. Even better: use confirmed opt-in. Build landing pages and forms, then
opt-in, in which subscribers click on a promote those links across advertising, social
confirmation email. media, and other channels.

Act-On lets you track behavior and create
4. Send relevant content that subscribers
list segments, so you can target the right
will care about, in a timeframe that adds
person at the right time with the right
meaning.
message.

5. Don't overload an email with images;; Act-On's spam check looks at text-to-image
heavy imagery is a spam trademark. ratio, content, and other issues.

Act-On lets you build emails and templates
with stored data;; you can iterate quickly,
6. Use a consistent "From" header address.
while maintaing sender and branding
consistency.

Act-On's email tool lets you build HTML
7. Use clean and correct HTML formatting. emails with proper formatting – without
knowing HTML.

8. Use trigger marketing, so you can respond Act-On allows you to set email responses,
with personalization, for prospect actions
and personalize email. such as clicking a link, submitting a form, etc.

Act-On reports email results so you can
9. Track your results. analyze campaigns;; the data also attaches

10. Consider using a service such as Litmus, Litmus is easy to integrate with Act-On, and
which lets you preview your email on 30+ your emails can be tested from within the
major email clients and mobile devices. Act-On interface.



Appendix A: Email Delivery Glossary
ASCII stands for the “American Standard Code for Information Interchange”
(pronunciation: æski). ASCII is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the
English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment,
and other devices that use text.

Blacklist (also called a “blocklist”): A list of IP addresses that an ISP blocks, preventing
spam, viruses, and/or phishing emails from reaching the end user.

CAN-SPAM is the acronym for the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography

national standards for the sending of commercial email and requires the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. See the Appendix for a listing of the
standards.

is the technique whereby email is blocked or allowed based on analysis
of its structure and content, rather than its IP address or other criteria.

Domain: In general, a domain name represents an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such
as a website, a server computer hosting a web site, a personal computer used to access
the Internet, or any other service communicated via the Internet. Domain names serve
as humanly-memorable names for Internet participants, such as computers, networks,
websites, and services.

DKIM
to an email signature, and is a clear indication of responsibility.

ESP: Email service providers send, receive, and store email for end users or
organizations. They may provide the service to the general public (e.g. Gmail, AOL Mail,
etc.) or to businesses, or both. An ESP may be a division of a larger organization whose
primary function is not email (e.g. Google owns Gmail). An Internet Service Provider
(ISP) which provides Internet access to end users (e.g. Comcast) is almost always
an ESP. Such ESPs generally don’t allow sending mass email through their servers.
The other major type of email service provider, a commercial ESP, does offer email
marketing services.

Feedback loop (FBL), sometimes called a complaint feedback loop, is a form of
feedback in which an ISP forwards complaints originating from their users to the sender’s
organization.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the main markup language for web pages. HTML
is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags, enclosed in angle brackets (like
<html>), within the web page content. HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1>
(an opening tag) and </h1> (a closing tag). HTML email is the use of a subset of HTML to
provide formatting and semantic markup capabilities in email.

IP address: An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to
each device (e.g., computer, printer, server) participating in a computer network that uses
the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host



ISP: An Internet Service Provider, which provides Internet access to end users.

Metadata is “data about data,” i.e., data that describes what content is or does, how it
should be displayed, etc.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is an Internet standard that extends the
format of email to support text in character sets other than ASCII;; non-text attachments;;
message bodies with multiple parts;; header information in non-ASCII character sets.

Opt-in email

a link or reply before being accepted onto a list, that is a “double opt-in.”

Reputation,
associated with your IP address and/or domain. Since all email must originate from an
IP address, IP reputation reveals whether a certain IP address is responsible for sending
spam, or is associated with malware of any kind.

RFC: “Request for comment.” The RFC series is the publication vehicle for technical

standards vetted and accepted by the Internet engineering community.”

SFP (Sender Policy Framework) is an email validation system designed to prevent email

Spam is any bulk email sent for commercial purposes without permission from the
receiver.

Spamtrap: an email address used to lure spam, in order to add it to a blacklist or
otherwise identify it to a blocking mechanism.

Subscriber: A person who opts into your email list is said to be a “subscriber.”
Supression: Preventing some portion of a list from being sent.

URI:

as locators (URLs), as names (URNs), or as both.

Warming up: This phrase is used to describe the process of gaining trust with the ISPs
when your IP sending identity is new to them, such as when your transfer from one ESP
to another. The ISPs will perceive you as an unknown, unproven sender, and should be
“warmed up” with small batches of emails to highly engaged subscribers.

Whitelist: A whitelist is a list of email addresses, domains, and/or IP addresses deemed
to be trustworthy, and so will always be allowed. Whitelists can be created by ISPs, ESPs,
email clients, and end users. A whitelist is termed “exclusive” when set so that only email
from those on the whitelist will get through. This setting, when used, is generally set by
end users, not ISPs or ESPs.



Appendix B: CAN-SPAM Compliance Guide
It seems obvious that mail should only be sent in compliance with laws, but it’s always
important to mention. In the US, the law covering email marketing is The CAN-SPAM
(Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) Act. This law says
that all email must meet a number of criteria:

1. The sender must provide accurate routing information about the emails.

2. The advertising emails must be clearly labeled as such.

3. Recipients must be allowed to opt-out of emails. Opt-out mechanisms must
be electronic and require only the recipient’s email address and their choice to
opt-out. Companies may not require passwords or other information in order to
process the opt-out.

4. All emails must contain the physical address of the sender.

Note that CAN-SPAM does not require that senders have permission to send mail;;
permission is not a requirement under US law. In other countries, however, senders must
have permission to send marketing and commercial email. In some cases, permission
cannot be shared or sold;; thus even purchasing opt-in lists is illegal.

Sending mail without permission to recipients in jurisdictions with opt-in rules such
as Europe or Canada may open up the sender to legal liability. Some senders have
attempted to bypass this by segmenting lists by country. But segmentation assumes that
the companies selling lists are correctly compiling the data. Obtaining recipient permission
before sending protects the sender from inadvertently violating opt-in laws.

mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion
of a commercial product or service,” including email that promotes content on commercial
websites.

Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to
$16,000.

Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s main requirements:

1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-
To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email
address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the
message.

2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines.
content of the message.

3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do
this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an
advertisement.



4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid

box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve
registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal
Service regulations.

5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your
message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient
can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s
easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of
type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or
another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice
to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of
messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from

6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be
able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message.
You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t
charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information
beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending
a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for
honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive
more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in
the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses
to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if
you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away
your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is
promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may
be held legally responsible.



Appendix C: Tips to Avoid False Positives
Courtesy of Apache SpamAssassin™ and The Apache Software Foundation.
Apache SpamAssassin is a trademark of The Apache Software Foundation. Used with permission. No
endorsement by The Apache Software Foundation is implied by the use of these marks.

1.
you try to hide your source and destination you’ll look like spam too. Likewise,
spammers often try to track their spam and gauge its effectiveness through
tracking headers they add to emails. If you add unnecessary headers to your
emails, this can make them look like spam.

2.
sure that if someone checks on the domain of your From address and Reply-To
address that these addresses are valid, and the machine that would receive any

3. Tip: Use email composition and mailing tools that work correctly. Well

Emails with missing mime sections, invalid or missing message-ids, invalid or
missing date headers, subject or other headers with unescaped unicode, etc.,
are frequently signs of spam.

4. Tip: Don’t include a disclaimer that your email isn’t spam. Don’t claim compliance
with some legal criteria, especially one which is not actually law in your country.
Only spam needs to claim compliance—non-spam is supposed to already be in
compliance.

5. If your email is covered by anti-spam laws, do make sure you are in actual
compliance. Skirting the edge of compliance is a frequent spam trick, and is

6. Tip: Use normal conversational language, be sure not to use excessive spacing
and or capitalization on your subject.

7. Tip: Be open and honest and plain in your emails. If you try to hide things, or

treated like a spammer. The statistics for use of these various techniques show
that it occurs far more frequently in spam mail than non-spam, and the rules

8. Do not use “cute” spellings, Don’t S.P.A.C.E out your words, don’t put str@nge
|etters 0r characters into your emails.



9. Tip: If you’re using HTML emails, use high quality HTML. Don’t use tools which
generate horrendous HTML (example: MS Word). They often leave signs behind (like
empty tags, eg: <B></B>) which are generally found in spam. Make sure your HTML
is valid (run it through a decent validator). Unbalanced tags and invalid tags will

default titles generated by HTML tools are often used as spamsign.

10. Tip: If you’re using HTML emails, do not use invisible text within those emails.
Make sure your text colors and sizes are distinct enough and large enough to read.

11. Tip: If you’re using HTML emails, do not use invisible web-bugs to track your
emails. If you must track your emails and whether they’re read, use visible graphics
as part of your email, not invisible graphics.

12. Tip: If you’re using HTML emails, include a text part in the email as well, for recipients
(and anti-spam checkers), and keep that text as close to the HTML copy as possible.
The closer they’re related, the less likely your email will be seen as spam.

13. Very important: Don’t insult your recipients by telling them to get a different
email client so they can view your email. People use the email client they want,
and if they’re not using Outlook Express or some other basic, dumb, free, and
automatically installed client, chances are they’re doing so intentionally. If you want
them to view your HTML, give them a web link they can follow in their web browser.
(Give them this in addition to the non-HTML text.)

14. Tip: OK -- one suggestion which actually does relate to SpamAssassin rules;; don’t
include gratuitous references to spam subjects. Don’t talk about Rolex watches,
sexually oriented activities or drugs, or debt treatment, unless those topics directly
relate to your email. And if they do, limit your email to one topic at a time. An email
which mentions Rolex watches, Viagra, porn, and debt all in one email will very

15. Tip: Don’t use ‘bulk-mailing’ tools used by spammers (i.e., advertised in spam).
These are overwhelmingly used to send spam, so SpamAssassin blocks mail sent
by those tools as soon as possible. In particular, if the product’s feature list includes
‘stealth sending’ or similar, that’s a danger sign.

16. Tip: Be careful where you advertise, and be careful which advertisements you
carry. If you advertise with companies that send out spam, your domains will be

17. Tip: Be careful which domains/companies you allow to advertise in your emails (if any).

the other hand, don’t advertise your domains with spammers -- having your domain



18. Tip: Be visible and public in your domain and hosting registrations. If people
who check for you to see whether you might be a spammer, or to complain/ask

annotations, that strongly suggests you are a spammer, hiding from an outraged
public. If you are open about who you are in your registration emails, you’ll get
some complains and some queries. Answer those honestly and fully, and you
should stay out of blacklists.

19. Make sure you have active and monitored abuse <at> and postmaster <at>
addresses. Register them with abuse.net.

20. Tip: Make sure your privacy policy, including enforcement, and including query
contact information, is easily found and clearly stated on your web site. It’s good

look for that information.

SpamAssassin is a project of the Apache Software Foundation,a decentralized
community of developers. The software they produce is distributed under the terms of
the Apache License and is therefore free and open source software (FOSS).



About Act-On Software
Act-On Software’s Integrated Marketing SaaS
Platform is rapidly becoming the foundation
for successful marketing departments in
organizations of all sizes.

Act-On’s highly intuitive user interface,
Instant-On™ database, and complete
online marketing tool set, have enabled the
accelerated adoption of marketing automation
technologies by smaller marketing teams
without dedicated database maintenance,
process analysis and IT support.

Act-On Software is located in Portland,
Oregon, and is backed by Trinity Ventures, US
Venture Partners, and Voyager Capital.

Contact us:
www.actonsoftware.com
(877) 530.1555


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