Improving email deliverability is a top concern for today’s email marketers. Email campaigns must pass through different anti-spam filters, blockers, and other technologies to get to a contact’s inbox. To understand the keys to increasing email deliverability, it is necessary to understand the history of spam and the ever-changing market for spam filtering tools. By exploring how spam has evolved over time, and the tools the anti-spam industry has responded with, this webinar will help you launch email campaigns that reach your customers’ inboxes consistently Learn: • How understanding the history of spam will help you improve deliverability today • The do’s and don’ts of email campaigns • Data on how spam impacts revenue and how to measure your ROI • Benefits of cultivating your email lists frequently

1. Lessons Learned From the Evolution of Spam
Tips to Staying Ahead of the Email Deliverability Curve
Speakers:
Autumn Tyr-Salvia, Director, Standards and Best Practices, Message Systems
Desiree Hamaoui, Director Demand Generation, Message Systems
Thursday, August 21, 2014 1:00 EDT, (10:00 PDT)

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3. Today’s Presenters
Autumn Tyr-Salvia, Director of
Standards and Best Practices at
Message Systems
Desiree Hamaoui, Director of
Demand Generation, Message
Systems

4. Spam/Antispam Is An Arms Race

5. The Path of Spam Filtering
Spam
New
Filters
New
Spam
Newer
Filters

6. Understand the Past to Know the
Future
• A Brief History of Spam
• Co-evolution of Spam & Filtering
• Spam techniques
• Filtering techniques
• Change in spamming techniques
• Change in filtering techniques
• Ad infinitum….
Spam
Spam
Filtering
Spam
Spam
Filtering
Spam

7. A Brief History of Spam

8. First Spam to Arpanet - 1978
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.
WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
LOS ANGELES, CA
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2 PM
DUNFEY'S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)
A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.

9. Origin of “Spam”
SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

10. Green Card Lottery – Final One?
• April 12, 1994
• Not the first Usenet spam, but the first major one
• Usenet spam posted to 5500+ groups with the help of a Perl
script

11. Laurence Canter
4/12/94
Green Card Lottery 1994 May Be The Last One!
THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED.
The Green Card Lottery is a completely legal program giving away a
certain annual allotment of Green Cards to persons born in certain
countries. The lottery program was scheduled to continue on a
permanent basis. However, recently, Senator Alan J Simpson
introduced a bill into the U. S. Congress which could end any future
lotteries. THE 1994 LOTTERY IS SCHEDULED TO TAKE PLACE
SOON, BUT IT MAY BE THE VERY LAST ONE.
PERSONS BORN IN MOST COUNTRIES QUALIFY, MANY FOR
FIRST TIME.
….
First Major Usenet Spam

12. Rise of the DNSBL
• 1997: Real-time Blackhole List (RBL)
• 1998: Spamhaus
• 1998: Spamcop
• 2001: SORBS
• …& many more!

13. Decline of the Open Relay
• Email was designed like DNS – open peering
• Spammers exploited open relays
• ISPs closed external relays
• Spammers joined ISPs and exploited open internal relays
• ISPs required login for all relaying

14. Bayesian Filtering for Mail
• 1996: ifile uses Bayesian filtering to sort mail into
folders
• 1998: first scholarly paper on using Bayesian filtering
for spam
• 2002: Bayesian filtering improved by Paul Graham’s
Plan for Spam
“I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the
way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They
can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least.
But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write
software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get
around that.” –Paul Graham

15. SpamAssassin
• Open source spam filtering
• Perl rewrite of an earlier filter.plx application
• Added to SourceForge in April, 2001

16. Anti-spam Legislation Begins
• 2003: US CAN-SPAM law
• 2003: EU Directive on Privacy & Electronic
Communications
• 2004: spam convictions start

17. New Spamming Techniques Arise
• Image Spam
• Faking headers
• Phishing
• Snowshoe spam
• URL redirection
• & more!

18. Co-Evolution of Spam & Filtering

19. Basic Architecture

20. Spam Evolves in Response to
Filtering
• Exploring the Spam Arms Race to Characterize
Spam Evolution
• SpamAssassin rules most effective for spam generated
immediately prior to release
• Old versions of SpamAssassin become increasingly
ineffective

21. Blacklisting
• Spammers originally used their own servers
• Easy to blacklist these spam sources!
• Gave rise to:
• Botnets
• Snowshoe spam
• Spamtrap “identification services”
• Gave rise to:
• Better spamtraps
• Domain blocking

22. Whitelisting
• Whitelist only known good sending servers
• Gave rise to:
• Header forging
• Incentives to hack
• Malware & phishing
• Gave rise to:
• Better whitelisting techniques
• Sender authentication such as SPF, DKIM
• Gave rise to:
• More incentives to hack
• Gave rise to:
• IT teams that won’t whitelist anything

23. Content Filtering

24. Content Filtering
• Initially used simple word blocking lists
• Easy to avoid with misspellings & punctuation
• “Scunthorpe problem”

25. Content Filtering Evolves
• Simple filtering gave rise to:
• Bayesian filtering
• Misspellings become immediate spam words
• Strange punctuation becomes problematic
• Causes unintentional problems with poorly thought out
domains and subdomains

26. Content Filtering Evolves
• Weighting
• Creates problem of “too many
spammy words”
• Gave rise to:
• Super short messages
• In response, very short messages
• get extra attention
• Word salad messages

27. Link Blocking
• Domain reputation comes to content filtering
• Becomes problematic for domains with mixed content such as
URL shorteners
• Gives rise to:
• Spammers constantly obtain new domains for spamming
• New domains have reduced deliverability
• Domain reputation consolidation good for whitehat senders

28. Image Spam
• 2003
• Text filters now very effective
• Gave rise to:
• Spammers turn to pictures-of-text
• Hard to filter
• All-image messages become difficult to deliver at all
• Image-to-text ratio becomes important for delivery

29. Early Image Spam

30. Image Spam Evolves
• Spammers create scripts to modify each image
slightly
• Spammers start to use CAPTCHA-like techniques

31. Operation Spamalot
• 2007: Operation Spamalot
• Pump & dump scams advertised by image spam
• Spammers get low conversions with no links for any other
product
• SEC suspends 35 companies from trading

32. Image Spam Retreats
• Operation Spamalot catches main gang using
image spam
• Spam filtering for images improves dramatically
• But…all image messages still not good for
deliverability!

33. Every Action Causes a Reaction
• Spammers find a way around every block
• Filters block the new spamming techniques
• Anyone who wants to deliver wanted bulk email
must stay ahead of the curve!

34. Don’t Repeat History
• Deliverability techniques don’t always make sense in
today’s spam landscape
• Some filtering techniques are effectively vestigial
• Knowing more about the history of spam can help you
deliver your mail tomorrow

35. 99
%
EMAILS
DELIVERED
22
%
OPT-­‐IN
EMAILS
NOT
GETTING
THRU
Sending
Reputa?on,
Spam
Filters,
ISP
Rules,
Blacklists,
Content
Filters,
etc.

36. FTP
ESP Report
99% Delivery
RP Report
78% Delivery
• FTP Package of User and Content Data in ZIP file
• ESP Manages/Sends Campaign – 99% delivery to ISP
• ISP Filters Delivery To Inbox
• Delivery Data Reported to ESP
• Engagement Data Reported ESP
• Daily Data Bundle Downloaded
Your
Company
Sending through a Shared System
ESP ISP
Engagement
Data
Delivery Data24-72 Hour Delay

37. 99
%
EMAILS
DELIVERED
22
%
OPT-­‐IN
EMAILS
NOT
GETTING
THRU
17
%
ESP
DEDICATED
INCREASED
DELIVERY

38. • App Injects Emails/Content to Momentum
• Momentum Manages Delivery to ISP
• ISP Filters To Inbox
• Delivery and Engagement Data Feeds to Momentum in Real-Time
Speed your engagement lifecycle and control your brand.
Sending with A Dedicated System
ISP
Delivery Data
Engagement Data
Your
Company
17% increase

39. How Does Momentum Help
Improve Deliverability?
Adaptive Delivery™ - patented technology that auto-tunes
outbound email delivery parameters in real time to optimize
delivery and safeguard your own reputation
• Mail stream segregation
• Auto-tuned delivery parameters
• Real-time traffic shaping
• Real-time decision making & alerts
• Live rule updates
• Configurable rules
• Full FBL capabilities
Automatically staying
ahead of the “spam curve”
so you don’t have to

40. Adaptive Delivery Results
10 point Deliverability Gain
FINANCIAL NEWSLETTER
Deliverability
April May June July August
0.85
0.90
0.95
AD Tuning Period
Source: Leading publisher/distributor of opt-in financial newsletters.

41. Adaptive Delivery Results
INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER
Deliverability
April May June July August
0.85
0.90
0.95
• Deliverability Stabilized
• Manual Effort Eliminated
AD Tuning Period
Source: Leading publisher/distributor of opt-in financial newsletters.

42. Translates into Real Revenue
Results
"When we have delivery and reputation issues, we know about them right
away, and we can resolve problems proactively. Momentum with Adaptive
Delivery has certainly had a positive impact on customer satisfaction….
We’ve been sending nearly 60 million messages a week at 99.15%
deliverability. It was as high as 99.3% last week!”
JAMES THOMPSON
DIRECTOR OF EMAIL
OPERATIONS, INFUSIONSOFT
INCREASED REVENUE WITHOUT MS WITH MS CHANGE

43. 43
Message Systems:
The Leader in Messaging
20%

44. Email / Marketing Services Providers
Social
Networking
Daily
Deals
Telco
Financial
Services
Consumer
Technology
Travel &
Hospitality
Publishing
& Media
Hosting
& SaaS
Sampling of Key Clients by Market

45. Key Takeaways
§ Spammers adapt ! ISP rules/filters adapt to them
§ Momentum’s Adaptive Delivery™ automates
processes to “stay ahead of the curve”
§ Optimize deliverability through technology
§ Moving from a shared system/ESP to a dedicated
system improves deliverability by 17%
§ 17% deliverability increase ! 30% revenue
increase

46. Thank you!
46
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• www.messagesystems.com
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