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Two-Click Survey Results: Should the eec reassert the true definition of spam?

The answer…
95% --> Yes, the eec should start a campaign to differentiate between spam and permission-based emails that are no longer wanted.
5% --> No, the eec shouldn’t get involved and focus its efforts elsewhere.

Now that that’s settled, we need your ideas on how we can build an awareness campaign to differentiate between spam and email that’s no longer wanted, and can lobby the ISPs for the adoption of unsubscribe buttons. Clearly we already have some ideas, but we need more, much more. Since we’re all marketers, I suspect that you have some killer ideas. So please share them, either here or you can contact me directly at chad@emailexperience.org.

Also, visit the eec homepage to answer the latest Two-Click Survey question:
How much do you segment your emails?

-->See more Two-Click Survey Results

Posted on April 8, 2008 1:10 PM | Permalink

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Comments (1)

John Arnold:

I agree that the industry needs to assist consumers in differentiating between spam and unwanted email, and ISPs clearly could play a role in promoting awareness. Lobbying the ISPs to include an unsubscribe link may prove frustrating, however, because of the technical, practical, and motivational complexities inherent in providing such an option to consumers. The task of consumer education more likely depends on a collaborative effort, by marketers and ESPs, that encourages all email senders to adhere to professional standards that both influence consumer behavior, and easily align with known consumer preferences.

Hotmail is already providing an unsubscribe button to their users in certain situations, but ISPs do not generally have an incentive to do this unless they have a fairly good idea that their customer opted in to receive the communication in the first place (Hotmail requires the sender's email address to be in the recipient's address book in order for the link to display.)

In addition, any unsubscribe button provided by an ISP must either block future emails from a specific sender (which complicates re-subscribing should the customer inadvertently unsubscribe) or take advantage of unsubscribe information in the email header, which effectively clicks the unsubscribe link that's already in the body of the email (this limits the use of the ISP's link to emails sent from ESPs who provide such header information for their customers, and provides no protection from dubious opt-out links in spam emails).

Consumers are practically faced with the same question no matter which unsubscribe link is presented: Do I know and trust this email? Working with ISPs to help consumers identify trustworthy emails through education and better authentication technology might be a preferable approach that will encourage consumers to trust unsubscribe links associated with legitimate email, while preserving a straightforward ability to report unsolicited commercial email as spam.

Posted by John Arnold | April 9, 2008 4:46 PM

Posted on April 9, 2008 16:46

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Jordan Ayan is the chairman of Create-It!, a technology consulting organization, as well as the CEO of SubscriberMail, one of the leading email marketing companies. A two-time book author, a patent holder and a frequent speaker, Jordan has more than 20 years of experience in direct and database marketing. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Marco Marini is the CEO of ClickMail Marketing (CMM) and an acknowledged expert in e-marketing with over a decade and half's-worth of experience in the field. Before taking over as CEO, he was CMM's VP of Marketing & Operations. Marini has also held key marketing positions with CyberSource, eHealthInsurance, DoveBid and IBM Canada.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is communications director at email service provider Lyris. He has 20 years of experience from enterprise, SMB, agency and start-up marketing, communications and innovation roles at companies including Habeas, Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Philips Electronics and two of his own start-ups. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experience Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Kevin Senne is the Strategic Deliverability Director for Premiere Global Services. Kevin has been heavily involved in all facets of email marketing for more than a decade and he previously managed Email Operations for Travelocity.com. Kevin specializes in deliverability, strategy, and social media integratio and he focuses on helping marketers become permission-based one-to-one marketers. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

Kara Trivunovic currently serves as the senior director of strategic services for StrongMail Systems, where she is responsible for helping marketers optimize their email marketing programs for greater returns. Most recently Kara was founder and principal of The Email Advisor, a respected email marketing consultancy. Prior to launching The Email Advisor, Kara led strategic services for the email division of Premiere Global Services. Kara brings a unique perspective to the space having worked on the client, agency and provider side for 10 years.

Chris Wheeleris the director of deliverability at Bronto Software. He is leading the charge for ensuring both Bronto's customers and staff are well informed about email marketing practices and technology as well as being the face of Bronto deliverability externally. Previously, Chris created the internal deliverability program at Amazon.com alongside program managing the operations of the email team and was at an ESP leading a team of deliverability consultants. Besides being a frequent contributor on Deliverability.com, Chris is a part of many email industry forums, both business and technical. Read more.

Chad White is the research director at Smith-Harmon, an email marketing strategy and creative services agency. He is the founder of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.