• Scope:  CASL covers not just anti-spam, but also anti-malware, anti-hacking, and through related amendments to other legislation, control of content and misleading information, as well as privacy of personally identifiable information (PII) (harvesting, dictionary attacks).
• Application/Jurisdiction:  CASL covers any message sent from or accessed by a computer in Canada (regardless of where the sender is located).  We are talking about all electronic messaging – email, instant messaging, SMS, social – plus anything new that comes along.  (Fax and voice are covered by Canadian do no call regulations.)
  1. Note that there is no minimum number of messages. So sending one message is enough to put you under jurisdiction of the law.
• Coverage:  CASL applies to commercial activity, defined pretty broadly.  For example, Brown said in the webinar, if you are promoting a person who normally promotes a product or service or business opportunity -  even if you are not specifically promoting that product, service or business opportunity in the message -  then your message is covered.  
  1. Note also that any message sent to seek consent is considered commercial – so you can’t send a request for consent. There are no exceptions for research studies, for example. “This will have to play out in the courts in deciding what is ‘commercial,’” Brown said.  “I would not be surprised if this was challenged.” As the law is enforced, Brown says, we will have more guidance on what is considered “commercial” under the Act.

1. Prior consent – defined as either express or implied.  Both are acceptable for all situations and of equal value.  (Implied does expire, though.)
   
   a.    Express: Must include clear notice and the provision of a set of prescribed info from subscribers when providing consent.   The owner or any authorized user of the email address must give the consent.
   b.    Implied:  The Act deems implied consent when there is an existing business relationship (e.g.: a customer who has purchased in the past two years, or if there is a contract or a subscription which has been active in the past two years.)
   c.    Once consent is implied (e.g.: a purchase), you generally have two years to send messages in compliance (or obtain an express opt in).  An express consent never expires, and is valid until the individual withdrawals consent.
2. Information
   
   a.    Must include contact information for the sender and the subscriber.  It is not clear in the law what this must include.
   b.    Regulations are expected to define this further.
3. Unsubscribe
   
   a.    An unsubscribe opportunity must be provided in all messaging and be available for  60 days post delivery.
   b.    Unsubscribe requests must have no cost, and use the same means by which the message was sent (unless impractical), either via replyto: or a link.
   c.    Must be processed “without delay” (and within 10 days) with no messages sent after the request.  This aspect may also be defined further with regulation.  “Senders must be able to demonstrate that you put forth a best effort to act on unsubscribe requests quickly, with the intent to stop messages,” Brown advises.

1. Check your lists. Do you have consent – and evidence of consent?  The burden is on the sender to prove consent.
2. Check location of subscribers where possible.  The law doesn’t care what the domain of the address is, or if the sender has a clue where the recipient is.  If the message is received on a computer in Canada then it applies.  If a sender does make an attempt to gather this data, This may be a factor in exercising the due diligence defense, where no one can be charged if they have shown due diligence to comply.  “Be sure you have a business objective in NOT complying with the Canadian legislation,” Brown says.  Note that reconfirmation of some permission grants may be necessary.
3. Watch for regulations re: content of messages. The regulations will clarify the information required when obtaining consent as well as when sending a message.

• Liability of service providers.  Telecom/ISPs are generally going to be exempt from liability under the anti-spam provisions where they merely provide the telecommunications service allowing the message to be delivered. However, it’s not clear if this applies to email delivery service providers.  “If you are merely providing a ‘do it yourself’ service and the customer manages the list and the unsubscribe, then it may be that the delivery provider is covered under the Telco exemption,” Brown says.  “This may be different if you offer a full service offering.”
• Ownership of the message, for example, placing ads in an editorial newsletter or providing the name of the email delivery vendor in the message itself is not directly addressed in the law.  “In my view it doesn’t make sense from any perspective to say that the ESP is sending on your behalf, for example identifying the ESP in the message,” Brown says.  There were a number of comments on this as the regulations were reviewed this past summer, and Brown hopes that some clarity will be offered in future revisions.
  1. This brings out the question of where an agency or service provider is vulnerable by trusting their client.  If the agency or ESP sends unsubscribe data to the sender, is the agency responsible if the client doesn’t take action?  “The law is broad, so if you are aiding or causing company to avoid compliance, then you are potentially responsible.  The way to manage risks like this is to inform your customers of their obligations, make sure you have the appropriate language in your agreements, and ensure the relationship agreements are clear who is taking responsibility for managing unsubscribes requests,” Brown advises.
• Transactional messages.  The legislation does not refer to “transactional” messages.   The law does cover some types of messages that could be considered transactional (e.g.: service notices or warranty information).    The law states that these types of messages require an opt out.  “This somewhat confuses the issue, by listing out messages that, in many cases, are likely not commercial electronic messages and therefore not covered by the Act to begin with,” Brown explained.
•   Point of Sale.  What if you ask verbally for consent at the POS?  Brown says that the original draft regulations from the summer declare that consent must besought in writing only.    However, this may be removed based on the amount of comments against it. “I would like to think that if you are entering this into a system form, and there is a date stamp, that this would meet the evidentiary burden under CASL,” he says.
  
  1. There is no legal requirement to send a follow up message, but “It’s always good idea to remind people of their subscription and why they have provided consent.  It’s more of a relationship issue than a compliance issue,” Brown says.
•  Is list rental dead?   A properly compiled permission based list is quite valuable, and the law does not forbid the rental of them.  “It’s not dead, but CASL places a higher onus on list owners and senders to make sure it’s done properly,” Brown says.
  1. The act of appending is not covered under CASL. It is likely covered under privacy laws, particularly if you are making changes to PII footprint without consent.  There may be some situations where appending data is allowed under CASL.   If you have a business relationship – e.g. purchases in the past year – then this append may be in compliance with the CASL legislation.
• Mobile Access.  No one anticipates that certain one-off situations will be covered under CASL (e.g.: a US citizen goes to a coffee shop in Toronto and checks his Gmail account).  Brown expects that the government also did not intend to the law to apply to Blackberry users worldwide when accessing email (e.g., through RIM servers located in Canada).   “I think the intention is not to apply the legislation so broadly,” he said.  It’s not clear how data centers for companies that are not Canadian based will be treated – although Brown expects that they will need to comply just as if the entire company was based in Canada. Messages sent from those centers will be “Canadian” under this law.

We exist in a best-practices driven industry. Email marketing has many variables and it's a constantly changing landscape with ISPs and regulations changing rules on us on a consistent basis. We crave the tried-and-true rule, the best practice known to deliver the best result, the sure thing.

We have plenty to learn and use, to be sure! Search for "email marketing best practices" in Google, and you’ll find far more than you could ever digest among the search results.

Best practices for using social tools in email, however, are yet to be clearly defined. In fact, given the pace of change in social media, with constant Facebook updates and new technologies like Google+, these so-called best practices might forever elude us.

Those proven techniques we can turn to with confidence, however, are common sense and come from the email marketing world. Today I offer you four common-sense tips for using social tools that will help you maximize your results: 1) Offer great content. 2) Be very, very clear. 3) Test everything. 4) Go both ways.

Offer Great Content

No matter how much the email marketing industry changes, this common-sense tip will always be. And when you're seeking sharing to social, your content has to be so great that people want to and willingly share it. That idea isn't new. We've strived for "share worthy" content in the past. We had another name for it was all, because what we want back then was a forward. Now we want a share. Great content leads to greater use of your social media links by your subscribers who want to tell their network about your email.

Be Very, Very Clear

When you include social media buttons, be sure to ask for the action you want and let the person know why they should click. A plain, standalone Facebook button will garner only so many clicks compared to a Facebook button with words that ask for action and offer a benefit: "Like us on Facebook for fabulous fan pricing." Everybody knows what a Facebook button is, but not why they should click on it. Ditto for Twitter, LinkedIn and any other social media buttons.

In addition, words help you to be clear on the purpose of a button. A button for sharing is not the same as a button for liking, after all.  

Also be sure to put the buttons where they make the most sense...for your subscribers. Figure out when/where in your email your subscribers are ready to take action. This you might only be able to determine by testing, which takes us to...

Test Everything

Is there a magic spot for your "like" button that will generate the highest number of new Facebook fans? Probably. Can I tell you where that is within your email? No. As far as best practices on technical details when using social media tools, these can only be determined by you. If I could sit here and tell you placing the Facebook icon in the lower right corner will drive the most "likes" on your Facebook wall, I would. But I can't. It all depends. Testing is the only way to optimize placement of social media tools like a Facebook button for your particular business and audience. In fact, testing is the only way to optimize every aspect of your social media tools, from where you put the links to which links you offer. So test. Everything.

Go Both Ways

Yes, using email to drive subscribers to your social media sites or to share is smart marketing. Also be sure your email to social works as your social to email, as well. Your social sites can promote your email subscriptions and offer email signup forms.

And One Last Note...

Even when integrated as part of your marketing matrix and going both ways, email and social differ. And taking a customer relationship into the social realm can certainly alter customer expectations. Once you’ve crossed the social media line, you might need to revisit the tone and personality of your email communications. You've taken the relationship to a new level of intimacy via social channels, and using a corporate or more formal tone in your email marketing might run counter to the warm fuzzies a subscriber now feels for you.

Following these four tips should help you determine your own best practices for using social tools in email...meaning those practices which work best for you and your goals.


- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

• In the EU, starting in May 2011, dropping and accessing a tracking mechanism like a cookie will become illegal without explicit permission to do such.
• US legislators might attempt another go at federal privacy legislation in 2011 which would require an opt-in to collect and process data.
• By the end of this year, Canada is looking at putting into place an anti-spam law that will make the sending of "spam" illegal and prosecutable.

1. Address the needs to “get started” by helping marketers understand the initial steps that might lead to integrated marketing leveraging an existing email channel.
2. Utilize email marketing best practices to help inform what we decide to provide to the community.
3. Look at simple tools that are easy to apply rather than just focus on deep insights or case studies that are interesting but don’t inform clear action for marketers.

• Focus on nuts & bolts…how to get started…benchmarks…how to get it done.
• Provide metrics for how to measure success and case studies on how it has been successful.
• How to get it done easily.  Much of the material out there is intimidating on getting the resources (people, money) to get going.
• Create a checklist to help people know they are addressing the right issues - a Cross-Channel Maturity Audit
• Help people learn how to unify a single communication piece & communicate it across multiple channels.  Keep in mind how a message differs for different channels.
• Help people test.  How to choose the right channels.  How to choose the right campaigns for testing cross-channel integration.
• Focus on how to best combine traditional and new marketing channels (e.g. email marketing and social media, blogging and events)
• Since we are doing this for email marketers, maybe we should investigate whether one channel (e.g. email marketing) should be the hub of your cross-channel marketing strategy.

1. Depressing your sender reputation due to high complaints (which limits your email marketing opportunity for all subscribers by limiting access to the inbox) – this could be a drop in inbox placement of 10% - 50% of your file every time you mail;
2. Churning your file – people who leave by complaints, unsubscribe or filtering – and need to be replaced at some cost per subscriber;
3. Lower loyalty of good customers by bothering them with irrelevant promotions – the cost of this could be a penny a person or it might be higher depending on the type of brand relationship you need for your business;
4. Losing the opportunity for future email marketing because they unsubscribed, complained or are just ignoring you from now on.

• Number of spam complaints generated – too many complaints lead to being blocked by ISPs
• Volume of email sent – dramatically boosting frequency can cause your reputation to plummet 
• Method used to process bounces – invalid email addresses need to be removed promptly as part of essential list hygiene
• Sending to invalid or old email addresses – could cause your campaign to be caught in a spam trap at some ISPs
• Appearance on any blacklists

• The delay between senders receiving a complaint and unsubscribing the complainer
• Repeat complaints 
• Complaints tracked to ISP/mailbox provider 

1. Online Privacy Protection Bill:  A “Discussion Draft” of a bill to require notice and consent to any individual PRIOR to collecting or using personal information was released in early May in the US House of Representatives from Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL).  Industry and consumer groups alike are not happy with the draft, including the DMA.  Although it may seem at first that the so-called Boucher Bill was just about online behavioral advertising conducted by large marketers; it turns out that it’s very broad and far-reaching on privacy and data security.  During the webinar, Jerry Cerasale, VP, Government Relations for the DMA, gave a very good overview of coverage, exceptions and terms of notice.  Basically, it impacts nearly all kinds of “first party” senders as well as any other company that has access to that data as a “third party.”  It proposes coverage of an extensive list of “unique and persistent” personal data on consumers.
   
   “One potentially bad impact this could have on the email industry concerns the scope of covered data, including email address, IP address, and other unique, persistent identifiers,” says panelist Tom Bartel, CIPP, VP, Receiver Services at Return Path.  “If the exceptions for transactional and operational purposes and for service providers are not effective and clear, this bill could interfere with many industry collaborations.  This includes IP-based reputation systems – data that determines if email messages reach the inbox or not.  It may also impact the operation of Feedback Loops provided to email senders by mailbox providers like Yahoo! and Hotmail.  These feedback loops are a key component in how the industry keeps bad actors out of the email ecosystem."
   
   Both Representatives Boucher and Stearns have indicated a willingness to work with industry and have requested comments on the bill, due by June 4th.  Cerasale said the DMA will be commenting.
    
2. Expansion of FTC Powers: Congress is also considering significantly expanding the powers of the FTC as part of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (HR 4173).  There is not a corresponding bill in the Senate, although Cerasale said in the webinar that one may be introduced later this year. 
   
   Part of the proposed regulation would give the FTC “unbridled authority” to create rules around “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” for many industry sectors.  Cerasale expressed concern about this, and said that more checks and balances are needed.  It is also unclear how this expansion will impact emerging technologies like social or mobile, he said.
   
   Another part of the proposed bill increases the FTC’s enforcement powers to seek civil penalties.  “That may be helpful in catching spammers and other abusers of email marketing,” said Rick Buck, CIPP and VP, ISP Relations and Privacy at e-Dialog.  “Marketers who feel they are exempt from prosecution because they are legal under CAN-SPAM may be following the letter of the law, but not the spirit.  I encourage everyone to go beyond the legal requirements and aim to provide email experiences that are welcome and engaging to subscribers.”
   
   The FTC’s Greisman said only that, “We welcome any support from Congress that helps the agency be more effective and efficient.”  There are some “tools that we lack which Congress may grant us the power to use,” she said.
   
   A third element to this proposed legislation is on responsibility/liability of the delivery provider (broadcast vendor, ESP, MTA Vendor) if their clients do not follow CAN-SPAM or other regulations.  “This aiding and abetting aspect is very concerning,” said webinar panelist, Dennis Dayman, VP, Privacy & Online Security at Eloqua.  “Blurring the lines between purveyor and sender may place an undue penalty on others in the ‘chain of responsibility’ for all brands involved in online advertising or other online acquisition efforts, like third party email senders and publishers,” Dayman said.

Greisman also reported in the webinar that there is no significant update on the behavioral targeting protection guidelines that the FTC has had out for comment for over a year. “Nothing will happen without input from industry,” she said.  Since the mandate from the FTC has been, “self regulate or else,” the webinar panelists Buck, Bartel and Dayman had a number of suggestions for marketers to follow best practices, including:

1. Ensure transparency in disclosure and notice of permission and use of data.
2. Be very clear about opt out vs. opt in.  CAN-SPAM requires only an opt-out, but that is the “bare minimum,” Buck advises.
3. Update your Privacy Policy and provide prominent links.
4. Audit your data usage practices.
5. Be clear on use of data in all web forms and at the point of collection/sign up.

Marketers and everyone in the email industry can support the FTC, Greisman said.  She suggests:

1. File a complaint.  When those complaints are also referred by the DMA, they are particularly helpful, Greisman said.
2. Make sure your opt out mechanisms are working.  (e-Dialog’s Buck recommends checking this at least annually, and preferably monthly.)
3. Be clear about the sender and the advertiser relationships.  (Return Path’s Bartel recommends first party senders consider “framing” the content from third parties or advertisers and clearly distinguish between editorial (original content) and advertising.)
4. Keep data clean, particularly around new sources.  (Eloqua’s Dayman also recommends care around affiliates’ use of data.)

The legislative update webinar was sponsored by Eloqua, e-Dialog and Return Path, with technology sponsor GoToWebinar.  The recording of the full event is free for eec members.  More details on these and other legislative issues important to digital and direct marketers is in the DMA’s quarterly government affairs newsletter, Politically Direct.

- Stephanie Miller
Return Path & eec

Sometimes email is too inexpensive for our own good.  It sure is tempting and certainly is very easy to send too frequently or assume permission or "just mail that generic sale notice/product announcement to everyone."  

Now, I get a lot of postal mail that is not that interesting to me.  And surely most of the tweets I see are not that relevant.  Even search results can be off target.  Yet, there is a penalty for not respecting and delighting our email subscribers that does not exist in other direct channels:  It's called the "report spam" button.  Even a small number of those spam complaints will get all your messages blocked by the ISPs like Yahoo!, Gmail and Hotmail, as well as corporate systems. 

It happens to the best of us.  Turns out that, despite all we've learned about email marketing best practices and the rules of engagement  for getting past the spam filters, the average inbox deliverability is still only about  80% according to a new Return Path study.

Leaving 20% of your marketing messages on the spam pile is like leaving 20% of your revenue behind.  Don't stand for it.  Complacency or thinking that "it's the other guy" is just not valid.  This study looks at commercial senders like you and me – branded companies with permission grants and a desire to do the right thing.  And we still lose an average of 20%!

The good news is that averages can be beat.  Respect your subscribers, curb your frequency, target and customize, keep your list clean, authenticate, process bounces correctly and maintain a solid infrastructure.  You will lower complaints and improve your inbox reach.  When you reach the inbox, you can earn a response and revenue.

- Stephanie Miller, VP, Market Development, Return Path, Inc.

Are you struggling to increase your in-house email list in order to extend your marketing reach? There is a growing percentage of the online population that does not sign up for emails or newsletters. Instead they get their information predominately through social networking sites and portals. To reach them, one has to get to them either through their contacts, the groups they belong to, or those they follow. But email can be the vehicle to do just that.

Email can enable and even encourage content to be shared with social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. This then allows for an extended reach to those people who haven't opted in to receive emails from you. Plus the marketer retains some control over what specifically can be shared. For example, it might be a video, particular imagery, or a special offer. You as the marketer get to decide.

In addition to getting your content exposed to a much broader audience, sharing email content gives those doing the sharing the opportunity to add value to their respective networks. This is a huge motivator for many social networkers because it puts them in the role of trusted advisor. (Consider how often a tweet from someone in your network is simply a retweet.) This also allows a marketer to enable their audiences to evangelize on your behalf. 

This opportunity to reach the previously unreachable, and to simultaneously empower your audience to demonstrate value to their network, can lead to very high conversion rates, especially if your goal is to not only reach new prospects but also to add new subscribers to your in-house list.

The latest statistics indicate that the number of people seeing content increases approximately 24% with social networking/email integration compared to relying on email alone. That's a massive increase for virtually no cost. FTF (forward to a friend) has been considered an email best practice for years, and it's one marketers should keep doing. But social forwarding features blow it away when you look at the extended reach enabled by social networking vs. FTF email.

The typical social networker has approximately 160 connections. When they share something in their network, the message they are sharing is exposed to their whole network. Compare that quantity to the person who forwards an email using FTF: Typically 1 in 1,000 email recipients actually forwards via FTF, and of those that do, the vast majority forward to 3 people or less. And hardly any of them subscribe as the result of getting the forward. It's easy to see that when you provide interesting, valuable and relevant content into a socially networked environment (i.e. content people will want to share), some of the new people you've just reached will sign up with your company directly for future news or shareworthy information.

When you add social networking integration via a tool like Share-to-Social or Social Forward, be sure to provide instructions to your audience about how to share specific offers or content, and help them understand why they should. Language such as "Click the Facebook icon to the right to share these recipes with your network" tells the user the action to take (click to share) and implies the benefit (you'll delight your friends).

All of this, however, is predicated on having information worth sharing. Your content has to have value. It must be relevant, interesting and appealing. Period.

The organic list growth opportunity is staggering too, as the latest research from MarketingSherpa and authors David Daniels and Jeanniey Mullen* show that the typical lifetime value of a new email address is between $120 and $180 each! Growing your list by just 100 recipients would play out to something like a $15,000 lift to the bottom line. Cha-ching.

Email marketing still offers the highest ROI. Imagine what you can achieve when you multiply its reach by integrating social networking features into your email campaigns!

*In their book, Email Marketing: An Hour a Day

- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

Lots of marketers use preheader text, meaning those words that appear at the very top of the email, above any banner or heading. But that text is typically dull and dry, asking to be added to the recipient's address book. Or they link to a web-based version of the email. Bleh. That won't make anyone open your email.

Clever email marketers fit a lot into their preheader text. In a way, it's like multitasking. They ask to be added to the Safe Senders list. They offer a link to a web-based version with images. They have a Forward-to-a-Friend link. And they sell.

There are best practices for preheader text. But before we get into how, here are four reasons why preheader text matters in email marketing:

• Preview panes: Remember that people look first at the From line, then the Subject line, then at the Preview Pane when deciding whether to open your email
• Image blocking: Your preheader text might be all they see in the Preview Pane
• Mobile devices: On that tiny screen, your preheader text has a huge job!
• Snippet text: In Outlook 2007, Gmail and the iPhone, the beginning of your preheader text is displayed following the Subject Line

But the number one reason is you must do everything you can to convince someone to open your email and discover the gems it contains, gems they'll want to act on.

Before you start writing it, first, determine the goal of your preheader text. Your goal might be forwards, getting added to the safe senders list, encouraging opens by picking up where the subject line left off, getting them to a web page so the recipient can see the images, or to a version optimized for mobile. You can do more than one in your preheader area, but you want to prioritize to make sure your most important text is emphasized.

If you thought writing a short enough subject line was hard, now you get to tackle your preheader text, where you face the temptation of just one more word because you have just a little more space. Although your text is small, you don't want to cram too much into your preheader text, or that jumble will get missed rather than noticed. Try to limit it to one or two lines, and make sure you check to see how it's rendering in different email clients.

Formatting becomes crucial with preheader text. You'll want to make sure to maximize your use of that little tiny space, so play with the formatting and check to see how the email renders in different clients. What allows you the most text while keeping the text readable? Chances are it's not centered text. And don't waste precious real estate with spacing between the lines of text.

Successful email marketing ROI is achieved by refining and testing, then refining and testing more. Preheader text is one more piece of the email marketing puzzle that you can continue to improve to improve your overall results.

- Marco Marini
CEO
ClickMail Marketing

The internet was designed to be a free exchange of information wherein anyone, upon a loose framework mainly having to do with networking and rendering capabilities, could join, share and digest what they wanted. Email was developed as a predecessor to the internet.  Again, one in which, as long as you had the most basic SMTP compliancy between networks, messages would be handed off between point A to B.

Today, email has turned into a monumentally powerful marketing tool and communication channel that still rivals the internet and other upcoming social networks, regardless of which side of the "email is dying" debate you fall under. With email marketing, forward to a friend, sharing links, email filters and forwarders, along with major ISPs providing outsourcing solutions (like Google Apps), the audit trail of an email is sometimes all but impossible to decipher without CSI level forensic header analysis.

But, you don't care about all this.


What should you care about?

When you place an order to have something delivered with the USPS, UPS or FedEx, that item almost never leaves that company's chain of custody.  Meaning, if you dropped it off with FedEx, the recipient will most likely receive it with FedEx.  Again, there are exceptions, but the vast majority of the time this is the rule.  When you send an email out, though, it may be going to a Yahoo! domain address, then forwarded on to a Gmail domain address and finally rendered in Outlook 2007.  What can you do to ensure that your mail has the highest rate of making it to its final destination regardless of the cyber hops in the middle?

1. Ask your recipient up front if their email address is still, indeed, the right one to be using. I check over 8 different email accounts on a normal day, and with inbox email aggregators with dynamic collection addresses (such as OtherInbox), I probably have several hundred email addresses (with OtherInBox I can use disposable email addresses) that will get to me somehow.  However, the email address to sign up with your service when I was a fresh college grad and using my Alumni account may no longer be at the top of my list.  So, I appreciate it when companies I do business with ask me if that's still the one I should have on my account.  If it is, I click through on a prompt when I login.  If not, it takes 2 seconds to change.  I don't get asked this every time I login, but perhaps, every 6 months or so to ensure the email address is fresh.  Guess what?  My Alumni account is forwarded to my Yahoo! account.  So, I changed it to have my Yahoo! account receive the email directly (and thus avoid any errant filtering on the part of my school).

2. Authenticate outbound email. Period. DKIM was designed not to break when making multiple hops in an email's path to the final destination.  Unfortunately SPF will because of the technical nature of email headers, but with DKIM enabled mail, if it comes through at Gmail verified and then is forwarded on to AOL, the DKIM signature stays intact and the message has a higher likelihood of being delivered.

3. Here's the bad part.  Just like you as a sender pushing mail out to a recipient, when email is forwarded to another domain by the recipient domain, the reputation and deliverability of that mail falls back on the ISP doing the forwarding.  For instance, I run my own domain hosted through Gmail.  When you send an email there, it gets forwarded to Yahoo! which is what I consider my central email nervous system.  But, sometimes, email from Gmail gets bulked at Yahoo! because of Gmail's reputation.  This means I don't get my mail.  What can you do about it?  Gently remind your subscribers to check their spam folders for mail that may have accidentally fallen prey to a filter somewhere.  In my case, I'll get email that randomly gets bulked (as opposed to breaking any obvious best sending practices) and have made it a habit to check my spam folder often.

4. Check your content in multiple web clients. Oftentimes, an email sent to a Comcast domain looks fantastic, but when forwarded to an AOL accounts, looks horrible.  Now, like in #3, a lot of this is out of your control if the actual content is changed en route by the ISP.  But, if you ensure that your content looks good in the different clients, you increase your chances that when an ISP doesn't reach in and play with the HTML when it's being forwarded along, it will look fine in the end email inbox.

5. Have unique identifiers in your unsubscribe links tying an email address back to a particular sender.  If I unsubscribe from my Yahoo! address on an email that was sent to me originally at a Gmail account but was forwarded on, you could end up shooting yourself in the proverbial foot.  I could have any wanted email to my Yahoo! account stop but the Gmail email continue.  Recipients will oftentimes setup multiple email addresses for one account, or across multiple accounts you as an ESP or single sender support, so directly tying that recipient's unsubscribed email address to their preferences (and not the one that happened to actually do the unsubscribing) is key.

This is pretty technical stuff, folks.  But, in order to stay on top of the original intent of email being free flowing and having as few barriers as possible, you must be cognizant of the challenges in your path.  Reach out to your technical team to ensure you've got these points covered.  And remember, an email address is easily disposable.  We, as marketers, tend to see them as having high stickiness.  But, recipients can come and go with fluidity and tracking them along the way with their permission (ultimately their keeping you informed of their moves) keeps you in touch with your customers.

Chris Wheeler
Director of Deliverability
Bronto Software
@ChrisAWheeler

Video in email. Not a week goes by without a webinar, blog or email newsletter mentioning the topic. But is video in email the real deal? Or is it still too early to start whipping out the camcorders and hiring scriptwriters?

To get a better handle on the topic, I turned to ClickMail Marketing's CTO, Cameron Kane, for some insight. Cameron is paying close attention to the video vibe and was deploying video for clients way before the hype. But whether or not video is ready for prime time is the topic I asked him to speak upon.

First off, Cameron says you need to be clear on your motivation. Video can be a good tool to engage prospects or re-engage existing customers. But make sure you'll use it that way. Ask yourself, "Will this really help me engage the customer or am I doing this because it's the next shiny new thing?"

Next, Cameron cautions being aware of the different ways to deliver video. Which method you choose depends in part on your audience and in part on how much success you want.

1. As a static image that clicks through to video on a landing page – This is an image with a Play arrow on it indicating it will start a video. The video starts playing upon the click through.
2. As an animated .gif that plays in the email – Cameron says this is a good way to go if you can get the point of your short video across without sound. "It should be used as more of a lure than the full-blown video," he says. But it will not play if images are suppressed. And it only shows the first frame in Microsoft Outlook 2007, so when you're creating it, you must make your first frame a static image with an arrow (as above) so the user can click through. For this reason, it's a bad choice if you're a B2B marketer as so many business people use Outlook.
3. As certified video that plays in the email with audio (AOL only) – Right now this applies only to AOL, although other ISPs are joining, like Comcast. "I think the expansion into ISPs needs to widen a tad before we can really speak to this," says Cameron. "The home run is if they can get Hotmail, Livemail and Gmail. Then video will be pervasive," he says. Certified video has just come onto the scene and it will be very interesting in watching this playout. The implications on this front go wide and far. I think the best has yet to come.
4. As embedded Flash video: "Very bad idea," says Cameron. "We could do this 5 years ago, but no longer."

Of the four choices above, Cameron recommends using the static image for a B2B audience. If the audience is B2C, he says, start with an animated .gif and do an A/B split test. If the animated .gif works, filter your AOL audience and if that audience is big enough and a lift in revenue would be significant, use the certified video for that segment. "I would see this option as the best for large retailers," he says. Although he also points out Goodmail hasn't done their homework yet on the effectiveness of video and whether or not there's a lift in ROI. "They don't have conclusive data as of yet on the lift a sender would receive if using video," he points out.

If you use video in your email marketing, there are still email best practices to adhere to. Just because you're adapting a new approach and technology doesn't mean the old rules no longer apply. Things to keep in mind when using video in your email marketing include:

• You still have to be relevant and targeted
• It's still email. You're still trying to get the recipient to do something, to take some kind of action
• You still have to measure its impact
• You still have to test
• You have to consider bandwidth and rendering issues

Most of all, perhaps, and this is where the discussion about video in email gets fuzzy, you have to consider image blocking. A recent webinar on video in email hardly spent 10 seconds on the topic, but the reality is, if your recipients have images suppressed, it doesn't matter which method you choose to deliver your video in the email: They won't see it.

As Cameron says, "You have to get them to download images, then view the email and video, then click through. This is all before they hopefully convert. There's lots of room for drop out."

So maybe it's worth waiting a while before you "drop in" to the video in email camp.

- Marco Marini, CEO, ClickMail Marketing

More than ever, consumers are thinking about the necessity of their purchases before they part with their hard-earned dollars. Adding to the problem, 65% of Americans believe they are bombarded with too much advertising, according to the Art and Copy trailer.  This becomes a major issue for email marketers who are trying to walk the fine line between inundating the inbox and delivering timely messages.

So, how do you convert consumers from window shoppers to buyers when there are so many companies vying for their affections? Simply step out from behind the corporate curtain and create a connection that's rooted in authenticity. One way to do this is to put a face with the name.

As the fashion visionary and Creative Director at J.Crew, Jenna Lyons is the ideal voice for the brand. By devoting an entire email to Jenna's Picks and supporting the story in-store, in the catalog and online, J.Crew is inviting people into her office to see what inspires her. Adding the quote from Jenna is yet another way to personalize the content and up the authenticity.

The founders of Serena & Lily take this a step further by devoting two separate emails to their distinct styles: Serena Hearts and Lily Loves.  By incorporating a quote for each top pick, they create a conversation. Without the quotes, it would be a list of items without any personality. Of course, in both of these examples the assumption is that the quotes are real, and if they truly want to emanate authenticity then the words should be unedited, as though part of an interview or casual conversation.

Ann Taylor recently introduced their subscribers to Lisa, their new head designer, in a gorgeous email.  It includes a quote, a pic of Lisa, and swatches from her inspiration board. Unfortunately, the story ended there. Clicking on the CTA under Lisa's photo dropped you straight into the shop path. Building out an online landing page where people might be able to learn about Lisa's inspiration would have been a spot-on execution.

Catering to the true fashionista who scours the web looking for the latest trends, Tobi delivers all kinds of editorial extras into this email.  From taking subscribers behind the scenes at Velvet to strolling the San Francisco streets with their resident style scout, Tobi turns shopping into a full-on fashion experience. (On a best practices note, they fall short in some key areas, including SWYN and FTAF, which are major misses, especially when you consider the great content.)

At the other end of the authenticity spectrum, we have Old Navy's Super-modelquins campaign.  Basically, their public-facing spokesperson, who supposedly embodies the Old Navy brand, is actually...a mannequin. While they've done their best to create personalities around these characters and make them more "human", the fact remains that they are plastic, so this comes off as fake and, to be honest, a little creepy.

Without a doubt, Banana Republic has a lock on classic and affordable go-to-work styles. While their emails are always polished to perfection, they feel the same week after week, whether they're featuring white shirts or the must-haves for fall. They get points for creating cool extras, like the City Stories short film competition and the Mad Men walk-on competition, but lose points for never letting their customers into the design studio. What was it that inspired them to make the white shirt the big staple for fall? Wouldn't it be fun to know?

Knowing who you are as a company and inviting consumers to see the face behind the name will help you navigate away from the corporate speak and towards a more casual conversation. In other words, keep it real. No one wants to feel like they're buying something that's generic and mass produced. By giving them a story behind the product, you're creating a connection for your consumer to carry with them every time they button up that shirt, slip on those sandals, or wear those must-have jeans.

- Darrah MacLean & Lisa Harmon - Smith-Harmon

Christine Borgia from AOL announced this week that the long-standing Report Card program has come to an end.  For those of us who have been in the email marketing world for any period of time, we know this marks the end of an era.  I go way back with AOL from my previous role running email operations at Travelocity.  I started back at the dawn of "email time" in 1999.  I had the privilege of sending AOL Travel email, in addition to my regular Travelocity mail.  This gave me some insider type access to the Postmaster Team at AOL.  I won't tell you that everything was always smooth.  In fact, I had a pretty rocky year, one that I've tried to delete from my memory banks.  Looking back, that was when the discipline of deliverability was born.  AOL was way ahead of the curve in the implementation of the Report Card program.  If you aren't familiar with the Report Card, here's a sample:

You are receiving this message via AOL's automated "Report Card" process because our available data indicate that in the last 24 hours your domain's mail stream has exceeded an inbox complaint rate of 0.30%.  This email is only an indication that your domain's mail stream has exceeded a pre-defined complaint threshold; it is not necessarily indicative of a spam problem. We send a report card to every domain that exceeds this threshold, regardless of what type of mail is sent. We hope that it may be useful to help identify potential issues. For additional information please visit our http://postmaster.info.aol.com Postmaster website, where one can find a more detailed explanation of how the Report Card system works, AOL's technical requirements for sending email to us, AOL's best practices guidelines for bulk-mailers, and more.

This was really great stuff!  Imagine an ISP sending you an email each day warning you that you had slipped into the danger zone.  You didn't have to build any reports, aggregate any data, or haggle over "hanging spams!"  This kind of service just isn't around anymore, and I fear we took it for granted.  It means we're back to "new school" techniques with AOL.  Their feedback loop program is top-notch and has always been the leader in FBL technology.  (You are signed up and watching your FBL complaints/statistics…aren't you?  Of course you are, because we all know that complaints are the bellwether statistic for email marketers.)

Goodbye, AOL Report Card.  I will miss you.  Actually, I will miss those days from long ago when a day without a Report Card meant we had aced our promotion.  We were good enough, smart enough, and AOL liked us!!


- Kevin Senne, Director, Deliverability & Social Networking, Premiere Global Services, Inc.

Not every email marketing best practice is an obvious one. In fact, in our experience at ClickMail Marketing, there are quite a few best practices that companies seem to look over or deliberately ignore. The result? The opposite of best practices, or what we kindly call "common email marketing mistakes" rather than worst practices.

In an industry where a half a percentage point can make or break a campaign, it's our opinion that tweaking and optimizing every possible factor is worth the effort. With that in mind, I asked our staff to compile a list of the top 10 mistakes they see when deploying email campaigns on behalf of clients. The good news is that they only came up with nine. And the even better news is that these are all easy best practices to adapt and adhere to.

Below are the common mistakes seen by the staff at ClickMail, and what you can do to avoid them:

Common email marketing mistake #1: Sloppy Copy

• Check your spelling. Copy and paste into Word and run spell-check if you need to. Also check the spelling in your links. If your URL is wrong, so are you.
• Read the copy. Don't scam, skim or skip over. Reading is the only way to ensure proper use of language like "their" vs. "there" vs. "they're", missing words, incorrect punctuation or poor sentence structure. Best practice: Print it out to read on paper. Even better best practice: Read it out loud.
• Employ a second set of eyes for final review. Once you've written, read and edited the same piece of content many times, it is no longer fresh to you and errors are easily overlooked. Ask someone else to run spell check and read the copy. You may be surprised to see what you missed.

Common email marketing mistake #2: Crummy Coding

• Set the pixel width to 600. This prevents the need to scroll to the right—and the potential to lose interest if someone feels they have to do too much work to read your email.
• Don't use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in your HTML coding. It is stripped out by many ESPs, meaning your message can be lost. Even if you've spell checked it and done all the best practices described above!
• Many ESPs also suppress images by default, as do email clients (about 80%). Do not create your email message out of one big image or your subscribers may only see a blank page with a little, tiny red X. If you use any images, to be on the safe side, utilize a View Online feature so they have another way to see images if they are suppressed.

Common email marketing mistake #3: Cold Calls to Action

• Your call to action (CTA) should be in text format, not an image because—as mentioned above—images are suppressed by default by many email service providers and email clients.
• Include two to three instances of your CTA above the fold (in the first 300 pixels). Make sure to include at least one graphical and one textual CTA.
• The top one-third and the left-most area of your emails are the most valuable real estate. Try to place a CTA those areas, in text and as minimal images.

Common email marketing mistake #4: Poor Subject Lines

Your subject line should be seven words or less (or 35 characters). Most people know this but might not know that the following conditions in a subject line can be flagged as SPAM:

• Percent of Capital Letters: Too many uppercase letters compared to lowercase letters
• Repeating Capital Letter: Too many upper case letters in a row (e.g., SALE)
• Gaps: When the words have gaps between letters like s*t*y*l*e
• Repetition: When letters or characters are repeated (*****)
• Special Character Flag: Overuse of special characters (e.g., & $ # @ ( )[ ] !)
• Punctuation Flag: Too much punctuation (…) or the type of punctuation (!)
• Word/Space Ratio: Spammers use blank spaces to catch the recipient's attention resulting in a high ratio of spaces to words
• First Character Flag/First Word Flag: Subject lines starting with a special character or punctuation. Words like "Free", "hey", "Sale" etc.

Common email marketing mistake #5: Obscure "From" Label

Your From address is key information used by subscribers to determine if your email is spam or not. If it's not relevant or recognizable, they may mark it as spam, or just delete it without opening it.

Common email marketing mistake #6: Floating From Address and/or Domain

Keep a static "From" address and/or domain, and ask to be added to the recipient's Safe Sender list at the top of each email.

Common email marketing mistake #7: Lazy Lists

• Utilize the Forward to a Friend (FTF) feature to organically grow your list.
• Practice good and consistent list hygiene. Most people know to honor opt outs in 10 days to be CAN-SPAM compliant but you should also clean your list(s) of hard bounces after each send, plus monitor soft bounces and remove from your list as needed.

Common email marketing mistake #8: Competing Links

Don't include competing links, period. Unless it's a newsletter, most emails should be single subject with a single call to action. If it's a sale, link to the appropriate sale items. If it's an invitation, link to the registration page etc.

Common email marketing mistake #9: Unfair Unsubscribe

The unsubscribe link must be the first step, per CAN-SPAM. Don't make people jump through hoops to opt out.

Now, I hope you read the nine common email marketing mistakes above and nodded your head in agreement, confident you're innocent of all.  If not, if even one of those nine listed tripped you up, go fix it now and increase your ROI later as a result.

- Marco Marini, President & CEO, ClickMail Marketing

Marco Marini is 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.