Spam spam spam eggs spam spam spam

[Robb_Barrett]

What it is...

Spam email is a form of commercial advertising which is economically viable because email is a very cost-effective medium for the sender. If just a fraction of the recipients of a spam message purchase the advertised product, the spammers are making money and the spam problem is perpetuated.

https://runbox.com/email-school/what-is-spam-and-how-to-avoid-it/

Why is it called SPAM?

Literally, because of this Monty Python bit.

Monty Python - Spam - YouTube

How it affects You

When we send out unsolicited emails, the IP address used is monitored by Spam Listers, like SpamCop, Baracuda, etc.

Marketo assigns our IP addresses. If they don’t catch things in time, all emails sent from that IP will be blocked

Actual real lead that’s now blocked because we’re listed as spammers

How to protect your reputation in Marketo

• Do not email to people who have not filled out emails asking to be contacted
• Monitor who is calling us a spammer
• Watch for Spam Traps
• Create a suppression list and institutionalize it
• Do not delete these leads from Marketo
• Don’t mail to personal email addresses

Do not email to people who have not filled out emails asking to be contacted

• Don’t purchase or rent lists
• Use lists from tradeshows CAUTIOUSLY
  • Most often, tradeshows give us a list for one time use
  • Send an email to the list with a Call-To-Action to fill out a form
  • Set a “Self Destruct” workflow 10 days after the email that DELETES any lead that has not filled out a form

Monitor who is calling you a spammer

• Create an operational program for Email Analysis
• Create this  Smart List:
• 

Watch for Spam Traps

• Spam Traps are email addresses that look, smell, taste and feel like real email addresses
• They are created by companies and put onto lists that are imported into Marketo – tradeshows, third party lists, etc
• They have never filled out a form
• They monitor how often they get email from us and then report us to SPAM agencies that put us on the list of spammers

Tell Tale Signs of a Spam Trap:

• Never filled out a form or came from a CRM
• Often clicks emails before emails is delivered
• Often times a flurry of clicks
• Clicks links but doesn't visit web pages

Smart List to find Spam Traps:

Creating a Suppression List

This is a list that you'll want to hold onto, monitor and perfect.  This is a list that you'll want institutionalized on all of your email campaigns.  Suppress these people!!!

Smart Campaign 1 - Spammy Accounts

Create a smart list where email address starts with "info@"

Add them to your Suppression list

Smart Campaign 2 - Bounces

Email Bounces Soft, email is any, minimum number of times = 3

Email Bounces - email is any, reason contains: spam, invalid, spamcop, blocked

Add to your suppression list

Smart Campaign 3 - Potential Spam Traps

• Clicks Link In Email - Email is Any
  • Date of Activity: In past 2 minutes
  • Min Number of Times: 3
• Lead Source Is Not salesforce.com (or your CRM)
• Not Opened Email
  • Email Is Any
  • In Past 2 minutes
• Not Filled Out Form - Is Any

You'll eventually find leads like this, where there's a flurry of clicks but no web pages visited.  This is due to the spam scanner clicking the link to prove to itself it's a redirect, then abandoning the click so it never trips Munchkin

There are a lot of other things you have to watch out for with Spam Traps.  I'll update this blog as I find them.  If you have some, feel free to contribute!

[Anonymous]

This is extremely helpful. Thank you!!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting, Robb. Especially like the idea of creating a global suppression list for spam trap addresses. Totally doing that.

[Tom_Kerlin2]

Thanks Robb this is incredibly helpful information! I couldn't find the "Email Bounced Reason" filter though. Thoughts?

[Marisa_Rybar]

I couldn't find it either. Curious to see what the answer is here.

[Marisa_Rybar]

This was great, Robb. I just set up several new smart campaigns based on this post. Thank you!

[Robb_Barrett]

I'll get back to you Tom. I've been on vacation and not working. 

[Gerard_van_den_]

I do see that filter, but it's part of the Salesforce filters, not a generic Marketo filter.

[Gerard_van_den_]

I am wondering: after examining the leads that show when filtering on the 'cause' of 'spam', I noted that many of the leads do contain a spam message in the Email Suspended Cause, but are not suspended anymore. Emails sent at a later point in time were delivered.

Any suggestions how to go about with suspended leads with 'Reason contains spam'. Just suppressing them seems to drastical, there is clearly still value in part of them. The point is that the suspended fields are not updated automatically. Should I create a smart campaign or batch campaign to set these values after a mailing?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Gerard,

You probably want to open a new question in the product section if you want to get more people looking into it and answering, as it's an interesting question.

-Greg

[Robb_Barrett]

Very interesting.  Marketo suspends an email address for....I believe 36 hours (???) if it gets a spam complaint.

However, why did I recommend suppressing them?  Because these are likely to be servers that will continue to flag you as spam when you send emails. I take a very conservative approach because I consider the reputation of my IP to be the reputation of my company and I do my best to preserve its good standing.