If you are experiencing email delivery issues to VerizonMedia/Yahoo/AOL , chances are you need to improve your sending reputation. The best way to ensure you have a good reputation is to send timely and relevant email to an active and engaged audience. The following are some suggested best practices for sending mail to VerizonMedia/Yahoo/AOL . While each of these best practices should help improve your sender reputation, they do not guarantee whitelisting or email delivery.
Opt-In
- Ensure that you are only sending mail to users who specifically requested it. It is not advisable to purchase mailing lists or subscribe users by having an opt-in checkbox automatically checked on your website.
- It is preferable to have a double/confirmed opt-in process. When users subscribe to your mailing list, send them an email asking them to click to confirm their opt-in. This will reduce the number of people who sign up from fake email addresses.
- When users subscribe for your mailing list, tell them what mail to expect, how often to expect it, and what it will look like. Set recipient expectations clearly.
Authentication
Authenticate with Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM). This will provide you with a consistent reputation across your domain, regardless of what IPs you send mail from. Work with Marketo Support to set this Authentication up.
Address Book
Send your email from a consistent email address and advise your users to add that address to their address books. Mail sent to users with your address in their address book will be delivered to the inbox with images and links enabled.
Database Management
VerizonMedia/Yahoo/AOL is sensitive to engagement by your recipients. Are you reviewing and removing address in your database that have not engaged with your email in 6 months to year? If not you may want to leverage the following Smart List example to review and then remove your inactive recipients.
Identifying Chronic Non-Responders/Unengaged
Identify chronic non-responders or those unengaged with your email marketing to:
- Target for a re-engagement program
- Changes status to Marketing Suspended to remove them from active campaigns
Easy Unsubscribe
- Provide an obvious and visible unsubscribe process in your mail. Add this to the top of your email as well as in the footer.
- Make it easy for users to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
- Ensure the unsubscribe process is easy to use, such as a one-click unsubscribe web page.
- Users should not have to log into a website in order to unsubscribe.
- Process unsubscribes immediately if you receive them in response through your Reply-To address. Marketo manages the Feedback Loop (CFL) for complaints directly from VerizonMedia/Yahoo/AOL.
Invalid Recipients
A high number of invalid recipients will harm your reputation. You can reduce the number of invalid recipients on your list by using double/confirmed opt-in. You will always have some invalids due to people changing email addresses, but the lower the number, the better your reputation. Marketo removes invalid recipients from your list immediately after the first bounce.
Branding
Brand your mail so that recipients can quickly identify it and won't mistake it as spam. Make sure the from address of your mail clearly identifies who it is from. Also, include your brand in the subject line. Even if users want your mail, they may not recognize it right away. Subject lines like "Your daily newsletter from 'Company'" or "Your monthly 'product' update" help the user identify mail they want. Even if you have a confirmed opt-in list, users may not recognize mail as being from you with a subject line like "Buy two, get the 3rd one FREE!!!" and may report it as spam.
Additional Resources
For more sender best practices, read the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group's Senders Best Communications Practices Version 3.0 (Adobe Acrobat/PDF).
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