The Keys to Delivering Acceptable E-mail

E-mail Strategies by Mike Barnett

RISMEDIA, Sept. 16, 2008-Today, many real estate practitioners are using different eMarketing programs to promote their listings and/or other services. More eNewsletters, eFlyers, eEverything are being sent every day. What many don’t know is quite a large percentage are being denied delivery because certain aspects of the e-mail are failing tests.

In order to help curb the amount of spam that is being circulated today, most ISPs are checking the e-mail before allowing it to come into their network.

To help accomplish this goal-and because of the vast amount and quantity of e-mail being processed-an e-mail message is broken down into two different areas, the envelope area and the content area.

Messages are checked first at the envelope area before even considering the message’s content.

What types of items are examined and tested within the envelope?

There are many different areas of the envelope that can be examined, but the areas of most concern are: the “To:”, “CC:”, “From:”, “Reply to:”, “Subject:”, and “Message ID:”

Each of these envelope areas are reviewed individually on the server level, and depending on the results of the tests, the e-mail might be blocked and/or marked as spam.

One of the basic checks on e-mail addresses is called SAV (Sender Address Verification).

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a Web form on your site and (for one of many reasons) you name the reply address on the form DoNotReply@YourDomain.com. One reason to do this is to inform the recipient to not use the e-mail address (or reply to it). But, even so, it has to work.

For purposes of this article, we will substitute DoNotReply@YourDomain.com for DoNotReply@InternetCrusade.com and we will run the tests.

First we start with the domain “InternetCrusade.com.” We have to verify that the domain is valid and (must have an IP address) and in addition, the IP address must have a reverse (PTR) entry (record).

For instance, let’s validate DoNotReply@InternetCrusade.com. After it’s validated, the next step is to see if InternetCrusade.com will accept e-mail for DoNotReply@InternetCrusade.com. To accomplish this test, we attempt to send an e-mail to DoNotReply@InternetCrusade.com and if the server will accept e-mail for that address it passes the test (and in this case it passes).

If DoNotReply@InternetCrusade.com was not a valid address, it would fail SAV (sender address verification) and most mail exchangers will not accept the e-mail under the rational ‘if you won’t accept e-mail for this e-mail address, why should we (or any mail server)?

Once the e-mail passes all the envelope tests, then the e-mail is scanned for content including viruses.

So, the bottom line is that understanding how e-mail works and how each ISP determines valid e-mail is critical to knowing if your e-mail is being delivered. And, as such, determining how effective your e-mail marketing campaign will be.

Mike Barnett is CTO/VP of Technology for InternetCrusade’s RealTown.com.

For more information, please visit www.realtown.com or e-mail Mike@MikeBarnett.com.

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