A B-to-B Delivery Checklist

B-to B marketers don’t get any respect. Their postal mail has for years been blocked in corporate mailrooms. And now they find that their e-mail isn’t getting through, according to Elaine O’Gorman, vice president of marketing for Silverpop.

For every 100 B-to-B e-mails sent, an average of 14 bounce, O’Gorman says, citing research from Jupiter and MarketingSherpa. Of the remaining 86, only 76 make it to their destination. No wonder 40% of all B-to-B marketers say that delivery is their biggest problem.

And the reason may be found in the fact that 35% of all corporate e-mail administrators refer to blacklists when deciding which e-mail to block from company inboxes, according to Return Path. Worse yet, they often turn to second-tier blacklists.

That’s one problem. Another is that IT departments in recipient locations are often in control of deliverability. They vary in their responsiveness to deliverability issues, and they may be incented based on the percentage blocked, not precision in blocking. Sometimes they know little about their own filtering software.

The result is that mail suspected of being spam is more likely to be bounced or placed in spam folder.

Given all that, O’Gorman offers this checklist of eight problem areas affecting deliverability:

1. Configurations

Bad technical configurations can sink you before you’re out the gate. But this should not be an issue if you are using a major ESP. If you have an installed or homegrown system, this is the most likely cause for delivery failure.

If you suspect an issue, hire a third party to audit your mail system. E-mail service providers with professional service departments and delivery service providers like Pivotal Veracity offer this service.

Partial checklist:

• Reverse DNS & Header Consistency
• Open Relays/Proxies
• Dynamic IP
• Too many simultaneous connections
• High volume/deployment rate

2. IP Address

Is your IP RIP? Abuse over time can result in permanent blocks. Use a DSP seed test to detect permanent blocks. Also regularly check blacklists for trouble.

If you have a problem, change IPs. But don’t make a habit of it—you’ll look like a spammer. Whenever possible, get your own IP. And the best practice is to use a separate IP for transactional messages.

3. Bounce Management

Corral your bounces. You must accept inbound bounces extremely quickly. Nothing will do permanent damage to your IP faster than refusing bounces because your inbound server is busy. Many companies have separate bounce processing servers for this purpose.

Once accepted, examine your bounces and take steps to remove bad addresses. Some inbox providers keep records of addresses they reported to you as bad. If you continue to send to them, it may do permanent damage to your IP.

• Remove hard bounces immediately.
• Remove soft bounces if you get continuous bounces over at least 21 days.
• Track bounce rates by recipient domain to identify problems at specific destinations, then follow up with email and phone calls. Many ISPs and filters attempt to send feedback to [email protected]. Ensure you have one set up, and then monitor it. And know that you will have a variety of “colorful” responses in it.

4. Mail Regularly

Churn isn’t just for butter. Mail to everyone on your list at least once every 90 days.

Addresses go bad, and marketers who wait four months to send a message may suddenly find their five-percent monthly bounce rate has skyrocketed to a “spammer-worthy” 20%. If you haven’t mailed to a recipient in six months, consider resoliciting permission.

5. Reduce Complaints

Complaints are king. Ask for permission, be relevant, and don’t overmail. Always take the recipients point of view when assembling your campaigns.

And always ask these questions:

• Is your content relevant?
• Is it interesting?
• Does it provide value?
• Does it deserve an ongoing place in my inbox (E-mail Brand Value)?

In addition, be extremely conservative with list rentals. Remember:

• List rentals can be effective in B-to-B, if used very judiciously.
• Publication, trade show and trade association lists are preferred over compiled lists, especially if the list owner will “make an introduction” on your behalf.
• Do not add these names to your list…demonstrate a value proposition and ask for permission.
• Know that list rentals will result in up to a 40% bounce rate.
• Make opt-out clear, easy and thorough.

6. Test for Content

Your content can hurt you in unexpected ways. Run your outbound email through a content-evaluation system like SpamAssassin. Most major ESPs provide one, some at extra cost. Delivery service providers offer them as well.

Also, Note that email image-disabling is increasingly common. Know how your email will look with the graphics disabled, paying particular attention to whether your opt-out link still functions in a text environment.

And remember these technical issues:

• Design is not W3C Compliant.
• Hex Encoded URLs and other non-RFC compliant URLs (e.g. IPs).
• URL Blacklists.
• Attachments that trigger Anti-Virus filters.

7. Brand!

Your brand really is that important. Use your brand in the from line and use the same address consistently.

Proper branding of your emails helps ensure that even if recipients don’t remember opting-in, they are more likely to opt-out rather than report your email as spam. Make sure your brand and logo are viewable in an email preview pane. Consider using your brand or product name in the subject line as well. Here’s more tips:

• Check your brand on abuse boards and blacklists, or have your ESP do it for you. You may not be able to get removed, but at least you can spot trends and adjust practices accordingly.

8. Reputation/Authentication

Make sure you have all three authentication schemes implemented:

• SPF
• SenderID
• DomainKeys

The latter two are tricky to implement because they usually require your IT department to get involved. Have an independent party confirm it is done right.

If you are doing all this and continue to have problems, consider testing reputation schemes like Bonded Sender. Some studies have shown mixed results for these methods, and they can be costly.

This article is based on a presentation by Elaine O’Gorman at the Direct Marketing Association’s business-to-business conference.