AOL made an announcement recently about its enhanced whitelist (EWL) — an internal list of low-spam-complaint mailers whose messages are delivered with graphics and links intact — that has vast implications for e-mail marketers.
In the past, an IP on AOL’s regular whitelist that fell below a certain complaint threshold was added to the EWL. This meant IPs with excellent mail stats weren’t in the EWL if they hadn’t asked to be included. And others were on the EWL due to low complaints, even if they didn’t have a great reputation.
Now AOL has modified the process to benefit IPs with high internal reputation scores, looking not only at a low level of complaints but also at a high level of user engagement.
And they’re not alone. According to multiple sources, some inbox providers are increasingly looking at how individuals interact with a sender’s messages when deciding whether to treat incoming mail as spam or not.
How do they determine engagement? Hard to tell. But common sense says they’ll look at such factors as open and click rates, how many people dig through their spam folders to move the mailer’s messages into their inboxes, how many forward the mailer’s messages, how many reply to the messages — where applicable — and how many add the mailer to their address books.
Moreover, inbox providers are also increasingly monitoring for when recipients don’t interact with a mailer’s messages, according to Deirdre Baird, president of e-mail deliverability and optimization consultancy Pivotal Veracity.
“People who don’t interact are becoming as dangerous as those who explicitly, negatively interact,” says Baird.
Got an e-mail tip to share? Contact Beth Negus Viveiros at [email protected]
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