Delivery Trends - Hotmail/MSN Mail UI Warning for Emails Not Authenticated by Sender ID
Learn how Microsoft's implementation of Sender ID affects email marketers.

Quick Tip - Show Them the Proof
Shared email addresses, such as a single email address for a family, are an overlooked source of grief for email marketers. This article outlines strategies for dealing with them.

The Lab - Ugh! Learn from Our Recent Email Mistakes
Everybody in email marketing makes a mistake sooner or later. Here's how you can learn from ours.

Ask EmailLabs - Average Open Rate for Email Newsletters?
First of a new monthly series that answers your questions about email delivery, marketing and publishing

Marketing to Moms? 'Get to the Point'

If moms are your target market, you can forget about trying to buy their loyalty with cutesy graphics or long-winded offers. Today's email-savvy moms respond to price discounts and free shipping in email messages from a handful of trusted senders.

A landmark study by Lucid Marketing and EmailLabs shows definitively that moms who shop online, especially those with young children, are very particular about their email subscriptions -- where and how they sign up for mailing lists, how often they want to receive mailings, what they want to see in their emails and how they manage their email communications.

"Effective Tactics for Email Marketing to Moms" surveyed 695 moms, mainly those with children under age 10, who had signed up for offers on a major retailer's Web site. About half hold paying jobs in addition to their home responsibilities, including full-time and part-time jobs outside the home, or work at home for an employer or their own business.  Read the full article...

 Full Article | Feedback

Previous Optimization Column - Make Your Email Stand Out in the Crowd

Microsoft Adds Hotmail/MSN Mail UI Warning for Emails Not Authenticated by Sender ID

The warning message is the first step in a two-stage process to manage junk email. For the next few months, unauthenticated email messages will simply bear the warning. However, Microsoft warned that beginning around November 2005, MSN and Hotmail will begin to ship emails without Sender ID authentication directly to users' junk folders.

The Sender ID Framework is an email authentication technology protocol that helps address the problem of spoofing and phishing by verifying the domain name from which email is sent. Sender ID validates the origin of email by verifying the IP address of the sender against the purported owner of the sending domain.

EmailLabs, one of the first Email Service Providers to adopt Sender-ID authentication, applauds Microsoft's move to encourage adoption of authentication, and has provided instructions and professional services to aid clients in setting up valid Sender ID records for all outgoing email.

Additionally, similar UI and Filter changes are also being included in the upcoming service packs for Outlook 2003 and the Exchange mail server.

For more information on Sender-ID and how to set it up, please visit Microsoft's Sender ID Resources Web site.

Everybody in email marketing makes a mistake sooner or later, even people who know better, like EmailLabs. We unintentionally committed four errors in our recent email mini-campaign to encourage clients and friends of EmailLabs and The Intevation Report to nominate us for ClickZ's annual Marketing Excellence Awards. Yes, we goofed.

But, we're also willing to show you exactly what we did wrong so that you don't make the same mistakes in your own campaigns, when revenue and ROI are at stake. Read the full article and learn what we did wrong.

 Full Article

Transparency: Proof is in the Email

What's an overlooked source of grief for email marketers? Shared email addresses, such as a single email address for a family.

Suppose you're a major retailer, popular teen Web site or regional shopping center. The Smith family's daughter signs up for your newsletter or special offers, using the all-purpose family address, "smithfamily@domain.com."

You send out your confirmation email like a good double-opt-in marketer should. Papa Smith sees the email first and assumes it's spam because, of course, HE didn't sign up for it. So, he sends a little nasty-gram back to you in which he demands that you remove his address from your list. If he's really seething, he reports you as a spammer to his ISP. Not good!

A three-step process can help you reduce this problem:

1. Set up your subscription database to capture as much information as possible about the sign-up, such as the subscriber's name, plus where, when and how he/she signed up.

2. Then, report all that information immediately in a confirmation email, using your email software's mail-merge or personalization features. Include any other info that sheds light on the subscription process and jogs the memory, such as what kind of information was requested, how often you email, even a sample or current newsletter or offer.

3. Finally, add this personalized information to an administration section in each mailing to remind subscribers how you got their addresses and what they can do to opt out of your list. (See Email Admin Center: The New Standard in Email Messages in our free Resource Center for more information.)

This is another reason why we advised in last month's Intevation Report to contact your new subscribers as soon as possible (See Make Your Email Stand Out in the Crowd). Their email memories are short; do everything you can to stay fresh in their minds.

According to a recent survey of 1,421 internet users by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the negative effects of spam on email habits and the overall Internet experience have declined. Pew's third survey in the last 18 months indicates that consumers trust in email is on the rise and that the negative attitudes toward email that were driven by spam may have reached a high point in 2004. See selected findings below.

Other Email Marketing Statistics

(Note: This month we begin a new regular feature. FAQ will answer a frequently asked question related to email marketing and publishing. Many are questions the experts at EmailLabs have fielded from clients, webinar participants and Intevation Report readers. Got one for us? Send it to: intevationreport@emaillabs.com.

Q: Is there an average open rate for email newsletters?

A: The open rate -- the percentage of readers who open your newsletter -- varies according to dozens of variables, so it's difficult to say what's average. However, we believe that your open rate (measured using "unique opens" - counting only one open per recipient) should range from 30% to 45% at minimum.

Companies doing a good job often see rates of 35% to 40%. Those that use a double opt-in subscription process, have mostly newer subscribers, offer compelling and pesonalized content and follow best practices can achieve open rates of 45% to 50% or even higher. Open rates much below 30% suggest less than stellar content, emailing to frequently, poor permission practices, weak subject lines and other factors.

Open rates have been declining slightly over the years, for a couple of reasons: Blocked images and preview panes mean some messages are "viewed" but not counted as "opens." Also, people are getting choosier about which email messages they open, now that their email inboxes are getting overloaded by newsletters, offers, automated notices such as birthdays and bill payments and junk email.

So, people are getting choosier about what they open and what they delete without opening. More likely than not, they don't even bother to unsubscribe.

Open rates are more reliable as trend indicators. Track your open rate over 10 mailings and see whether it's going up or down, or holding steady. For more information read the following:

• Email Open Rates: 16 Factors to Getting Better Email Open Rates
• Open Rates Don't Matter
• 15 Tips for Improved Subject Lines
• Make Your Email Stand Out in the Crowd
• Click-to-Open Rate: A Better Metric?
• Email Metrics: Lies, Damn Lies

Be sure to read our lead Optimization article this month, which presents valuable and eye-opening data on marketing to mothers shopping online, from a landmark study by Lucid Marketing and EmailLabs.

It's geared to online retailers, but the data can apply to any online business with moms in their marketing plan.

Loren McDonald

Mom's Want Relevance, Value From E-Mailers

Emailing Best Practices (Part 2)

Emailing Best Practices (Part 1)

Q&A With EmailLabs' Loren McDonald

EmailLabs Named Winner In 2005 Stevie Awards

Keep Your Spam 'Score' Low

Mom-Focused Marketing Firm Delivers Complex Email Campaigns with EmailLabs

EmailLabs and WebSideStory Partner to Offer Integrated Email and Web Site Analytics Data