Command Center: Delivery Optimizer

By: Chris Reibold
Senior Email Analyst


For those of you who don't know, JangoMail is based out of Dayton, Ohio and we are ranked as one of the 12 worst allergy cities to live in. With the dreaded pollen, I can only anticipate that our team of Jangolopes will be affected. However, I know we'll get through it like we do with everything. Like a bad cold or allergy attack, email deliverability can have many symptoms. There can also be a hidden problem or issue that might take a little more work to adjust, sniffles aside.

That's where our Delivery Optimizer tool comes in. Let us take care of the guessing work, so you're not left scratching your head wondering about a specific recipient or list. With a simple check of the Delivery Optimizer you can see what domains you are sending from, and if you have the proper DNS records in place for perfect optimization! Those DNS records are a major factor in whether or not your message passes the receiving server's authentication check.

Click here for a step by step guide on our Delivery Optimizer.

Don't forget about other tools we offer to improve your message delivery like our Spam Score Checker and Delivery Health Check. The Spam Score Checker can be viewed with any broadcast message. The Delivery Health Check sits right beside the Delivery Optimizer on the reports page and can help you determine why a specific email address isn’t receiving your messages.



If you are having trouble with this, just call us up at 1-888-465-2646 from 7AM to 7PM ET Monday-Friday, and we can help.

AOL Follows Yahoo in DMARC Policy Change

By: Chris Reibold
Senior Email Analyst

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how Yahoo’s DMARC change would be a new trend and that we would see it going forward with other email providers. No, I’m not psychic, but I was right.  Yesterday AOL announced the same change.

For more details, click here to read my first post.

Like the Yahoo change, this only affects messages with the From address of AOL.com. If you are sending from AOL.com to AOL.com through JangoMail (or any other email provider), then your message will never be delivered.

The domino effect is clearly in play here. You can expect Hotmail and Gmail to follow suit accordingly in the near future.  Keep it here for the latest.

Bottom line: Do not use an @aol.com, @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @hotmail.com, or other free email provider address to send your emails. Instead, set up and send from your own domain. Learn how to here.

On Track With Jack: Welcome Newbees and Deliverability Buzz

Finally, spring is here! With the warm weather comes a swarm of newbees, new free trial users that is. Over the last month or so, we've had the most sign-ups to date, and today we're going to review what you need to do to get started with JangoMail.

Existing users, you can benefit from this post too. Use it as a checklist to ensure you have everything in place with your account. These steps will also help with deliverability. Check out these five simple steps to get started:

Get started in 5 Simple Steps:

	Step 1: Activate your account. Note: Your Full-Featured Free Trial Account is valid for 30 days.
	Step 2: Send from an email address at your company's domain. If you do not have a domain, read this article.
	Step 3: Set up SPF. An SPF record tells recipient servers that your JangoMail account has permission to send messages as your company.
	Step 4: Set up DKIM. Messages with DKIM signatures prove that your From Address is legitimate.
	Step 5: Set up Custom Tracking. A custom tracking domain adds another level of authenticity to your messages if you want to track opens or clicks.

So, what's all the buzz about deliverability? Deliverability has been a serious issue lately, not just with JangoMail, but everywhere with any ESP. In an effort to prevent spam, email clients have upped their security measures. They have gotten so strict that sometimes messages from a trusted sender falls into spam until it's added to a safe sender list.

What can you do? In addition to following the above steps, your first message should be a welcome email announcing that you've switched providers. If you're not a new user, send a just checking in message. Encourage your subscribers to do the same. Why? Once you're on their safe sender or white list, your message will stay out of spam.

In our emails, you may have noticed the link up top: Add Our Address to Your Safe Sender List. In addition to your welcome/checking in email, create your own link that will be placed at the top of all your messages moving forward. Write up a new blog post or landing page on your site that includes these steps. If you're concerned that your users never check their Spam Folder, post a guide on your website and social media networks. It will work well near your opt-in form and confirmation page.

In JangoMail, use our Delivery Optimizer, Spam Score Checker, and Delivery Health Check. Read this step by step guide on our Delivery Optimizer. View the Spam Score Checker with any broadcast message you send, and if a specific email address still isn't receiving your message, check it with the Delivery Health Check tool beside the Delivery Optimizer on the Reports page.

Think you have all your bases covered? Create and send your first email.

To recap: Follow the above steps to make sure your account is set up to properly deliver your email messages. Send a welcome email encouraging subscribers to add you to their safe sender/white list.

Still have questions? Ask. Dial 1-888-465-2646 or drop us a line here.

Jack the Jangolope
Department of Awesome
JangoMail

About Jack

Jack the Jangolope is our JangoMail mascot.  Each week, look for Jack's emails for marketing advice, trends, and quick tips on how to grow your email marketing plan to the fullest!  Hop into email marketing each week with Jack's helpful tips!

What is a Jangolope? Find out HERE

We want to hear from you. Remember, at JangoMail it's your email, your way.  Have a topic you would like Jack to cover?  Email us at marketing@jangomemail.com with the subject line: On Track With Jack.  Follow Jack on Facebook

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Heartbleed Bug

By: Dave Walker
Technical Support Engineer


A vulnerability was discovered recently in OpenSSL.  This vulnerability is known as "Heartbleed." OpenSSL is a tool which is used by many websites for secure communications. The JangoMail team has performed a full review of our systems. JangoMail does not use OpenSSL in its communications, and was not affected by this vulnerability. There is no need to change your password due to this issue in OpenSSL.


As always, of course, we do suggest that you use a secure and unique password for your JangoMail account. You should not share passwords between sites or accounts. Changing your password periodically is a good idea, but not required at this time.


More information about the HeartBleed vulnerability can be found at http://heartbleed.com.

Yahoo Policy Change Impacts Delivery

By: Chris Reibold

Senior Email Analyst

While I did put considerable thought into titling this blog post “Yahoo breaks the internet!”, I thought that might be a little dramatic, but it was tempting.

Within the last 48 hours, Yahoo made a bold move in updating their DMARC policy setting to "p=reject." Therefore, mail containing a Yahoo from address is no longer considered legitimate if it does not contain an authentication signature, or if it did not come from properly identified Yahoo infrastructure.

What does this mean? If you are sending from a Yahoo address, to Yahoo users, your emails will always be bounced. Essentially, if the from address is @yahoo.com, and your message is not originating from Yahoo infrastructure (using their web interface, or sending with your Yahoo account from outlook, your iPhone, android, etc), it will never make it to the recipient.

If you look inside the SMTP logs of a message sent to Yahoo, it will look like this:

Message+not+accepted+for+policy+reasons.++See+http://postmaster.yahoo.com/errors/postmaster-28.html - - 0 0 0 SMTP - -

At JangoMail, we discourage our users from sending with a from address of major free email providers like Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail.  With the new change, however, users will be flat out blocked if they try to send from a provider. While this move seems drastic, it will limit the amount of spoofed email to Yahoo accounts to zero.

Since Yahoo is a major source of email on the web, you can expect Hotmail and Gmail to follow suit. Do not think of this as some security experiment that Yahoo is performing, but a real and secure change in the way email is handled on the internet today.

Bottom line: Do not use a @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @hotmail.com, or other free email provider address to send your emails. Instead, set up and send from your own domain. Learn how to here.

Command Center: Conditional Logic

By: Dave Walker
Technical Support Engineer

Meet Bob. Bob has a problem. Bob owns a car dealership, and it's time for the new models to arrive. There's a new sports car, a new family car, and a new truck. His problem is that he only has one contact list, and he wants to send different announcements to different customers. There's no need to send an email about sports cars to truck buyers, and the young rich kids don't want the family sedan.

Bob can always split his list into parts. He can make a list of sports car buyers, and a list of family car buyers, and a list of truck buyers. Bob, though, works out of this same database on a regular basis, and it already identifies the customers appropriately. Splitting the lists is extra, tedious work.

Bob uses JangoMail to save time. Good for Bob! JangoMail's “Conditional Logic” feature lets him use his existing database of contacts, and still send different messages to his customer segments.

Bob creates a single message. The top and bottom of the message contain fairly standard stuff. He has a logo, his address, greeting text, and other content that will not change from segment to segment. In the middle of the message, though, Bob is having fun.

Using Conditional Logic's power, Bob puts three different pieces of content in the middle of the message. Each has a photo of the vehicle, text describing it, and a price. Bob creates one message with all three pieces of content. Using some basic scripting commands, Bob links these pieces of content to the data field for customer interest.

If the customer is interested in a sports car, we'll give that customer the sports car content. Likewise for family car and truck buyers. At send time, JangoMail looks at the contact data, and inserts the appropriate content for each recipient. If the database field says “sportscar” then that recipient will only see the content provided for that segment. Everybody wins!

You can be like Bob. JangoMail's conditional logic feature allows you to customize text, images, layout, and many other aspects of your message based on data in your list's contact data. One message to rule them all.