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.

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.

New Gmail Unsubscribe Implementation

By: Chris Reibold
Senior Email Analyst

Google has started displaying unsubscribe links at the top of messages in its popular web client for Gmail:

Essentially, Gmail looks for the List-Unsubscribe header and pulls the information, displaying the above hyperlink next to the sender address. As a measure of security, DKIM/Domainkeys is verified before the link is displayed in a message.

This is actually a rather good move on Google’s part in helping email marketers and newsletter senders like yourself. By emphasizing the unsubscribe link at the top, the recipient of the message is more likely to simply click that instead of the “spam” button that is above it.

Please keep in mind that this change has come at a time when Gmail’s FBL (Feedback Loop) is being implemented for companies like JangoMail to use. FBLs send a message that goes to the sender whenever a subscriber hits the spam button. Eventually Gmail’s use of the unsubscribe link will be gathered, along with the FBL data, to tell us how well your engagement is with Gmail-using recipients.

There is an obvious shift in the way Google wants Gmail to operate; they have added tabs, turned on images by default, made the unsubscribe link more prominent, and now they are implementing an FBL.

It appears that Google really wants to cleanup the inbox and minimize the amount of spam their users are receiving. This is a double edged sword.  On one hand it can make your message emphasized over others, but on the other it will also make it harder for you to land in the inbox.

Only time can tell how well this new feature works, but Gmail putting an emphasis on unsubscribe over spam is a good thing indeed.

Gmail Now Displays Images by Default

By: Chris Reibold
Senior Email Analyst

You may have heard this week that Google made some changes to the way Gmail displays images in their emails. Previously, Gmail would make a request for an image every time an email was opened, but now they temporarily store those images, including the one we use for open tracking.

What does this mean for our users?

To facilitate open tracking in emails, we embed a transparent image (1x1 pixel) in each email, hosted on our servers. When you open the email, JangoMail knows that unique image has been accessed, and can then tell the sender their email has been opened. While using cached images is great idea for Gmail, it does create a problem for any Email Service Provider (ESP). Mainly that, with this new image caching system in place, location tracking won't be available for Gmail addresses.

However, there are always two sides to the coin – we have done some tests here at the office and actually are happy to see that open tracking appears to be more accurate with Gmail addresses now. Additionally, this should not affect POP or IMAP mail clients in anyway. For forwarded messages or multiple opens, Google will need to load the image at least that first time before they can cache it. When a customer comes back and re-opens the email, or forwards it to additional address, that’s where you’ll possibly miss some of the tracking, but that doesn't affect that first/unique open.

Image Source: Official Gmail Blog

When Gmail users open up their web interface, they are now presented with an alert regarding this new change. They now have the option to turn images on or off by default. Leaving images on enables image caching, but still lowers our ability to track repeat opens. Turning images off, however, allows users to open messages without downloading our tracking pixel.

Remember, this doesn't affect the number of subscribers actually reading your email, it simply makes the unique opens more accurate.

If you have any questions regarding the change contact us at: 1-855-709-4099, or submit a ticket at jangomail.com/support.