Eight (Condensed) Steps to Better Email Deliverability

The primary focus of JangoMail is to provide customizable and personalized email deliverability that will separate our customers from their competitors.
These eight steps will help you to better understand the services JangoMail can provide for your company’s email delivery system and how you can get started on the path to better email deliverability with your company.

1. Branding Your From Address – Anyone can create a free Gmail or Yahoo account and send an email under your company’s name. Having a branded email domain will allow recipients to clearly see who is sending a message and will more likely lead them to click and open, which means more transactions for your company.
2. Customizing Your Tracking Domain – Every new JangoMail customer acquires an assigned tracking domain that is the same as multiple other clients’. Personalizing your tracking domain name to fit your company will set you apart from the rest of our customers, maximizing your customization.
3. Setting Up Domain Keys/DKIM – The email authentication standards Domain Keys and DKIM allow senders to securely deliver messages and eliminate fraudulent emails.
4. Confirming Yahoo Feedback Loop – After completing step 3, Yahoo will send a verification email that will set up a feedback loop between your company’s postmaster, Yahoo and JangoMail. This will allow any recipient complaints to be properly heard by all three parties and conveniently dealt with.
5. Creating an SPF Record – Setting up a SenderID on your domain will allow proper diagnosis of forgery, spam, worms and viruses in your system. 

   

   
   

6. Plain Text Message – To lower scrutiny from spam filters, the best idea is to send a corresponding plain text message with every HTML email you deliver.
7. Return Path Program – Two levels of high-reputation sending are available through JangoMail. The first level is being a member of the Safe List, which allows a sender to preferential treatment from spam filters. The second level of whitelisting is being included on the Certified List, which grants the user access to send emails with the highest standard and through optimal preferential treatment.
8. Anchor hyperlinks with Text Phrases and not URLS – This practice keeps phishing filters from believing your message is fraudulent.
   
   

For the expanded version of this list, including graphics and detailed information, go to https://jangomail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200660134-Eight-Steps-to-Set-Up-Email-Deliverability.

Good and Bad Unsubscribe Techniques

By: Ajay Goel
Founder, Chairman

When I first founded JangoMail, I would subscribe to as many newsletters as I possibly could, in order to check out the "Powered by ..." tagline at the bottom of emails to gauge which companies are using which email marketing services.  It helped me keep an eye on the competition.  Recently, however, I wished to clean up my Inbox and decided to unsubscribe from all of the newsletters that I had originally subscribed to for data collection purposes, but never ended up reading.  I was infuriated at how difficult most email marketing services' unsubscribe processes are and simultaneously proud of JangoMail's own unsubscribe feature, which is simple, intuitive, and customizable.

I found that if an unsubscribe mechanism is too difficult to use, I'm more likely to click my email tool's "report spam" button, which is an easy way to ensure I don't receive that sender's email anymore, but makes me feel guilty for punishing the sender.

A good unsubscribe mechanism:

1. Focuses on convenience for the user, not on convenience for the sender.
2. Should require two clicks at the most. One click within the body of the email message, and optionally one click on the web page to confirm that the first click wasn't a mistake or a bot.
3. Should be instant on the sender's side. An unsubscribe mechanism shouldn't require "2-3 business days for processing".
4. Should not require you to log in to a website.
5. Should not email you "one final email" to confirm your unsubscribe. An unsubscribe means you don't want any more email from that organization.

Let's jump right in and look at examples of bad unsubscribe mechanisms:

Constant Contact--"Instant Removal" is anything but instant

To unsubscribe from an email sent by Constant Contact, you must ENTER IN YOUR FULL EMAIL ADDRESS.  This places the burden of the work on the subscriber, not the sender.  Therefore whenever I wish to unsubscribe from a newsletter sent via Constant Contact, I click "report spam" to save myself the work of navigating a difficult unsubscribe process.  As a veteran and proponent of the email marketing industry, I'm loathe to recommend to anyone to use the "report spam" mechanism in favor of the "unsubscribe" mechanism, since the "report spam" button will punish the sender and reduce their deliverability.  In cases where the unsubscribe process is as infuriating as Constant Contact's, however, I'd fully support clicking "report spam" to save the subscriber time. What's even more incredulous is how Constant Contact names its unsubscribe mechanism "Instant Removal with SafeUnsubscribe".  There is nothing "instant" about their unsubscribe mechanism.

eHarmony--requires a login

I haven't been a paid member of eHarmony for years, but I still receive their emails. Asking me to log in to unsubscribe is inconvenient and time consuming.  As a consumer, I'm more likely to report the email as spam instead of taking the time to figure out how to log in, which would require resetting my password since I can't remember what my credentials are, and then, unsubscribing myself.

iContact--insults your intelligence

The Unsubscribe link is prominent and clickable.  The resulting web page tricks the user though, by having the "Continue to send me email" selected by default.  Why would any legitimate email marketing service set that as the default option after a user has just clicked the "Unsubscribe" link?  The "Never email me again" option should instead be pre-selected so that the user need only click the Update button to complete the unsubscribe process.

Silverpop--confusing

In this example, there is no direct unsubscribe link.  Instead the email message provides an "Edit your Email Preferences" link. The resulting web page requires you to enter your email address, and then in what can only be an attempt at a Jedi mind-trick, the bigger more prominent button is the one to NOT UNSUBSCRIBE.  This button is useless, since it would be expected that the user would simply close his browser if he wishes to keep the status quo.

Early on in my career, I had a Yellow-pages ad saleswoman meet me in my office to sell me an advertisement space in the book.  At the end of our meeting, I thanked her for her time, but told her I wasn't interested in buying an advertisement space.  She then whipped out a contract and asked me to sign a statement indicating that I was declining to buy a Yellow-pages ad.  I was mortified.  Can you imagine a world where we have to sign a contract for everything we DO NOT want, versus everything we do want?  Don't make your unsubscribe mechanism remind me of my experience with the Yellow-pages saleswoman.

Zoniac--living in the 90s

Zoniac is an email marketing tool specifically for the IT staffing industry.  They impose a 24-48 hour window on when the unsubscribe will take place.  Imposing a two day time period on making an unsubscribe happen is akin to having a user go to a website and being told that they must wait two days before the homepage loads.  In today's modern world of real-time database transactions and 24-hour connected servers, there is no excuse for an unsubscribe process to take more than a few milliseconds to take effect.

In Conclusion...

Make your unsubscribe link easy to use in order to avoid being reported as spam. A good unsubscribe mechanism is good for email deliverability, and high email deliverability is tantamount to a successful email campaign.  JangoMail's unsubscribe mechanism is a direct link, and each client can customize whether the link within the email instantly unsubscribes the user, or whether the resulting web page asks for a second, confirmation link.  No 24 hour delays, no entering your email address, no logging in, and no "one final email" after the user has unsubscribed.  This is just one way JangoMail delights your subscribers and optimizes your deliverability.

On Track With Jack: The Importance of Plain Text

While sum-sum-summertime is here, don’t take a vacation from your email marketing!  There are a ton of great business opportunities to take advantage of - market them all with JangoMail.  Most recently, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on deliverability, and I have something else to add into the mix this week:

Always generate a plain text version of your email.

Each time you send out a new email, you should include a plain text version.  While most email clients support HTML messages nowadays, there are still some platforms and devices that cannot display HTML.  Additionally, there are a few folks out there that prefer to block HTML emails.  When you send plain text with HTML, you ensure that your recipient can see your email, no matter what.

Need another reason?  Spam filters check for plain text because spammers do not include it.  A lot of messages without it go straight into the junk folder.  Please note that the spam filter also checks for a balance of HTML to plain text so you want to make sure you have an even amount of both.

At JangoMail, we make it easy.  Once you have the HTML portion of your email finalized click on the second tab in the editor labeled “Plain Text”.  You have two options here: you can “Generate now based on HTML message” or “Generate automatically at send time”.

If you want to edit any portion of the plain text, click the first link.  I prefer this option, especially for newsletters because I like to remove any duplicate links, for example.

Choose the second option if you want your plain text to be identical to your HTML message and it will be created when your message sends.  The system will generate the latest version right before your message is processed.

To recap: Make sure that you always include a plain text version.  With JangoMail, you can easily create plain text to ensure your message delivers.

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

Subscribe to On Track With Jack

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.

On Track With Jack: Email Deliverability

Happy early Thanksgiving JangoMail Users!

Can you believe it?  Thanksgiving is next week, which also means that you are going to start sending your holiday emails.  Before you add the final touches, take a look at my tip, well question, of the week:

Are you a Safe Sender?

In this day and age, post Pilgrim and Squanto times, email clients have become quite good at upping their security measures, which can affect your email deliverability and send your messages straight to spam.

It's important to make sure you are a Safe Sender, and encouraging your recipients to create a Safe Sender, or White List, will ensure deliverability.

To start, I would recommend sending an email with step-by-step instructions on how to create a Safe Sender List, and remove emails from spam.   Step-by-step guides with screenshots work best.  If you're concerned that your users never check their Spam Folder, post a guide on your website and social media networks.  They work well near your opt-in form and confirmation page.

In JangoMail, you can determine which email client your subscribers use most and shape your instructions around those providers.

In our case, Outlook ranks high and Gmail is king.  Here are the steps we suggest:

Microsoft Outlook 2010 / 2013

To remove from the Junk Folder:
1.  Check your Junk Folder
2.  Click on the email message to highlight it
3.  Go to the Home tab
4.  Select the arrow on the Junk drop-down menu
5.  Choose Never Block Sender's Domain

To create a Safe Sender List:
1.  Under the Home tab go to the Junk drop-down menu and click on Junk Email Options
2.  In the new window click the Safe Senders tab
3.  Click the Add button and enter in the desired email address
4.  Click OK

Gmail

To remove from the Spam Folder:
1.  Go to the Spam Folder
2.  Locate message from us
3.  Select the message
4.  Click the "Not Spam" button

To create a Safe Sender List:
1.  Enter JangoMail in the search bar
2.  Click arrow in the right of the search bar to filter
3.  Click Create filter link at the bottom right
4.  Select Never send it to Spam
5.  Click the “Also apply…” box to apply to similar messages
6.  Choose the blue Create button

To recap: Make sure you are a Safe Sender before your next email campaign.  Send an instructional email to your subscribers to show them how to add you to their Safe Sender / White List.



Sincerely,

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

Subscribe to On Track With Jack

On Track With Jack: Support Pointers

Hi JangoMail Users!

Working hard or hardly working? Today and every day, we are working hard to bring you the best support ever! Our customers are treated like VIPs because, let’s face it, YOU are very important to us!

This week, I have three small pointers from our support team:

 1.  Don't panic. If you forget your password and are locked out of your account, wait 10 minutes and try again. For security purposes we lock all accounts for at least 10 minutes. IP addresses are also locked. If you have multiple accounts and get locked out of one, you’ll have to wait the 10 minutes before attempting to login under any of them. Remember, your safety and security are top priorities to us.

2.  Double check: Double check your campaign settings after you copy a message -especially if you are copying a previous campaign that had a suppression list. Suppression lists are great because you can exclude a group of subscribers from receiving a message. However, if you are copying campaigns, you may not realize that those suppression lists carry over along with the other settings.

When we get a call about this, let’s say a customer is wondering why only 20 subscribers out of 1,000 received their email, we have them check their filter settings first. This typically does the trick, and it doesn’t hurt to double check before you send a campaign. To look for any suppression lists go to the Filtering tab and check/uncheck the box under ‘Select lists’.

3.  The doctor is in. You can troubleshoot specific email addresses with our Delivery Health Check tool which is found under the Management Reports & Tools section of our Reports page. This comes in handy if someone subscribes or even if their email is full.

Enter in the email to diagnose any issues. You can check if the address is correctly formed, if it appears on your unsubscribe and bounce list, and you can view the 20 most recent campaigns that were sent to it. It will also indicate the reason why they did not receive the email. Remember, when someone unsubscribes, they unsubscribe across your entire account, not just in one message but all of your messages.

To recap:  Don’t panic if you are locked out of your account, double check your filter settings, and troubleshoot emails with our Delivery Health Check.  

Don’t be a stranger! We are here 24/7 to help you. Call us at 855-709-4099, or submit a ticket at jangomail.com/support.

Until we meet...well, email again!



Sincerely,

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

Your Emails Will Get to The INBOX (and other lies)

Any email marketing partner who promises 100% of your emails will hit the recipient's inbox aren't just misinformed - they're lying. The truth is, there's simply no guarantee of a foolproof method to dodge every spam filter or customized filter established by every potential recipient.

That said, there are some ways to improve the chances your emails hit those hard-sought targets.

8 ways JangoMail

gets your emails to the inbox

1. Separate yourself from the pack.
Use a branded "From" address rather than your complimentary username@jangomail.com "From" address. Ex.s: john.smith@company.com or john.smith@newsletters.company.com. Using your own domain, or creating a subdomain of your own carries your branding consistently throughout the message. Also, a key benefit is that each address can have its own SPF and DKIM records. These are "reverse lookups" that tell the receiving server that we have permission to send on behalf of your domain(s). There's also a SMTP level benefit, in that a branded sub-domain allows the SMTP MAIL FROM command during the SMTP transaction between our sender and the recipient server to show your sub-domain rathern than jangomail.com. Details

2. Keep track of yourself.
By default, every JangoMail account is assigned a system tracking domain that's shared among multiple clients (ex. x.jango5.com). By setting up a branded tracking domain based upon your organization's domain name, you can isolate yourself from the activities of other clients. To set this up, just go to Settings > Tracking > Tracking Domain. Details

3. "Up" your trustworthiness.
Setup DKIM for the domain use in your "From Address".
Yahoo! Mail and Gmail look for DKIM signatures in the headers of incoming email messages, considering them confirmation that the email was sent by who was purported to send it. In other words, consider it a sign of trust. Details

4. Clear the path for complaints.
After creating a DKIM record, click the link in the confirmation email from Yahoo to postmaster@yourdomain. Here's some background: When you create a DKIM record, Yahoo sends this confirmation email that includes the link to activate a "Feedback Loop". That loop is where Yahoo processes any complaints, and communicates those back to JangoMail. If you don't click the link to activate, complaints won't be properly reported and delivery to Yahoo will be negatively impacted - specifically folks looking for your unsubscribe list.

5. Stay master of your domain.
Setup SPF records on your domain, and then set your email campaigns to use your own "From Address" as the SMTP-level MAIL-FROM address. Details

6. Send backup - plain and simple.
If you're sending HTML email, always include a corresponding plain text message. Spam filters can still get hung up on heavily-coded emails, even though they've proven more effective in communicating a customized message to and eliciting ROI from email recipients. To ensure greater delivery success, simply set your plain text messages to "auto-generate", which triggers plain text to be generated (base don your HTML message) at the time of email sending. Details

7. Get certified in success.
Enroll in the Return Path Safe List program if you have a complaint rate of 0-0.1%. Once enrolled, your emails are sent from safe-listed IP addresses. Yahoo, as a primary example, prioritizes emails sent from listed IPs. Details

8. Anchor yourself in phrases only.
If you use click-tracking, you'll want to submit anchor text in phrases - not URLs. Spam filters can consider URL anchors as fraudulent and indicative of a phishing scam.

Good click-tracked link:
<a href="http://www.browniekitchen.com/">Visit our web site.</a>

Bad click-tracked link:
<a href="http://www.browniekitchen.com/">http://www.browniekitchen.com</a>


Here's what success looks like
Successful email campaign open rates are in the range of 15-35%. Take into consideration that some of your opens may not register if recipients have to 'view images'. But, if your rate is even higher than this, it's definitely reason to celebrate.

And if you're seeing lots of response to your behavioral goals (i.e. "click on this to get this deal/offer/information") then you also get a seat in the VIP section at Club Jango.

Already a rock star?
If you've had some amazing results from email campaigns and want to share them, tell us. We love to hear and share new tips to enhance email communications. Who knows? What you tell us today could be the next, new JangoMail feature we unleash tomorrow.

As always, give us a shout with any questions or comments. Until then, we leave you with a blast from the past commercial. We hope you've never met ANYONE like this:

New Report: Email Address Delivery Diagnostics

Email marketers often have questions about their email delivery and why a certain email address isn't receiving emails. We launched a new report to answer these questions and to provide the most transparency possible to our users. The new Delivery Check report runs a diagnostic check on an email address. If you are having a delivery issue with a certain email address, this report will perform a number of checks to help you resolve your delivery issue.

To use this report, click the REPORTS tab and then the Delivery Check link.

Enter an email address to diagnose and click the Diagnose button.

The Delivery Check report checks the following:

*Is the email address correctly formed?
*Is the email address on the unsubscribe list?
*Is the email address on the bounce list? If so, a details link will appear to provide you with more information.
*Does the email address appear on the recipient list of a recent email campaign? If so, you can view the log file.
*Does the email address appear on the recipient list of a recent transactional message? If so, you can view the log file.

The JangoMail Support Team is also available to assist you with any issues you may be having. If you need help, contact us via the Support Contact Form.