Email Deliverability is crucial to achieve consumer Internet virality

In the side conversations at the founders brunches, it seems that all people can talk about is invite deliverable.   The most important subset of invite deliverable is email deliverable.   Many B2C companies go viral by convincing current users to upload their address books and email their friends.   You can do all the viral tuning you want, but if your emails are going to someone's spam filter, they ain't gonna see your genius.   And that's a shame.

 

So what to do?

1. check if you are on any blacklists.   Three sites I like are:

- http://spamblock.outblaze.com/spamchk.html

- www.dnsstuff.com

- www.us.sorbs.net/lookup.shtml

 

2.  make sure you can be accepted by carriers by setting up SPF, Sender ID, and DomainKeys/DKIM.   To get more information on these, check out:

-          www.openspf.org

- Email Authentication

 

Then follow these steps:

- check your current configuration: http://senderid.espcoalition.org/

- set up SPF/Sender ID: http://old.openspf.org/wizard.html

- set up DomainKeys/DKIM: http://domainkeys.sourceforge.net/

 

 

3. Monitor your emails and make sure you unsubscribe anyone that hits the spam key.   Some good services to sign up for are:

- Abuse.net: www.abuse.net

- Spamcop: www.spamcop.net

 

 

4. Set up feedback loop (FBL)

- MSN/Hotmail: http://postmaster.msn.com/Services.aspx

http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/

- AOL: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/fbl/index.html

 

 

5. Get whitelisted/remove yourself from blacklists

- Yahoo: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/mail/cgi_bulkmail

- Microsoft: set up FBL: http://postmaster.msn.com/Services.aspx and http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/

- AOL: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/whitelist/index.html

- Gmail: none  (dohhhh!)

- Earthlink: email open-relay@mindspring.com or noc@corp.earthlink.net

- Bellsouth: email dsl_help@bellsouth.net or postmaster@bellsouth.net.

- Bell.ca: email ispsupport@bell.ca

- Netzero: http://www.unitedonline.net/postmaster/whitelisted.html

- Excite: http://newfb.excite.com/feedback.jsp?key=exbnc

- Verizon: http://www2.verizon.net/micro/whitelist/

- AT&T: email rbl@abuse-att.net, postmaster@att.net, or http://worldnet.att.net/general-info/mail_info/block_inquiry.html

- Mail.com: check http://spamblock.outblaze.com/spamchk.html and email postmaster@outblaze.com

- Mac.com: email postmaster@mac.com

- USA.net: email postmaster@usa.net

- Road Runner: http://security.rr.com/RRUnblockRequest.htm

- SORBS: http://www.us.sorbs.net/cgi-bin/support

 

6. Monitor your email deliverability:

            - DeliveryMonitor: www.deliverymonitor.com

           

7. Pay for professional whitelisting (not recommended for startups on a tight budget unless email deliverability is truly your lifeblood):

            -Habeas: www.habeas.com

            -SenderScoreCertified: www.senderscorecertified.com

 

8. Ask your users to add your company’s email address to their address book and to whitelist you

 

9.) Other

- Zone File: make sure this is accurate and doesn’t have errors (check with your sys admin)

- Privacy policy: There should be a link from all sites to a privacy policy

- Unsubscribe links - web: Ensure that unsubscribe links are placed on all the homepages of sites the domains of which are used as senders for bulk email

- Unsubscribe links - email: Ensure unsubscribe links are placed in all emails to make them CANSPAM compliant

- Civic Address: Ensure your business civic address is placed at the bottom of all mailings to make them CANSPAM compliant.

- Unsubscribe Headers: see: http://lashback.typepad.com/main/2006/09/the_secrets_of_.html

- X-headers: Precedence list / Precedence bulk - consider implementing these.

 

10. And read one of the best blogs on this topic:

- http://blog.dogster.com/2006/11/29/sending-email-is-a-big-headache-for-popular-websites/

 

 

 

 

(Special thanks to my office mate, Vivek Sodera, for his help on putting this together)