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My Emails Are Screwed: Your Advice?

by WillR
7 replies
Yesterday I did an upgrade of a membership site of mine and in the process I emailed out new login details to a few thousand members. I spread these emails out over the day.

The problem is that the email 'from' field was named something none of my members would have recognized - silly mistake I know but what's done is done.

I am guessing that hundreds of people (possibly thousands) have marked those emails as spam in their inboxes without realizing who they were from. Several members have already told me they did this by accident. The end result is hardly any of my emails from that domain are now going through today. Forgot Password request emails are no longer getting through nor are new member emails.

My question is, when email services block emails like this, what exactly are they blocking? Is it the domain, the IP address, or the server? If I were to use an external SMTP service to send those emails would things go back to normal (provided of course the SMTP is in good standing)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
#advice #emails #screwed
  • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
    Originally Posted by WillR View Post

    My question is, when email services block emails like this, what exactly are they blocking? Is it the domain, the IP address, or the server? If I were to use an external SMTP service to send those emails would things go back to normal (provided of course the SMTP is in good standing)?
    It depends upon the filtering algorithm of each individual
    e-mail service provider.

    However, in general, the I.P. address of the server used
    to send your e-mails is the main factor.

    Each e-mail sending server has a reputation that develops
    over time. Incidents like excessive spam complaints will
    negatively affect the reputation of your current e-mail
    sending server.

    If you go with an external sending server such as from
    smtp.com, then your e-mails will be sent from their servers
    with an entirely different I.P. address with its own reputation
    - and hopefully you'll see better deliverability.

    However, it is possible for domain names to get blacklisted
    too if they get associated with excessive spam complaints.

    I've seen some launches go tits up because a particular
    domain name gets blacklisted, even though the e-mails
    get sent from reputable e-mail servers (e.g. via AWeber).

    Dedicated to mutual success,

    Shaun
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    Thanks Shaun, I appreciate that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Entrecon
    I would touch base with your host to make sure they don't shut you down from sending. The host might be able to move you to another IP too, but that might cost you.

    You can also try reaching out to some of the major hosts and explain the issue with a sample of the Email that was sent out. I also know that there are some shared black lists that are out there, but have never had to deal with them directly. You will want to try to reach out to them to.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    I also know that there are some shared black lists that are out there, but have never had to deal with them directly. You will want to try to reach out to them to.
    Don't waste the time. Those lists, at least the ones you might have triggered, will expire the listing in a week or so, providing you don't keep getting complaints. Those are mostly the domain-based lists Shaun mentioned.

    Many receiving systems will expire listings in a similar time frame, as long as the complaint volume wasn't enough to drop a serious IP reputation hit on you. That usually takes a bunch.

    I'd just wait it out.

    PM me the domain name and IP address and I'll see what I can dig up about any listings.


    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

      Don't waste the time. Those lists, at least the ones you might have triggered, will expire the listing in a week or so, providing you don't keep getting complaints. Those are mostly the domain-based lists Shaun mentioned.

      Many receiving systems will expire listings in a similar time frame, as long as the complaint volume wasn't enough to drop a serious IP reputation hit on you. That usually takes a bunch.

      I'd just wait it out.

      PM me the domain name and IP address and I'll see what I can dig up about any listings.

      Paul
      Thanks for that Paul. It's kind of what I figured. Surely this kind of thing happens from time to time with reputable businesses... mistakes are made. I've definitely learnt my lesson though.

      I think I'll wait and see how it pans out over the next couple of weeks and if no luck, then I might look at other options.

      I use autoresponders for all of my broadcast emails, this is only for forgot password and welcome/login detail emails... you know, the ones that actually matter

      Thanks again.
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  • Profile picture of the author tim_buchalka
    Do you have DomainKey enabled in your Cpanel. Make sure you have set that up.

    Plenty of info available via Google if you need to know.

    Here is an overview

    DomainKeys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Essentially this adds a record to verify your domain and help with message integrity which may help.

    Hope it gets sorted for you.

    Cheers


    Tim
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