How bad will this hurt the email marketing industry?

10 replies
Hey guys I don't know if anyone has noticed this before me or if this is actually old news but I noticed that email companies have come up with a new setting to filter out email marketers. This is different than the junk folder/spam folder.
I've tried aol, hotmail, and gmail, and at first I thought it was my get response or HTA program, but I'm actually beginning to think it's at least partially the email providers, aol I only tested once but certain emails were non-existent Hotmail had mixed results between the emails showing up and not showing up, Googles was very distinct; I would do a search for my emails and when I did they then would show up but other than that they were totally invisible. I then discovered I could make everything reappear by pressing the "ALL" button which revealed on all my gmail accounts that I was getting all these other emails from marketers that weren't showing up.

I mean if I wasn't seriously looking for the emails I would never of found them. I can't exactly say I did find my other emails.

Does anyone know how long this has been going on?
If it has been going on for a long time how do marketers not lose too much money and sales with this stuff in place?
If this is totally new, how badly do you guys think it will effect things?
#bad #email #email marketing #hurt #industry #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    The sky isn't falling. It just means you need to step your game up and deliver VALUE to the lives of your subscribers. It's actually an opportunity, if you think about it hard enough...
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonBennet
    I see it as a way to filter out those marketers that are not giving enough good values and not being persistent enough. I see now as the best time to buy solo ads because those that responds are those that really bother to open and read the email. Just my 2 cents.
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    • Profile picture of the author writeaway
      Originally Posted by JasonBennet View Post

      I see it as a way to filter out those marketers that are not giving enough good values and not being persistent enough. I see now as the best time to buy solo ads because those that responds are those that really bother to open and read the email. Just my 2 cents.
      Exactly. It's actually good news. There are so many PLR-based generic garbage AR sequences out there, Gmail's changes might clear many of the worthless AR sequence guys so they don't DESENSITIZE consumers further...
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    Worthless emails will always be worthless emails.

    Valuable emails will always be valuable emails.

    If you have valuable content then just like you did now, your subscribers will go looking for your content.

    If your emails are of the quality where nobody even notices or gives two hoots whether they have received an email from you recently, then it's time to re-think your email marketing plan.
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyKattz
    Well I am all up for being positive about this situation but I really don’t think it has any relevance to how great your content is or isn’t for the most part, I think it has a lot more to do with if you are using an autoresponder or not. As a email user I do however like the way Gmail does it (Which is the only one that I know does something new at the moment.) It’s nice cause as an email user you can sign up for all these marketers without your email going into email bankruptcy. The only emails that show up in your email are your actual contacts. You can still see your emails from the marketers you have subscribed to by going and pressing the “ALL” button. However if people don’t know about this Google update and aren’t paying attention then you will probably lose a bit of money until they figure it out.
    However on the plus side I got in touch with someone who is very successful and he said it hasn’t hurt his business at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyKattz
    I'm not sure about hotmail and yahoo if any significant updates have happened but Aol it really seems that something has happened there too. My emails seem to be getting removed altogether not in the spam folder on anything. However in this case maybe quality search engine content might actually be an exception for aol because I got my aol to accept about.com and entrepreneur.com but something higher than 8000 on Alexa seems to be not enough quality, I don't know that is what I seem to be finding so far.
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  • Profile picture of the author hseitz
    Some of the ISPs have been making some changes. However, you can do a few things:

    1. Make sure the email address that your testing hasn't ended up on an inactive list for some reason (i.e. maybe it bounced X number of times, maybe the user inadvertently hit the spam button, etc.)
    2. Check the reputation of the sending IP address (Deliverability starts to drop off when scores drop below 90 and there are sharp declines as the scores get lower)
    3. Check the reputation of your sending domain (more ISPs are looking domains rather than just IP addresses), so check your from domain, sending domain, and domains in your messages.
    4. Try different types of content

    If you're using an ESP to send your mail, there's another option and that is that it's getting stuck in the mail queue. For instance, if you're using shared IPs and another user had a lot of complaints from yahoo, they may be throttling the mail (aka slowing it down until the problem is rectified). They may or may not be willing to give you this information, but this is one thing we HAVE seen lately is that some of the ISPs are more sensitive and blocking/throttling messages for complaints.

    Ultimately, mail doesn't go "missing". There's a trace from your email software to the end. When you hear stats about missing emails, it's generally because nobody took the time to trace what happened to the message.

    So.. I would recommend contacting your ESP and asking them for some help to figure out why your messages aren't getting out.
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    • Profile picture of the author MoneyKattz
      Thanks for your ideas, you seem to be really thinking up some possibilities.
      I'm using a built for you system, I'm mostly testing it out on my own emails I've created my own test emails so no one should be inadvertently pressing the spam button. It shouldn't have anything to do with my content. I know others are having a few problems but I'm actually getting through on less than they are.

      What I know is that the only problem with Google is their new updates, no marketer should be exempt from that.
      We are both struggling to get through on Aol
      Both get sent to the spam folder on inbox.
      But other than that he can get through Hotmail and yahoo and for some reason I can't.
      We're both using a built for you system so exact same emails, but different responses to the providers, so how weird is that?
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    It's already been stated a couple of times but I'll say it a bit differently. Provide the kind of rare value in your messages that your subscribers will drool over. Make your stuff so good that they'll go out of their way to clear a path for your messages to their inbox.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Hill
    Originally Posted by MoneyKattz View Post

    Hey guys I don't know if anyone has noticed this before me or if this is actually old news but I noticed that email companies have come up with a new setting to filter out email marketers. This is different than the junk folder/spam folder.
    I've tried aol, hotmail, and gmail, and at first I thought it was my get response or HTA program, but I'm actually beginning to think it's at least partially the email providers, aol I only tested once but certain emails were non-existent Hotmail had mixed results between the emails showing up and not showing up, Googles was very distinct; I would do a search for my emails and when I did they then would show up but other than that they were totally invisible. I then discovered I could make everything reappear by pressing the "ALL" button which revealed on all my gmail accounts that I was getting all these other emails from marketers that weren't showing up.

    I mean if I wasn't seriously looking for the emails I would never of found them. I can't exactly say I did find my other emails.

    Does anyone know how long this has been going on?
    If it has been going on for a long time how do marketers not lose too much money and sales with this stuff in place?
    If this is totally new, how badly do you guys think it will effect things?

    Well here are a few revelations... First, people who sign up to your list are expecting your email so show them how to find it and how to direct all future emails you send to their Inbox by white listing your email address.

    Also, make sure you constantly use the same From field when you send a message so your subscribers who are waiting for your emails will know what to look for every single time.

    There are more ways to ensure better delivery of your emails as well as making sure your subscribers see your emails every single time but I think this is enough for now.
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