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Inexplicable Spam Issue

by Excelsius
5 replies
Hi everyone,

We have a legal firm that sends out a newsletter to subscribed clients once every few months. A few months ago we had a huge problem where we became blacklisted apparently by CloudMark and our hosting company StartLogic started to block our outgoing emails. Initially we though that maybe something went wrong with that particular email campaign, but then we contacted the company which sends our newsletter, which is MailChimp, and then assured us that even if something had gone wrong with a campaign, our domain could never be affected since the emails are sent directly from MailChimp servers. Additionally, that campaign had only 4 spam reports out of 2000+ emails sent. So with that assurance, we went back to StartLogic and asked them exactly what reports they had about our domain and when so we could figure out what happened. However, StartLogic is either refusing or unable to provide that information saying that the information is not readily available.

So basically we're stuck. While our domain has fully recovered now after a lot of efforts and time passage, we're afraid that this might happen again since we don't know exactly what was the cause. It did a lot of damage to our firm because we rely on email to communicate with clients about sensitive information and the inability to send emails consistently for about a month brought our firm to a halt. We have considered the possibility of being hacked, but that doesn't seem likely either.

Can anyone say if we're missing something here? Are there any experts/companies we could hire to investigate this? And is it really true that a company like MailChimp fully shields our domain from any negative impact even though our domain email is used for authentication and appears in every email sent through MailChimp. Despite the assurances, I am not convinced that this is the case.
#inexplicable #issue #spam
  • Profile picture of the author Mark Singletary
    Originally Posted by Excelsius View Post

    And is it really true that a company like MailChimp fully shields our domain from any negative impact even though our domain email is used for authentication and appears in every email sent through MailChimp. Despite the assurances, I am not convinced that this is the case.
    There have been a bunch of stories where a domain registrar such as GoDaddy holds a domain "hostage" based on spam complaints and requires a big fee to get it free. Many of these cases happened with emails sent through third party providers. So I wouldn't trust the MailChimp response.

    Mark
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    • Profile picture of the author Excelsius
      Originally Posted by Mark Singletary View Post

      There have been a bunch of stories where a domain registrar such as GoDaddy holds a domain "hostage" based on spam complaints and requires a big fee to get it free. Many of these cases happened with emails sent through third party providers. So I wouldn't trust the MailChimp response.

      Mark
      So you're saying a registrar can block the domain based on mailchimp spam complaints? I think that only our own registrar could do this right? (It's Network Solultions for us). The problem here is that MailChimp report showed only 4 or so spam complaints. However, my understanding is that if the email goes directly to spam without any action from the recipient, then that's not registered as a complaint in the MailChimp reports. Our email open rate is only 20% that could mean that a lot of the unopened emails end up in the spam folders directly. Maybe this even happens because our letter is sent though a bad MailChimp server and if our domain is not shielded, as you said, then MailChimp itself can cause us problems.

      I am really trying to understand how this entire system works since I'm new to it. I used to send our newsletters directly from our domain using a software and never had an issue of this magnitude that we're now seeing with MailChimp.
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  • Profile picture of the author pbarnhart
    I notice you've been left out hanging. Your domain can get flagged as a spammer and locked/fined/pissed on by your hosting company, ISP, AND registrar if you send the email, if a third party sends an email in your name, or if an email is sent with a link back to your domain (even if it is through redirects and link shorteners).

    If I think you've spammed me, I can complain to your domain registrar, your web hosting company, and/or your DNS hosting. Depending on the terms and conditions you agreed to without reading, any and all of these entities can charge/bill/extort you.

    Mailchimp offers a free email marketing; Aweber and some other providers are also extremely low cost and are great for email marketing campaigns. But you get what you pay for. Consider going to the next tier of business email marketing services. Make sure you properly implement a Sender Policy Framework and Sender ID at your DNS (probably what tripped you up with Cloudmark). And if you don't know what an SPF or Sender ID is, find an email marketing consultant (check for ones with nonprofit experience, they are usually the best at spam flag avoidance). Finally, consider a second domain for your email marketing efforts.

    And stop with the "every few months" email. Too much time is elapsing and people don't remember opting in. This is a huge mistake.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adrian Jock
    Originally Posted by Excelsius View Post

    but then we contacted the company which sends our newsletter, which is MailChimp, and then assured us that even if something had gone wrong with a campaign, our domain could never be affected since the emails are sent directly from MailChimp servers.
    Half it's true, half it isn't. There are blocklists of IPs and blocklists of domain names:

    (1) When you send emails via a third party like MailChimp, irrespective of what you send, for obvious reasons your IP will never be blacklisted. (you're not the sender)

    (2) When some messages are reported as being spam, the domain names from the links included in that reported message may become blacklisted.

    (actually there are more cases, but the rest of them don't seem to be applicable to you)

    For example, many years ago some ClickBank affiliates promoted one of my products by sending spam. All links from the spam emails were affiliate links and the visitors were redirected to my domain name. Guess what domain name was blacklisted... Mine
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  • Profile picture of the author tritrain
    I think you would get the most honest answer from Cloudmark as to what happened. It's handy that you work for a law firm, since you could send out an intimidating letter.

    Is it possible that a competitor may have reported your domain?

    You should be able to contest the blacklisting. You may want to find a different hosting company while you're at it.
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