Thursday, March 17, 2005
New Media Weakness: Deliverability (Updated 3/23)
A study by Return Path shows that e-mails are being blocked on purpose or inadvertently by ISPs filtering for spam. Here's the story http://directmag.com/news/ISPs-031705/
This is the press release:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050323005043&newsLang=en
This is a release about the topic from 2004: http://www.returnpath.biz/aboutus/newsroom/press/release.php?id=19
Here are some highlights with comments in brackets:
-- ISPs block 22% of permission-based e-mail [Did you get that? this is "opt-in" e-mail, and it's still being blocked]
-- Blocking for each campaign varied from a low of 1% to a high of 57%. [What if the post office said "we'll deliver somewhere between 43% to 99% of your mail"?; remember, if someone's postal address changes, the post office forwards their first class and some other classes of mail, but e-mail just bounces!]
-- Blocking rates varied widely by ISP from a low of 5% to a high of 36% [Earthlink was the best performer; among the dial-ups they seem to have the best spam engine in terms of detection and discernment]
A key part of marketing competition is to focus on weak points of competitors. Print, when mailed, gets delivered more than 99% of the time. It's important to pound away at that to marketers that new media has this serious weak point, and that print has to be part of their media mix, often for no better reason than this. It's better to act now, because e-mail problems are being attacked and its delivery will improve.
This is the press release:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050323005043&newsLang=en
This is a release about the topic from 2004: http://www.returnpath.biz/aboutus/newsroom/press/release.php?id=19
Here are some highlights with comments in brackets:
-- ISPs block 22% of permission-based e-mail [Did you get that? this is "opt-in" e-mail, and it's still being blocked]
-- Blocking for each campaign varied from a low of 1% to a high of 57%. [What if the post office said "we'll deliver somewhere between 43% to 99% of your mail"?; remember, if someone's postal address changes, the post office forwards their first class and some other classes of mail, but e-mail just bounces!]
-- Blocking rates varied widely by ISP from a low of 5% to a high of 36% [Earthlink was the best performer; among the dial-ups they seem to have the best spam engine in terms of detection and discernment]
A key part of marketing competition is to focus on weak points of competitors. Print, when mailed, gets delivered more than 99% of the time. It's important to pound away at that to marketers that new media has this serious weak point, and that print has to be part of their media mix, often for no better reason than this. It's better to act now, because e-mail problems are being attacked and its delivery will improve.
