AOL has withdrawn its support for Microsoft's controversial Sender ID technology and is falling back on Sender Policy Framework (SPF), internetnews.com has learned.

"Given recent concerns expressed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), coupled with the tepid support for Sender ID in the open source community, AOL has decided to move forward with SPF," Nicholas Graham, AOL spokesperson, told internetnews.com via e-mail.

Microsoft said it had no comment on AOL's decision.

Despite the bombshell decision, the world's top ISP isn't completely severing its ties to Sender ID: The company still will publish Sender ID files so its users' e-mails are compliant with Sender ID-enabled servers and applications. But it's enough of a vote of no confidence in Microsoft's e-mail authentication strategy to warrant concern for Sender ID proponents.

AOL Dumps Sender ID Posted by: DTB at 10:13 AM  |  Permalink

E-mail service providers boast of improved e-mail delivery rates for marketers, though some say the metric is too often fudged to make campaigns appear more successful.

Top e-mail service providers Digital Impact and Bigfoot Interactive said separately that their delivery rates were strong in the second quarter. Digital Impact said yesterday that its overall delivery rate for the second quarter was 93.6 percent, up from 91.8 percent in the first quarter. Last week, Bigfoot said its success rate was 92 percent for all campaigns in the second quarter.

However, there is a debate over how e-mail service providers determine their delivery rate, a key metric to marketers concerned that their e-mail is not getting through to customers.

Comparing 'Apples and Oranges' in Evaluating E-Mail Delivery Rates Posted by: DTB at 8:26 AM  |  Permalink

Microsoft's spam plan rejected: "Identifying where e-mail comes from could thwart spammers

Attempts to fight spam by identifying e-mails have hit problems over Microsoft's involvement in the process.

The Internet Engineering Task Force, an international standards body, has rejected Microsoft's contribution to the so-called Sender ID proposal.

The proposal, which would identify where e-mail has come from, could lead to better filters to siphon out spam.

But Microsoft's decision to impose restrictions on the use of the system has angered some. " Posted by: DTB at 8:23 AM  |  Permalink

With few junk e-mail filters supporting a protocol for verifying the source address of digital messages, spammers have adopted it themselves as a way to appear more legitimate, stated a report released on Wednesday in the US.
Spammers use e-mail ID to gain legitimacy Posted by: DTB at 3:11 PM  |  Permalink

The number of junk attachments to business e-mail has declined over the past six months, compared with the same period last year, according to a new study.

For every 4,756 business e-mails sent from March to August, just one contained an offending or nonwork-related attachment, such as pornography, cartoons, jokes and greeting cards. That's compared with a 1,357-1 ratio in the same period last year, according to a study from e-mail security firm MessageLabs.


The company could not say for certain what caused the drop but speculated that stricter enforcement of corporate policies could be helping.

Less junk in your in-box? Posted by: DTB at 4:38 PM  |  Permalink

Bigfoot Interactive: Nine Out Of 10 E-mails Reaching Consumers

In the last year, despite increased in-box vigilance, marketers have been hugely successful at obtaining valid email addresses for consumers who agree to receive online promotions. This is among the chief findings of a quarterly tracking report released Tuesday by email marketing giant Bigfoot


Nine Out Of 10 E-mails Reaching Consumers Posted by: DTB at 12:53 PM  |  Permalink

Marketers have long aspired to one-to-one marketing, sending the perfect pitch to a customer based on her individual interests at the moment she`s most inclined to buy. And though the task of compiling and capitalizing on the data needed to support true one-to-one marketing keeps it an illusive goal, marketers continue to try to reach it. 'It`s the continuing pursuit to find the right message at the exact moment when a customer will convert to a sale,' says Heather Blank, director of e-commerce and business development for Petco Animal Supplies Inc.

Blank and other marketers are finding that one-to-one marketing is finally moving within reach thanks to the integration of web site analytics and e-mail marketing applications. By using site analytics tools to compile and analyze data on shoppers` activity, then using that data to drive targeted e-mail marketing campaigns, marketers can create campaigns that drill down to smaller segments of shoppers based on information compiled from virtually limitless measurements of customer activity.

Rising Above Spam

Posted by: DTB at 2:20 PM  |  Permalink

Given that the overall number of e-mail messages will total 1.8 trillion this year and increase to 2.7 trillion as soon as 2007, it’s clear that Internet retailers are exchanging a virtual sea of information with their customers.

Information can be power to web merchants, particularly if they can take e-mail data and use analytics and business intelligence to glean information on customers and their upcoming buying behavior. That’s why a number of e-mail marketing companies are marrying analytics to e-mail. The latest is EchoMail, a Cambridge, MA, e-mail marketing services provider that is launching EchoMail Business Intelligence, a web analytics tool that analyzes in-bound and out-bound e-mail and helps retailers identify key customer metrics such as their attitude towards merchandise, price points and other shopping behavior. Once the business intelligence tool is set up to categorize e-mails and calculate or send targeted responses, retailers can better integrate and categorize e-mail with other customer data, automatically route leads to different departments and perform more targeted outbound mailings."

Applying web analytics to e-mail campaign analysis Posted by: DTB at 2:17 PM  |  Permalink

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced it has arrested and indicted dozens of spammers, Internet fraudsters, and online pirates in the largest CAN-SPAM crackdown to date. Online marketers and e-mail service providers are scrambling to revisit their policies and practices to determine just how far out of line they are with CAN-SPAM requirements.

Rather than figuring out how much you can get away with before you're visited by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), bite the bullet and get CAN-SPAM compliant. It isn't just the FTC and the DOJ you need to worry about. It's also state attorneys general, ISPs, and even power users. Most of all, it's the goodwill and reputation of your company.

Getting and Staying CAN-SPAM Compliant Posted by: DTB at 2:11 PM  |  Permalink

E-mail communications to America Online (AOL) users have long been a top challenge for business-to-consumer (B2C) e-mail marketers. The AOL service and software client have specific issues marketers must be aware of. Continuing last month's column, below are more tips for optimizing AOL e-mail delivery and performance:

Tips for Increasing AOL Delivery Rates, Part 2 Posted by: DTB at 2:08 PM  |  Permalink

As most e-mail results occur within the first 48 hours of broadcast, "one day" may never come.

So how do you get your reader to pay attention now?

Keep a "swipe" file of e-mail approaches worth emulating. Not all are business-to-business (B2B) e-mail messages, but many can be easily translated to business products and services.

Get Your Readers to Order Today Posted by: DTB at 2:02 PM  |  Permalink

Results of how email marketing effects website traffic.

Email - The Invisible Channel Posted by: DTB at 9:35 PM  |  Permalink

The comScore Media Metrix analysis of consumer Internet behavior this month revealed that JibJab.com, the online video released in mid-July satirizing John Kerry and George Bush, reached substantially more visitors than both of the candidates' sites combined. JibJab.com drew an impressive 10.4 million unique visitors in July, more than three times the 3.3 million Americans who collectively visited JohnKerry.com and GeorgeWBush.com.

Highlights of online behavior in July :

- substantial increases in activity at sites including Staples, Dell and Ikea, serving as an early indicator of back-to-school shopping and promotional activity.

- all of the top ten Hotel/Resorts properties saw summer seasonal traffic increases. Airline sites, including Southwest.com, American Airlines and JetBlue Airways, posted double-digit increases as well.

- "... JibJab.com took the Web by storm..." said Peter Daboll, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix. "This is an example of just how quickly compelling content can spread in a wired world."

- The lack of a major "convention bump" in voter polls, presidential candidate John Kerry did enjoy a significant bump online, which fueled a 42-percent spike in traffic to the Politics category, ranking it as the second largest gainer in July.

- in July, well over 40 million Americans visited Microsoft Windows sites in pursuit of updates, catapulting the Technology category up 14 percent to 98.5 million visitors in July. Posted by: DTB at 8:39 AM  |  Permalink