When spam-blocking filters label "good" email bad:
Tips for getting legitimate email messages through

By Carrie Harrison, Director of Sales & Marketing, Chalk Media

Spam has been called a "cyber-crisis" by some and is deservedly labeled by many as the time-wasting bane of email users. Battling on the frontlines to attack spam, most ISPs and corporate IT departments are using blacklists and increasingly sophisticated filters to block spam. With programs like SpamAssassin, SpamCop, SPEWS, and Spamhaus, organizations can set filters at various sensitivity levels based on their levels of tolerance for junk email.

Users too are gaining more weapons to combat the influx of unwanted email. AOL provides an automatic "Report Spam" button and receives about two million spam reports a day from users. The soon-to-be released Outlook 11 will come packaged with redesigned automatic file-blocking features.

Email marketers are now reporting that legitimate email is also being blocked by spam filters, some set at exceptionally high sensitivity levels. In a recent example, a marketing association's newsletter sent to a list of opted-in members received a high spam score of 14.6 from a user with SpamAssassin. With most filters, anything ranking above five is considered spam.

In this case, long lines, big fonts and several high-alert phrases contributed to the newsletter's high score, but the user's SpamAssassin program may have been configured to be unusually sensitive. Further testing with email filters set at levels considered to be average gave the newsletter a more acceptable 3.775 rating and confirmed it was unlikely to be blocked by the majority of recipients' filters.

However, even with filters set at moderate to low levels there remains real potential for legitimate email messages to be locked-out by anti-spam software. As reported in Ezine-Tips Daily, even such reputable electronic communicators as the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun newspapers have received the "dreaded label" of spam.

Organizations are starting to pay attention to what they can do to ensure their authorized email is not chewed up and spit out by territorial guards against spam. Here are a few things to consider.

First, there are rules to keep in mind when writing headers and text for email messages. A common mistake many marketers make is to inadvertently break their headers. Unfortunately, broken headers are a technique used by spammers to fool filters and, as a result, most anti-spam programs look specifically for them.

Tech Editor Alexis Gutzman of the online newsletter, marketingsherpa.com, believes another set of eyes is key. "Get an email expert to look at your headers as your list host sends them so you can be sure yours are fine," he recommends.

An email marketer can also help with writing the text and avoiding the most common keywords, phrases and patterns that will take your message into the unwanted realm of spam. Some of the words and phrases that put SpamAssassin on alert include: free trial, no fees, gift certificates, vacation offers, while supplies last, click below and no obligation.

Even such innocuous greetings as "hello" can conspire to bring up your spam-rating, as can including a signature. Beware of using all caps, long lines, repetitive phrases, and claims or disclaimers on any number of topics.

With all these cautions, it's increasingly crucial to build in extra time to have your electronic direct mail messages tested against the leading spam filters, before you hit send. But even with advance testing, there are no guarantees. Key elements in permission emails, including the mandatory unsubscribe option, will still add to the spam score.

What marketers must do then is to minimize the number of warning bells they set off when writing, designing and deploying permission-based emails. New technology is also available to help, as it can now track not only spam complaints, but will measure effectiveness by gauging the number of opens, click throughs, unsubscribes, bounces and referrals.

With its potential to get the right information to the right people through a vast, low cost and highly effective medium, email is a boon to industry. Marketers must ensure they retain their right and ability to communicate with their customers and audiences, and do so by developing effective email that hits its targets and defies categorization as spam.

Article by Director of Sales and Marketing, Chalk Media, Carrie Harrison.

Carrie Harrison is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Chalk Media.
www.chalkmedia.com || 604.684.9399

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