Forum Moderators: phranque
Still, once a month or so I get an angry email, phone call, or a letter from a disgruntled person (usually someone older and perhaps less familiar with the ways of the internet) claiming they have attempted to contact me numerious times trying to unsubscribe. I suspect they do not know how to use email properly and send me messages with poorly crafted subject lines instead of "UNSUBSCRIBE" as I clearly state in each emailing I send out. Of couse emails with subject lines like "get me off" or even missing completely are deleted as spam without even looking at them - if they even get past the spam filter in the first place.
I am starting to worry about these kind of internet misfits causing real problems - perhaps reporting us to blacklisting organizations etc. Some of these people seem to have alot of time on their hands (and there are always a percentage of people who may have psychological problems) and enjoy getting all worked up over minor issues instead of attempting to resolve them in reasonable manner.
Would you have any further ideas on damage control for this kind of thing, and what are the chances that a few misguided people can ruin a legit email newsletter service?
[edited by: physics at 11:46 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2005]
[edit reason] Some grammar/spelling edits [/edit]
Most sales mail gets picked up in spam filters, and blacklists are more and more common.
I have a subscription based site, and even the "welcome" emails wind up in spam blockers.
It won't be very long before email itself will be transformed to an opt-in only system - we'll only be able to receive mails from people we approve.
I am presently working on a project for a large well-known org.
One of the segments will be indeed a newsletter
And yes we are again speaking opt-in and somehow mass mailing
If we admit that we are aiming toward only an all opt-in system
Then what can we do to at least get the receiver really "receiving" its mail?
Since we do not know which antispam system the users are utilizing it seems almost impossible to deliver a small "tutorial" on how to “accept your opt-in mail”
Plus as outlined in an above post I already know that most of the targeted users are “computers challenged” to say the least!
Possibly as part of the opt-in process we should come with some sort of install a shake hand application? Actually this might be the way
Hmmm! Need to explore.....
But, I understand their frustration...
My server deletes thousands of emails/day. Lets not beat around the bush, spam or not, anti-spam software and filters only do so good, it gets to a point where one knowingly risks losing important email in exchange for peace and quiet.
Most of it is p3nnnssss enlargemnt and mortagges and you know the routine... Then there is nobody to complain to, most spammers forge the TO: block and anyone that would fool my filters to me is a scammer to begin with, how could ANYONE think this crap works?! ......
Then come newsletters, stock reports, things I either do not remember subscribing to or better yet, things that claim I subscribed when I know I did not. But, I am human, mistakes happen, still I know the above is true, if per chance one catches it on a bad day, I also know unsubscribing is of no use.
But I know from having sent complaints, only this happens:
- I reach the guilty, but they NEVER think they did anything WRONG! Oh noooo, they are 'marketing,' and the list of excuses and crap is endless, I got tired of hearing it, I really did.
- Worse yet, I reach a legitimate mailer and take out my frustration on the innocent.
So, I ban the sender no questions asked. What else can I do...?
I mean, get this example...
My credit card provider HAS to have an email address for me to have online access... You know what they do? You got it, they send ADS via this address. They are banned, my address is listed as invalid, but my online banking works.
Then come the legitimate folks... Much as it hurt, I recently asked a large company to please stop sending me their advertisements. Not because I thought of it as spam, but because I knew they would honor my request, and because by them doing that, they would help reduce my email volume.
As you see, to me it's about volume! And anything can be done to reduce it, I do it (you should see how aggresive some of my filter rules are, I'm almost ready to create one that sends ALL email to Delete just to see what is left). Yes, because no matter what, SOME always falls through, even blackhole stuff I still get sometimes.
It is for these reasons that I operate my site without newsletters and have done so for over 3 years, my outgoing email volume is less than 3 / day total, and I don't do multi-recipient.
But, I know some have ran with newsletters for many years...
Guess this aspect is a necessary evil, I made my choice, hope yours works out whichever way you decide.
This is incorrect. I send out the daily news headlines as soon as they are posted online. Believe me, if I forget I get alot of phone calls - people anxiously wait for the latest updates.
Also, the emails are text only.
I am able to track the open rate, and it's pretty high. It's a wonderful way for me to stay in touch w/ my client base, be informative and somewhat valuable to them, and keep goodwill and interest at a high.
My recent version of outlook seems exceedinly intuitive. It's never filtered out a desired HTML email, so far, and I'be not had to put the send on a whitelist.
Just my two cents
Still though, what about malicious subscribers reporting your domain to anti-spam entities simply because they do not know how to unsubscribe properly? Does anyone see this as a problem to newsletters?
Spammers will do that because the more false positives they create, the better. It renders the blacklists useless.
It is because of all these false positives that I disabled most blacklists other than spamcop's because for spamcop, their ip blocking is less aggressive and they will list an ip address only if the spam level reach a certain threshold via reports from their user base and their own internal spam-handling.
I rather block all dynamic, open proxies, China, Korea, Russian ips and then filter out the rest with spamassassin.
