Why Is My Email Being Reported As Spam?!

A woman recently signed up for a mailing list my friend owns. She received the verification email and clicked the link inside which told my friend’s email system that it was OK to send mail.

Now, let’s stop for a minute.

By following the directions in the email, the subscriber opted into the mailing list twice: First by filling out the form with her name and email address on my friend’s site and then by clicking the link in the email. This is called confirmed or verified opt-in and it is the current industry standard for insuring that only people who ask for emails from your list receive them.

So, back to the story.

The woman received the first email from the list — and promptly reported it as spam, using the spam button inside her email account (this “feature” is available on Yahoo, Aol and Hotmail accounts, among others).

A few days later, the subscriber emailed my friend and asked her why she had not received any mail from the list. My friend chuckled to her self (I imagine!), explained to the woman what had happened and helped her fix the problem.

The next time the woman received an email from my friends, list, she reported it as spam too!

The morale of this story: Allowing users to determine what is spam sounds like a great idea. Most of us who have been online for awhile and involved in ecommerce know what spam looks like when we see it. The problem is that some people out there do not know what spam really is and mistakenly report legitimate emails. Some people hit the spam button when they really mean to hit the delete button. And then there are people who receive your email, decide they don’t like what they are reading, or are in a bad mood or don’t like the color of your website, so they hit the spam button.

Next thing you know, your emails are landing in all your customer’s spam boxes! And if the spam reporting service blocks the IP associated with your email, instead of the domain name, everyone on the server where your site is hosted will find their emails landing in spam boxes!

What does this mean? Incorrect usage of spam buttons by anyone with an email account may contribute to why you can’t send your legitimate non-spam email.

What does this mean for the average product seller, who just wants to keep in touch with her customers?

1. Do unto others… When you receive an email that you asked for, it is not spam. Please do not report it as spam. Just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom and remove yourself from the list. Only report email that you know for sure you did not ask to receive. Only unasked-for email is spam.
2. Please note that unwanted email is NOT spam. If you asked for it, it is a legitimate email, even if you decide you don’t want it now, or if you decide in five months you don’t want it. Unsubscribe or delete. False spam reports hurt everyone. (I know…I can’t say this enough!)
3. Teach your customers to add your email address to their contact list (also know as safe or whitelist) or address book, so that their email filter/spam blocker knows that they want to receive the email.
4. Report any spam notification messages you receive (messages stating that your email has been rejected) to your ISP or web host. If you are a Watersweb client and you are sending email from your domain account, report your issue to the Helpdesk, including the rejection message you received.

[tags]mailing list, confirmed opt-in, verified opt-in, spam, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail,safe list, whitelist[/tags]

How Will Shop Kit Plus Users Fare With The New SSL Certification Requirements Of IE 7?

New SSL Certificate requirements could harm sales for many small business owners who cannot obtain the proper certification. But will this affect Shop Kit Plus users, whose secure pages are certified by Mals Ecommerce?

I have sent an email to Mal Stewart, owner of Mals Ecommerce, requesting information as to whether or not he plans to comply with the Extended Validation SSL Certificate requirements, as set out by SSL certificate authority leaders and Internet browser providers, who formed the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/Browser) Forum.

The introduction of EV SSL Certificates will tighten the security of Internet transactions as certificate requestors will be subject to a thorough, standardized vetting process which all issuing CAs must adhere to, according to the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/Browser) Forum.

Sounds good? On it’s face yes. According to Kristie T., work at home mom and online branding expert, alerted the WAHM world of a new requirement, that has the potential to bar small business owners from online commerce.

[The certificate will display] a green address bar to indicate that it’s “safe” for people who visit a web site. Microsoft plans to activate this green light feature in a future update of IE 7 expected in late January, according to Kristie.

This is bad for the small business, because this certificate will only be available to large businesses, according to a Yahoo news story.

Businesses that are too small or too new to be verifiable will have their address bars appear in white, instead of green. According to the yahoo story, this could result in buyers opting to purchase from “safer” sites with the green address bar instead.

Mals Ecommerce though, has been in business since 1998, possibly making it verifiable under the new standards. I’ll update you when I know more…