Email Deliverability

netwebproworld03 · #1 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 05:28 AM

We are a small legitimate ecard site. We have implemented SPF, DomainKey, valid reverse DNS, fixed IP, and we are not on any public black lists. However, frequently, our emails to the recipients with Yahoo email addresses arrive in the spam/bulk folder. I filled out a various of Yahoo forms, hoping to have me removed from their black list or have me added to their white list a while back. But they haven't gotten back to me, and this seems to be the general experience for others as well.

I am hoping that someone can help me. Basically, here are 2 possible solutions.

1) I need a recommendation for someone or deliverability consulting service who knows how to help us to get on Yahoo's white list beside filling out the forms on their website. I don't even mind pay for Yahoo's service if our email can arrive in their inbox.

2) I need a recommendation for a email delivery service that is affordable for a small business that does more than sending opt-in newsletters.

If this is not as suitable a forum for this question, I would appreciate if someone can point me to ones that may be more helpful. Thanks.

T

z28com · #2 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 05:37 PM

I was having the same issues. I have my own server and I was using Auto Response Plus for my newsletters. Thousands of emails were going out with very little response.

You should try testing the emails to a Gmail account and examine the headers to see if it says "pass" or "fail".

I finally switched to Getresponse.com and my response rate has gone to the moon. I test the emails to Yahoo and Gmail accounts and the mail goes to the INBOX every time. Apparently Getresponse does everything possible to make sure that the emails are deliverable. Leave the email sending up to the experts. All I do is worry about writing the emails. They even have an on-line utility that shows what it shows up in Spam Assassin. They have OPT-IN for everything and simple un-subscribe links at the bottom. This is probably why their IP never ends up on any black lists.

rwil02 · #3 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 05:40 PM

I was going to say GetResponse or AWeber too.

But migrating a list to them can have issues, as without people opting back in to their versions of the list, you will either lose the person, or you can get you list hosted, but not on one of the OPT-IN only IP addresses (they run separate IPs for lists where they cannot verify the original opt-in status, but they often fail to disclose that)

nashville · #4 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 05:56 PM

We are having the same issue, see my home page for my Yahoo message

We contacted them several times and the last time they said 'try back in 4-6 months' - can you believe that!!! We also implemented all the domain keys, and etc and never have solved the issue. We have to send customer orders via email through our gmail account.

We are setting up a $1.00 surcharge to Yahoo customers starting next week.

In order to get email marketing done with Yahoo, we use iContact for our Yahoo emails.

jmedinger · #5 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 06:13 PM

Try using this authenticated SMTP service to send your mail.

It's amazingly economical, works with almost all email programs and can be fully maintained via the online management tool.

It gets round all of the issues of the big email suppliers blocking your emails and is scalable to whatever volumes of email you want to send.

z28com · #6 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rwil02

I was going to say GetResponse or AWeber too.

But migrating a list to them can have issues, as without people opting back in to their versions of the list, you will either lose the person, or you can get you list hosted, but not on one of the OPT-IN only IP addresses (they run separate IPs for lists where they cannot verify the original opt-in status, but they often fail to disclose that)

That's an issue I am having now, therefore I did not migrate. I went and changed hundreds of web page forms that collect that data. Instead of sending it to Auto Response Plus, now I have it go to Getresponse.com. I used Aweber in the past. I like Getresponse.com now. I just wish I didn't have to pay. I paid $200 for Auto Response Plus making it so that would be FINAL. Now I'm stuck paying for these services for the rest of my life. Auto Response is great, but what's the point if the emails are either silently deleted by the receiving mail server or the mail ends up in a spam or bulk folder. Yahoo gives the user the option to delete the emails without even reading it. I have one Yahoo account where I do this. I don't even bother looking at bulk messages since there are literally thousands in there.

z28com · #7 (**permalink**) 02-19-2008, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmedinger

Try using this authenticated SMTP service to send your mail.

It's amazingly economical, works with almost all email programs and can be fully maintained via the online management tool.

It gets round all of the issues of the big email suppliers blocking your emails and is scalable to whatever volumes of email you want to send.

Looks like a great service, but for the emails I sent out, this would make my costs 10 fold of my costs of using Getresponse.

See their comparison to other mail senders. Click "Why Choose Us" on the top of their page. I probably send out a good 500+ emails per day. That would cost me $168/mo. with authenticated SMTP service vs. the $67 I pay every 6 months for Getresponse. That comes out to about $11/mo.

vitriol · #8 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 01:44 AM

Hi,

I use phplist which is opensource, which is very easy to use and delivers mails to around 18000 users every week. I do not know whether your email server is customizable, but yahoo does check how many mails came from a certain IP address and to how many of its users in a given timeframe. Try making the time-gap between two emails 3 seconds if your number of users is not very large. This is possible in phplist. I dont know about commercial applications. This worked for me. Guess you could give it a try.

jmedinger · #9 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 03:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by z28com

Looks like a great service, but for the emails I sent out, this would make my costs 10 fold of my costs of using Getresponse.

See their comparison to other mail senders. Click "Why Choose Us" on the top of their page. I probably send out a good 500+ emails per day. That would cost me $168/mo. with authenticated SMTP service vs. the $67 I pay every 6 months for Getresponse. That comes out to about $11/mo.

z28com - think you may have misread AuthSMTP's pricing - the $168 cost for AuthSMTP 10 is *PER YEAR* not PER MONTH - so perhaps now looks a lot more reasonable!

Arctic Fox · #10 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 05:53 AM

Those of you having problems getting your messages through to Yahoo email addresses should really read this:
combatting spam filters - osCommerce Community Support Forums

I had the same issues and did some tests to see what I could find. You may find the results interesting as well.

z28com · #11 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arctic Fox

Those of you having problems getting your messages through to Yahoo email addresses should really read this:
combatting spam filters - osCommerce Community Support Forums

I had the same issues and did some tests to see what I could find. You may find the results interesting as well.

The whole issue is that I could not send from my own server. The recipient mail servers did not like something about the IP or the headers. I also see having EXIM as a mail server as another headhache. It can't be changed because the server runs CPANEL which updates the entire box and will overwrite the mail server during updates.

globaljobstrading · #12 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 01:35 PM

When you send an e-card, usually you fill in the FROM and TO fields and an e-mail goes out to TO showing like it came from FROM, but was actually sent from your server. If both e-mails are from Yahoo, when the Yahoo reciepient receives the e-mail, the server checks the e-mail FROM to make sure it came from Yahoo. If from@yahoo.com did't come from Yahoo server, then the e-mail is moved to Bluk folder.

I don't know if you noticed, but if you have an e-mail on yahoo and you receive an e-mail from another yahoo account, it says right under the From e-mail: "Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by yahoo.com. Learn more"

I hope this helped you.

z28com · #13 (**permalink**) 02-20-2008, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by globaljobstrading

When you send an e-card, usually you fill in the FROM and TO fields and an e-mail goes out to TO showing like it came from FROM, but was actually sent from your server. If both e-mails are from Yahoo, when the Yahoo reciepient receives the e-mail, the server checks the e-mail FROM to make sure it came from Yahoo. If from@yahoo.com did't come from Yahoo server, then the e-mail is moved to Bluk folder.

I don't know if you noticed, but if you have an e-mail on yahoo and you receive an e-mail from another yahoo account, it says right under the From e-mail: "Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by yahoo.com. Learn more"

I hope this helped you.

Setting up DomainKeys is not picnic. It does help. Better to have it than not have it.