Effective Message Filtering Critical for Keeping Email Marketing Viable, According to a Roundtable Hosted By Cloudmark
Industry Roundtable investigating permission-based email marketing warns that white noise from volume spam attacks will kill email marketing
April 3, 2008 – Without accurate email filtering, email would become a dead marketing channel according to participants of a recent industry roundtable. With no filtering, email subscribers would be inundated with thousands of messages a day, diluting the value of email marketing and creating a background of white noise impenetrable to legitimate, requested newsletters and subscriptions.
The event, hosted by Cloudmark, brought together organisations involved in the email marketing ecosystem to discuss deliverability issues surrounding permission-based email marketing and the future of email as a valid marketing channel. Participants, including John Lewis, Epsilon, Return Path, intY and Cloudmark, discussed at length the challenges facing legitimate email marketing in today's complex messaging environment.
The main point, on which all panellists agreed, was that consumers want to receive the emails that matter to them — both personal, and from companies that they do business with — without having to wade through large amounts of spam. However, most consumers are completely unaware of the meticulous measures which must take place in order to combat spam and simultaneously deliver legitimate email.
A complex combination that involves both white and black-listing legitimate emailers and spammers respectively, as well as assessing the email reputation of senders, are just some of the steps taking place behind the scenes. The analysis of consumer feedback loops of emails previously identified as spam is another essential step in the delivery process, and just one of many more identified by the panel as being essential in the fight to ensure consumers receive all legitimate email and as little spam as possible.
"There are three different types of marketing email," commented JF Sullivan, Vice President of Marketing, Cloudmark. "There is customer retention email that works because it's contextually relevant and drives additional sales, as demonstrated by John Lewis. Then we have acquisition email marketing; the initial customer acquisition mails sent by marketers to build more accurate prospecting databases. And finally we have spam, and within this group, specialised forms of spam such as phishing and virus attacks, which are dangerous to subscribers and need to be filtered out. Unfortunately, many legitimate marketing emails are virtually indistinguishable from spam and the sheer volume of spam that is sent each day is staggering. Without precise message filtering, valuable customer acquisition and retention emails would be lost within the several hundred messages, possibly even thousands, which hit our inboxes."
Participants of the roundtable also discussed the drivers for, and importance of, legitimate email marketing for businesses, and the different tactics used by ISPs when trying to classify graymail. With an industry average of 98% of mail coming into an ISP's system being spam, the scale of the problem is phenomenal.
"Businesses send email to make money; it actually makes them more money than advertising on a per dollar basis," continued Sullivan. "This means that the 2% of legitimate mail coming into an ISP's system simply has to get through; there is no room for false positives."
Ken Takahashi, Vice President, Global Channels at Return Path, Inc., added, "It's important that all the participants in the email industry — brand marketers, ESPs, ISPs, etc. — have these types of wide-ranging conversations about email. Every one of us looks at the issue of email deliverability a little differently. However, we all want the same end result — consumers should receive the emails that they want without dealing with the hassle of spam. By working together more effectively, we can better serve that common goal."
The round table participants were:
- Luke Kingsnorth, Development Manager, Online Marketing, John Lewis
- Archna Trivedi, Senior Account Director, Epsilon
- Ken Takahashi, Vice President, Global Channels Return Path
- JF Sullivan, VP Marketing, Cloudmark
- Mark Herbert, Technical Director, IntY
A transcription of the event is available upon request.
About Cloudmark
Cloudmark protects 2 billion global subscribers daily from an explosion in messaging abuses across more operator networks than anyone else. Only Cloudmark defends the world’s largest Mobile, Fixed and Social Media Providers, including AT&T, Comcast, MySpace, NTT, Swisscom and Time Warner Cable, with scalable and accurate protection against the widest range of existing and emerging messaging threats.