January/February 2004

Ask an Expert: Your Questions, Answered

by Dr. David Crooke, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Convio®

Question: What can I do to keep my organization's emails from getting caught by spam filters?

Answer: The recent deluge of spam, or unsolicited email, threatens the usefulness of email as a communication medium. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are responding with increasingly aggressive tactics to protect their email systems from spammers. People who send email for legitimate purposes often are caught in the middle. Following are quick tips for avoiding the "spam can":

• Don't over-email. Though email is cost-effective, over-emailing can sour people on an organization, increase spam complaints and raise opt-out rates. Coordinate mass emailings across departments in your organization, and ensure content is relevant to recipients. Segment email recipient lists by topic and make it easy for constituents to select which mailings they receive.
  
  
• Be aware of content filters. Content filtering uses keywords and phrases characteristic of common spam themes, including mortgages, medications and pornography. Spammers trying to defeat content filters use uppercase letters, numbers and punctuation in subject lines to form misspelled variations of keywords that trigger filters. Modern filters watch for this, so be sure to avoid excess punctuation or capitalization. Also be careful not to trigger filtering by recipients themselves. Use concise "subject" lines; don't sensationalize or employ generic statements like "Your help needed;" and clearly identify your organization in the "from" address.
  
  
• Inform constituents of how you will use email addresses. When collecting email addresses, let people know that the organization is collecting this information and how it will be used. Give people a chance to opt out of receiving email by providing a checkbox that says "I'd like to receive future mailings," which they can uncheck. When using rented or purchased lists to communicate with new contacts, make sure the first email asks for an opt in, or permission to communicate. Do not just add them to a file and start emailing -- that is spamming.
  
  
• Keep your list clean. If a recipient opts out, update your house file. Discard stale addresses, especially by automatically processing bounces (delivery failure notices). An outsourced email service like that offered by Convio will handle bounces for you. Bounced email consumes resources, so ISPs do not appreciate repeated emails to addresses already identified as bad. They use high bounce rates as a spam indicator.
  
  
• Be sure your email service has a good relationship with ISPs. Since nonprofits typically email "home" rather than "work" addresses, half of a group's typical house file consists of addresses at major ISPs, or consumer providers, such as AOL, Yahoo! and Hotmail. Check with your email service to ensure the company has "white list" relationships, or exemptions from volume filters, with these major email providers so your email does not get blocked.

Although it does not guarantee email delivery 100 percent of the time, incorporating these practices into online activities helps battle the spam can. Just remember to act ethically and responsibly. Remember, too, that managing mass email communications is increasingly complex. Consider outsourcing mass email to a vendor who has the software and infrastructure to implement effective technical measures as well as the resources to maintain third-party relationships and stay abreast of new anti-spam measures.