Email marketing, when done right, can be extremely effective at reaching customers, when done badly and used improperly can simply become Spam. 

“Spam is any kind of unwanted, unsolicited digital communication that gets sent out in bulk.” (Malwarebytes)

According to Forbes (2020) 320 billion spam emails are sent every day. Therefore, it’s more than worth the effort not to become part of that statistic. 

To avoid your domain gaining a bad reputation as a Spam sender, it is always best to provide transparent opt-in features combined with legitimate email address lists.

However, even with all that and with the best intentions as a legitimate business, you may still be labelled as Spam. By sending too many emails, along with impersonal, irrelevant content, it is far more difficult to reach your audience’s Inbox. 

The last thing you want to do is send unwanted emails to customers and be known for doing bad business.

You need to show that you are a trusted sender, that you are who you say you are when sending emails. 

So apart from following the good practices of a good email marketer, we strongly encourage you to get familiar with three pillars of email authentication and while it’s not required to use them, we definitely recommend setting them up.

So let’s look closer at the three pillars: DKIM, SPF and DMARC.

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) allows a domain to be authenticated, which in turn allows mail from that domain to pass freely to a receiving server instead of being blocked. By way of a comparison, it is akin to a person being more likely to open a letter if they know who sent them the letter.
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) makes sure the content of your email has not been interfered with and it can be trusted. It allows a receiving domain to know an email was authorized by a sending domain.

In other words, if SPF is like a return address on a letter, DKIM is like sending that letter via Registered Mail – it gives more credibility.

• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) links the sender’s domain name with what is listed in the From: header, which adds another layer of authentication to emails. Also, DMARC helps to unify SPF & DKIM.

So, why do we need these three pillars (SPF, DKIM & DMARC)?

SPF, DKIM & DMARC can improve deliverability rates and increase the chances that Inbox is the final destination of your email campaign. 

Authentication solves the problem of determining who the email is coming from, not whether the email is wanted by the recipient. Authentication also allows good senders to both enhance their reputation and protect their domain from hijacking.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC are crucial standards that help to ensure the proper deliverability of your email campaigns.

Sagitari.ai automatically configures the security protocols for all the customers so contact us for more information. 

Essential Guide to Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)

Just when you thought you’ve got it all figured out and nothing will faze you, surprise! Yet again Apple is making sure we are not sitting on our laurels.

So take a deep breath and let’s try to overcome the new challenges together.

What is Apple MPP and why is it important?

Since its launch on 20 September 2021, Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) now makes it harder to determine if or when an email message has been opened using Apple’s Mail app.

It also makes it harder to understand the device used and any geolocation data (IP addresses are hidden).

Essentially, MPP now means you can no longer be sure your contact has opened your email, which is a big headache!

What can we do about it?

Firstly, the good news is that MPP is not enabled by default (so far!), plus it doesn’t affect other email apps such as Gmail.

Panic no more, there are ways to navigate in the new reality. After extensive research, long discussions and sleepless nights our brave team of experts suggest following actions:

• Confirm the number of Apple mail users in your contact base – that will help you estimate the scale of impact on open rates.
• Content still matters! Use all of your powers to make your emails more clickable. Well researched keywords, good offers, top of the charts personalization and segmentation will increase email opening ratio – and that data is still measurable – and is definitely worth the effort.
• Update A/B tests to include click rates & unsubscribe rates. Open rates are no longer reliable when it comes to Apple Mail subscribers. Focus instead on getting better acquainted with analyzing and comparing the click rates.
• Clean your mailing list by running a re-engagement campaign to identify which subscribers are no longer engaging with your emails. That way you can focus on an audience based on more relevant clicks, which in turn, should boost your sender reputation.
• The world is forever evolving, so stay tuned with the Sagitari.ie ‘industry pulse’ blog – we can give your heart a jump of excitement!

Through the grapevine, we can confirm that there are no signals that any other mailbox provider is planning on using similar technology.

If the whole Apple MPP thing sounds like gibberish and makes you want to scream (!) then please let us know, we are here to help.

We love emails, so write to us: contact@merryweathercorp.com