An Email Server Admin’s Guide To Getting Your Mailing Lists Delivered

Although email marketing has never been my thing, I would like to some day really crank things up in that arena. I was reading a thread over on the IM Grind Forums about ‘Avoiding SPAM Filters’ with your email lists. It got me thinking that the majority of people probably don’t get to see some of the back end stuff that sets up rules for SPAM on large enterprise lists. So today is your lucky day as you are about to learn some lessons and pickup a few pointers on how to get past spam filters.

Typically when you have someone who manages a spam filter you are talking about a corporation or large company. Often times personal users with their cloud services like yahoo, gmail, msn, etc. already have built in spam filters that are largely way more complex and better than the corporate users. They can do this with Bayesian filtering which lets your filter ‘learn’ spam trends. So when gmail receives 10,000 bizopp emails a second, they can learn pretty quickly which emails to flag.

So why exactly do corporations have various different spam filters? Well the main reason is that its a growing problem, and no one has the end all solution. Some companies  might use a Lotus Domino mail server with Lotus Notes clients while others use Microsoft Exchange with Microsoft Outlook clients. There are literally dozens of email server configs and just as many spam solutions. Personally I’ve worked with about 5 different spam protection providers in my IT career. Everything from cloud based filters to old linux desktops doing the filtering. I’ve even relied strictly on the email server’s capabilities itself.

Why Doesn’t The Email Server Just Block Spam?

Depending on the amount of spam you receive in, it can literally cripple your email server. I’ve had mail server crash on me and be qued up for days at a time just trying to reject all of the spam. Although this can still happen to a spam filter itself under certain loads, at least the mail server could still deliver external mail and allow internal mail without delay if something like that happened.

The Barracuda Spam Filter

So the current packages I have been working with are products of Barracuda networks. I really like these now because they are pretty much completely hands off. I have it synced to my active directory accounts so I don’t need any manual updates, and it always downloads daily updated from Barracuda itself. Definitely a pricier option but so convenience to be this easy.

Here is the main control panel

As you can see since bringing this box online in January it has taken a beating. My server has received over 1.75 million emails, upon which only about 105k or so were authentic non spam based. Imagine sorting through that huh?

If you go into see the default Spam Checking area you can see the following setup. Please note 99% of the people configuring something like this would leave all the defaults here unless they experience a problem.

The default ‘BLOCK’ command for the Spam Filter is ’5′. So if your email rates over a ’5′ it automatically gets deleted…too bad for you. The ‘Quarantine’ is disabled here only because these are global settings and by default the quarantine is set to user settings. The ‘Tag’ feature would append a name onto the title of the email so the user knows it may have spam. IE: If the email title is “Check out these girls yo” it might change it to “[SPAM?] Check out these girls yo”.

Needless to say your goal is to have a smaller score for better chance of delivery. Most commercial mail service providers, like Aweber, provide a way for you to have a good idea of the score. Aweber utilizes Spam Assassin which is a really popular measurement on a lot of linux boxes and will definitely be pretty close scoring across the board, but DON’T RELY ON IT! If it says ’3.5 you are good to go’ that means redo your email because it will probably get picked up somewhere as spam.

Can We Sneak In Images?

I see this all the time where people will just embed an image with tons of text in it. A lot of time spammers on Craigslist do this. Unfortunately those days are gone in email as well. Barracuda and most other providers will actually scan your images for text and flag you on spam for it. I don’t think Aweber does this though, so just because it might say you are safe, doesn’t necessary mean you actually are! By default this is enabled on most filters.

Well I Can Still Have Good Text And Get My Affiliate Links In Right?!?

Yikes you really are a sucker aren’t you? Here are a couple things you need to understand. Not only can email domains get blacklisted but so can regular URL domains as well! For example in the last 2 days I received almost 6,000 emails that weren’t blocked as ‘spam content’ but were blocked because they contained a URL that was blacklisted. Let’s look at the example below. If interested you can download the full list here.

So if you send an incredibly designed email with an affiliate link or redirect from ‘zomgarticles.com’ you just completely blocked. An easy way to see if you are blocked would be to go lookup your domains in various blacklists. I prefer to use Barracuda’s BRBL service just because they typically aggregate from Spam Haus, Spam Cop, etc. You can check your own domains out at www.barracudacentral.org/lookups/domain-reputation. Below you can see what happens when we query for ZOMGarticles.com.

In the image below you can see a few of the emails that got blocked for having URL’s on the list. Its a shame because some of them are actually pretty well written.

Hmmm Maybe I Can Just Use URL Shorteners?!?

I don’t blame you crazy email marketers for thinking like this, but this is an even bigger risk. Aweber had an awesome article released the other day about how using shorteners are bad. I recommend reading the full article at www.aweber.com/blog/email-deliverability/link-shorteners.htm however I will copy and paste the real meaty chart they did up for us here.

I think the most itneresting things here are that Bit.ly is flagged on one blacklist and goo.gl and is.gd are actually whitelisted by some! BTW being on a national spam provider’s whitelist is basically the ultimate for email marketing delivery. Goodluck getting on there though!

Ok After 1.5 Million Spam Messages You Must Know Everything Right?

One of the benefits of running a spam filter and email server is that you can view everything. Not that I do too much email marketing but if I ever wanted to build a list about credit reports…well I just query my filter for ‘Credit Reports’ I can see what sort of emails are coming in. This gives me an EXTREME advantage to be able to see what sort of emails people are sending out. See below a quick query and the results.

Even better though. I can just query to see everything that got by, so I know what I could pretty much replicate!

Damn This Post Is Long…Is It Over Yet?

Ok ok. Lets wrap this post up already. Bottom line, we all know that we can’t be too spammy but most MSPs don’t actually show you half the crap that might block your mails from reaching the list. Hopefully you learned a few tips from seeing the sort of crap I have to deal with and seeing how you can avoid being caught by the filter.

As usual I received no compensation for this post or any products mentioned herein, however I am an active user of both Aweber and Barracuda products. Note that they each sent me t-shirts. Holla!

Who Else Is Signing Up For The Internet Marketing Grind?

Today the Internet Marketing Grind [aff link] opens up for users to sign up to their private forums. These private forums have kind of been a big thing the last 18 months or so as it seems a new one pops up each week. As someone who has a day job, I personally love forums because it is an area for me to lurk like crazy whenever I am bored. In addition though you get several benefits to joining a private forum.

 

• Exclusivity & Community – Often times a forum will limit its membership base so that if you don’t have some sort of referral or early entry…you just can’t get in. In addition the pricing weeds out 99% of the assholes you are going to have to deal with on public forums like WickedFire.
• Access to Experts – Almost always forum providers of any caliber will have some sort of expertise that they now grant to you as part of your membership. Nothing is better than now having some multi-millionaire who responds to my texts immediately to guide you in an unfamiliar area.
• Elite Content – If the forum you are going to pay for has no elite content that you can’t find elsewhere. Ditch it, you are not going to get your money’s worth.
• Sharing of Elite Content – On good forums, the community feeling is so tight, that others are willing to contribute their own niche expertise to offer everyone even more value for their money.

Back in May of 2010 I got a chance to join Ryan Gray’s Internet University program. As a fledgling of internet marketing at the time, I can honestly say that the program he ran with Richard and John was awesome. It definitely taught me everything I needed to know and then some. Ryan’s ongoing help afterwards was priceless as well.

I remember when I was doing my first direct site media buy the guy wanted a reference. No sooner did Ryan offer to vouch for me saying that I was an active advertiser on one of the largest wrestling entertainment sites in the world that he runs. Those kind of credential perks, you just can’t get anywhere else.

Not only have I experienced tremendous amounts of success but friends I made along the way have as well. I remember convincing one of my close Internet marketing buddies to join around the same time and how excited he was about 3 months later texting me, “I JUST HAD MY FIRST $1,000 DAY!” Those are the kinds of stories we all want to tell but most don’t get to achieve.

Looking at the overall content already in their community forums is crazy! They over all kinds of categories of affiliate marketing: Advertising, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Cost Per View Marketing, Lead Generation Arbitrage, Monetization Tactics & Strategies, Merchanting, Call Centers, CRM’s, Payment Gateways, etc.

You will probably literrally pick up years of knowledge in days of being a member.

Their cost is $77 a month which is very reasonable especially compared to some other popular forums out there. PPV Playbook (Which I HIGHLY recommend) is $67 a month and StackThatMoney forums are $99 a month. Unfortunately neither one of those forums have a huge network owner like Ruck specifically running it!

Bottom line, I’m signed up for the Internet Marketing Grind community. I didn’t even think twice about. I know from experience how awesome Ryan is at running a community and I think its obvious to everyone that Ruck can make you a millionaire. I encourage everyone to sign up, see you there.

*DISCLAIMER: I wasn’t asked or paid by anyone to write this post. I did however supply an affiliate link in the above (where noted) that I stand to gain a commission on if anyone signs up through. I was drafting this post before I saw an affiliate option anyways but threw it in there for an extra change. To be honest I don’t even think there is dollars related to it right now. If that’s not your thing feel free to sign up with a non affiliate link HERE.

Why Would Anyone TRUST a Brand Advertiser?

If you have been working with affiliate marketing and direct response campaigns at all then you’ve probably learned to guard your money well. Its pretty easy to have a campaign get out of control pretty quick and be down hundreds if not thousands of dollars. As someone who is trying to sell an item Here and Now you understand the value of getting a return on your money.

Something that has always puzzled me is why traditional businesses don’t think like this…

There are VERY few businesses that shouldn’t be targeting users for direct response. I really can’t even think of any off hand. What the hell would be the point of advertising if you didn’t want to make a sale then and there. To me the only reason why people wouldn’t do this is because they can’t!

It seems each and every day I meet local ad agencies and local website designers who ‘specialize’ in advertising. Yet they don’t give a crap about getting immediate results. They typically pitch everything in a future state plan to their customers. Using statements like below:

• We want to build a brand…
• Have your name in their head, for next time they are ready…
• People will see your name…
• Its not about making a sale…

These are all bullshit statements that are only being said because your ad agency isn’t willing to stand behind the campaign they are working for. This could be for many reasons but basically boils down to a few possibilities. Its really important that you as a business owner or employee purchasing the service can identify WHY you aren’t generating immediate ROI or lead generation.

Your Ad Agency Sucks

If you are working with some horrible agency to do your campaigns they aren’t even going to pitch any sort of direct response campaign. These people have been selling big projects with next to nothing results for so many years they really just don’t have a clue as to what the value of a dollar is. This is what I would say 95% of local companies do because they aren’t good enough to take accountability. If you are working with an agency or designers that can’t help you get into direct response then you should just ditch them. Clearly the only person they care about making money in your relationship is them.

Your Products or Sevices Suck

Bottom line, if you have a crappy product or service, you aren’t going to be able to sell it. Some agencies aren’t as stupid as I make them out to be and they will quickly realize that any campaign they do for you is going to net a big fat fucking goose egg ($0). They typically then rely heavily on the statements above to try and convince you that you should atleast give them some money before you go bankrupt.

You Suck Too Much To Make a Sale

I personally have dealt with companies that considered various direct response campaigns too risky for their business. They thought incentives were too high, margins would be too slim, and the results wouldn’t be worth their effort. If you are an organization that has no idea how much a customer is worth to you…THIS WILL BE YOU. You can’t really do any serious marketing if you can’t understand what the value of a customer is going to be.

Next Time You Are Going To Invest In A Large Campaign

Don’t listen to some idiot who is going to tell you how successful their customers have become. Just because some landscaper was busting his ass and cranking out great quality work for customers doesn’t mean the agency’s ads did the client any good.

Look into doing a direct response campaign where you have a goal in mind, whether it be XX in sales, or doing direct lead gen, building an email list, getting facebook likes, etc. GET SOMETHING!

Affiliate Summit East 2011 FREE Passes for Massachusetts Affiliates

Boy do I have an opportunity for all you Massachusetts affiliates. This TUESDAY, May 24th 2011 there is going to be an Affiliate Summit Meetup in my town of occupation, Fitchburg, MA. In fact the actual meetup will be taking place in a conference room that yours truly has taken many a beatings by management critics and the likes, at my day job.

So here is the deal, I have a few Affiliate Summit East 2011 Gold Passes that were gifted to me by the good folks over at Affiliate Summit. The Affiliate Summit is taking place August 21-23, 2011 in New York City. If you didn’t order your passes yet, well that sucks because the price just went up since you missed the deadline. However you are lucky that with my gifted passes I will raffling them off to affiliates who want to attend the Massachusetts Affiliate Summit Meetup on Tuesday. So if 2 people show up…well you both get a pass. If 10 people show up, you get to battle to the death for the golden tickets, or I suppose we could just draw names.

The retail on these things is like $549, so if you live in Massachusetts or New Hampshire area you should probably get off your ass and come hang out.

I Hate Boston, Do I Really Need To Drive Into Boston To Hang Out?

Nope. Fitchburg is like 40 minutes west of Boston. Considered to be North Central Massachusetts, parking is free, and traffic will be significantly less than Boston.

Do You Have A Guest Speaker?

Nope. No speaker for this meetup, just a casual event to come and talk shop. I’m more than willing to show some tips and tricks if the attendees want but I didn’t line up some guru to come pitch a product to you like at 90% of affiliate meetups.

Cost Any Money?

Nope. Free all the way around. Just show up and hang out. I’ll even grab some sodas or something.

Do I Have To Attend To Get A Pass?

Yes. I’m only going to give the pass to actual people that show up.

I Have To Work On Wednesday!! Will I Be Out Late?

Not necessarily. I scheduled the meetup until 8:30ish but if anyone wants to go grab a drink or something after that time I am down but feel free to ditch at any time.

OK I REALLY WANT TO GO! DO I NEED TO RSVP?

YES! I have limited seating and if I had to I have larger facilities we could go to but would need to know in advance. Right now the event should be PRETTY SMALL (like if you show up you have a 200% chance of winning a pass). So if you are interested just hit up this Facebook Event page and say you are attending. If you don’t have Facebook email me and let me know, mc [at] mikechiasson dot com.

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

On a side note. I already have my trip planned for ASE 2011. If you are going hit me up and we can meetup.

Finally Switching Over to Windows 7

Working in the IT field I am pretty well rounded with every operating system since Windows 3.1. My main work laptop uses Windows 7 (the newest Microsoft OS at the time of this writing), all my virtual machines run Win7 or XP, and my home PC that I am probably on the most is running Windows Server 2008 64 bit.

I know most people probably don’t have any clue what the difference between Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 are, but there are many. Fortunately I’d say about 99% of the features of each are available in the other, you just may need to download some additional service packs and what not. The reason I personally used Windows Server on my desktop is that I am bouncing around from Server to Server every day and when it came out 3+ years ago I thought it would make for a steady fast integration by using it as my main desktop. To that end it worked perfectly! When the 2008 Server edition of Windows replaced Windows Server 2003 I was probably more ready than most (not that there is THAT much of a difference anyways).

However the time has come where I have really become sick of a few nuances that the server edition has plagued me with. In an effort to remain efficient I’ve made the decision to format my desktop this weekend and restore it with the Vista disk it was originally shipped with. Then I will use a Win7 upgrade DVD on it and bring it up to speed with the new patches. I have a few video case studies I’ve been trying to prepare for people and I demoed one to a friend and he was confused the whole time because my computer didn’t ‘look’ like his. So this was also a major issue, that I was going to be recording some sessions about Virtual Machines and running a VM within a VM is like breaking the laws of physics so it would just be easier for me to start clean instead of demoing everything within a VM.

Here are a few major reasons I am making the switch:

• Reliably installing the Windows Entertainment Services on Server 2008 is a nightmare, especially updating codecs.
• Windows Hyper-V virtualization kills all normal use of the desktop. I had to uninstall this and go with VM Ware originally because Hyper-V was somehow killing all my port 80 speeds on FireFox (IE was fine…).
• I hate 64 Bit. Let me save you all the trouble of this, if you want to run normal applications/printers just get a 32 bit machine. 5+ years into 64 bit error it is still a compatibility nightmare.
• Facebook – Facebook Ads’ interface is a nightmare on most servers. The increased securities make the AJAX run like a piece of shit and your ads time out 20% of the time.
• Program Compatibility – Numerous programs either server or desktop specific force me to go edit my registry so that you are ‘allowed’ to install on a specific OS. Just got tired of this.
• Program Compatibility – Things like AIM won’t load on here so I use Trillian that I think its a piece of shit. Or maybe I just hate having to talk to my old ICQ friends.
• DEP – Data Execution Prevention blocks nearly every utility/game so you have to go enable it for all the executables.
• Sharing – Whenever anyone is over they have a shitfit trying to understand how to check their email on my desktop….really its not that hard everyone.

So I will be off the grid for most of today as I am performing backups, re-downloading software, and patching. Keep a look out in the upcoming weeks as I do have a few new angles to present to my readers.

*UPDATE 5/8/11*

A couple things that went a muck even for an IT Professional.

In my above statements I was hoping to ditch 64 bit but I forgot that I have 6GB of tripple channel RAM in my desktop. For anyone that doesn’t know, a 32 bit system can’t handle more than 4GB of RAM. You could still install a 32 bit operating system but it would only use 4GB. Since I have it setup in a tripple channel config this would lower the speed of my already lowered amount considerably.

My external hard drive that I back everything up on encountered an error while backing up a folder. While attempting to add a folder to a zip drive it coppupted the header of the zip and although that was easy enough to repair I did lose about 3/4th of the contents of the zip in the process. This was a tough loss but it was some work that I really wasn’t following up on and maybe it is for the best to just get it out of my head.

I happen to be heading to my Mother’s for Mother’s Day today and my younger sister’s desktop was dying. This was a good excuse to pickup a Win7 Upgrade Family Pack (3 licenses) for like $130 at Best Buy (*note Best Buy stores didn’t have it so I went to Staples and they priced matched). So this lowered my costs substantially as a stand alone upgrade is like $120.

Everything is up and going now and looking excellent. I already ditched my 2nd display in favor of the screen snap in features of Win7.