Email Feedback Loops: Top 4 Tips on How To Use Them Spam complaints have a huge impact on your sender reputation, so wouldn’t it be helpful to know who’s reporting your email as spam? You can with feedback loops. Feedback loops were once a tool for ISPs to monitor abuse from their networks, but now, they are also available to senders who would like to use the information to perform list hygiene and to gain insights into what may be negatively affecting their email program. How to use complaint data Track complaint rates to measure email effectiveness. If your email program yields a high complaint rate, complaint data can offer important clues as to how your messages are being received by your users. So be sure to review your messaging for inconsistencies. Are you delivering on your promise? Are you sending too much email? Listen to these recipients and make adjustments. - Use this data to clean you list. You don’t want to send messages to people who reported you to the ISPs. Therefore, remove them immediately. If you are a SendGrid customer, use our APIs to set up a rule to do this automatically. This will help you maintain a good reputation and higher email delivery rates. - Check your unsubscribe feature. Oftentimes, people report your email as spam because they can’t easily unsubscribe from your list. Is your unsubscribe working? Is it too hard to find or does it require more than one click to unsubscribe? It may be counterintuitive, but make sure your unsubscribe feature is highly visible and super easy to use. Also, implement a preference center to provide alternatives to a complete opt-out. In the end, it’s much better for your reputation if people remove themselves from your list instead of reporting you as a spammer. - Review your opt-in process. If you have a high complaint rate, check the source. Are you purchasing lists or using co-registration to acquire new subscribers? It could be that new subscribers are not being permissioned properly. Also check your privacy policy and disclosures. You want to be sure you are meeting subscriber expectations. How to access complaint data Each ISP has their own feedback loop, but not all of them provide this convenience. Below is a list of the feedback loops that should be on your radar. Simply complete the Complaint Feedback Loop application at each of the following ISPs and wait for approval. Once approved, you will receive complaint data in the form of Feedback Messages. In order to receive and process these complaint reports, set up a dedicated email address and once you receive this information, ISPs expect you to act on it so be sure to quickly remove the complainers and fix patterns that are resulting in these complaints. Unsubscribing complainers becomes a bit tricky when dealing with transactional email since these streams are triggered by an action. In this case, you’ll have to use your best judgment to decide whether or not to suppress that email from your list. Ready to get started? Here’s a list of some feedback loops that you should be aware of: AOL http://postmaster.aol.com/Postmaster.FeedbackLoop.php BlueTie http://feedback.bluetie.com/ Comcast http://feedback.comcast.net/ Cox http://fbl.cox.net/ Earthlink http://support.earthlink.net/articl...or-email-senders-on-the-earthlink-network.php Fastmail http://fbl.fastmail.fm/ Hotmail https://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsjmrpp&ct=eformts&scrx=1 MailTrust (Rackspace) http://fbl.apps.rackspace.com/ OpenSRS http://fbl.hostedemail.com/ Synacor http://fbl.synacor.com/ TWC/Road Runner http://feedback.postmaster.rr.com/ USA.net http://fbl.usa.net/ Yahoo http://feedbackloop.yahoo.net/ Zoho http://www.zoho.com/fbl/index.html Source: http://blog.sendgrid.com/email-feedback-loops-top-4-tips-on-how-to-use-them/
Good info Roundabout. I was doing some reading on FBL's earlier today. Someone recently told me that, like checking your IPs at some sites, Feedback loops might draw more attention to your IP space. I have NOT had that confirmed but would be interested if anyone has actually seen this. Other than bad email practices I would hope that feedback loops do not in any way draw attention. At any rate I'd like to chip in this link to a table with more details on most of the same links you have above. It also shows which big ISPs do not offer feedback loops and which Blocklists some ISPs use. http://wiki.wordtothewise.com/ISP_Summary_Information
Based on my vantage point, I would say that FBL's will actually SAVE your IP space, or I should say, make it last longer. We've seen this many times over the years where FBL's are not set up and a range can be burned up by the cleanest of mailer/data in a very short period of time. While they can be running the same exact data on a different range, but it has an FBL, and it lasts much longer. Doing the same data, number of drops, etc.. While there are many other factors to consider, I would say FBL's actually help to extend the life of your allocation versus not IMHO.
Yeah, obviously catching a spam complaint at the ISP is better than a complaint at your host or elsewhere. Far too many times people think that hitting the spam button will unsubscribe them magically from the offer and your list. After a few times clicking it they complain to everyone. Much better is scrubbing them off your list from the FBL before it becomes a problem.
Hey, had to come back to this thread for a question... Is there any caveat to using the same email address for FBLs for many IPs on different blocks? In other words, if you ruin a block or even a few IPs here and there, will that come to haunt your other IP space elsewhere? I'm admittedly paranoid
Sorry about the double-post Just wondering if anyone had any FBL signup links to add. I've been trying search to discover a few but haven't had much luck. For example, one I'm looking for is mchsi.com. If anyone can provide an update I know I would surely appreciate it. Here's a link that pretty much mirrors roundyabouts post, but thought someone might like it: http://www.port25.com/list-of-current-feedback-loops-offered-at-isps/ http://www.port25.com/list-of-current-feedback-loops-offered-at-isps/
