News: False Spam Reports Block 15% of Permission Emails
According to Assurance Systems, ISP spam filters are blocking out an average of 15% of legitimate email marketing messages. The company runs a quarterly study on email blocking and filtering. The percentage of blocked email varies according to ISP. The highest block rates are:
NetZero 27%
Yahoo 22%
AOL 18%
Compuserve 14%
AT&T 12%
Views: It stinks, but you'd better get used to it
As mentioned in our comments on AOL's "Report Spam" system, the increased use of filtering systems is causing significant problems for permission email marketers and email publishers. It's upsetting and aggravating, but I think it's just going to be a reality of doing business online for the foreseeable future.
In no way would I say that the email communications medium has been "ruined" by the spam arms race. But it certainly does increase the cost of online marketing and adds to the arguments for a permission marketing approach: Do everything you can to make sure that the recipient of your email message does not view it as spam. Filtering systems are moving in the direction of giving users more control; if the recipient thinks your message is spam, they will flag it that way, regardless of what you think.
Want to share your thoughts about spam filtering? Click the "Post Letter" link in the upper right column of this page.
Al Bredenberg
Publisher
EmailResults.com
