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NEARLY 18 PERCENT OF INVITED EMAIL LANDS IN JUNK/BULK FOLDERS, NEW LYRIS ISP DELIVERABILITY STUDY REVEALS

  • April 16, 2008

 

Sender’s Reputation Plays Major Role as Definition of Spam Evolves,

Says Lyris ISP Deliverability Report

 

EMERYVILLE, Calif. (April 16, 2008) – Nearly one out of every five permission-based email messages sent to U.S.-based ISPs lands in the junk mail folder, according to the latest email deliverability study from Lyris, Inc. (http://www.lyris.com).  Slightly more than 76 percent of invited email successfully makes it to the inbox. 

These are key findings of the Lyris HQ ISP Deliverability Report Card for Q4 2007, a research study that monitors deliverability rates for permission-based email marketing messages.     From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2007, Lyris HQ EmailAdvisor monitored the full delivery trajectories of 436,558 production level, permission-based email marketing messages sent from 69 different businesses and non-profit organizations to multiple accounts at 59 ISP domains in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.

In the United States, the ISP with the highest inbox delivery rate is AIM.com, with 93 percent of its delivered messages landing in the inbox.  RoadRunner SoCal is a close second at 92 percent, while the rest of the top 10 have inbox delivery rates in the 80s.  Hotmail is second from the bottom, with just 57 percent of its delivered messages reaching the inbox. 

The U.S. ISPs most likely to relegate invited email to the junk mail folder include XO Concentric (62 percent of its total delivered permission-based messages were sent to the junk mail folder) and SBC Global (23 percent of its messages).  MSN Network, Hotmail and Yahoo all hover around 21 percent.  AOL is closer to the other end – with just 1.2 percent of its delivered email landing in the junk mail folder.

Outside the United States, European ISPs had the highest percentage of junk mail  delivery at 19 percent – compared with 14 percent for Canada and 10 percent for Australia. 

“These are messages that have been invited by the recipients, and yet so many of them still aren’t making it to the inbox,” said Blaine Mathieu, SVP of Marketing, Lyris, Inc.  “ISPs base much of their delivery decisions on a sender’s reputation – and that reputation is governed primarily by how often that sender’s recipients click the ‘Report as Spam’ button for its messages.  Marketers can improve delivery by better managing their relationships with their subscribers – to reduce those spam button clicks.”

Stefan Pollard, Lyris email marketing expert and author of the report, advised marketers to embrace the new, broader definition of spam:  “The definition of spam has moved beyond the legal requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act to include any message that is unrecognized, unexpected or unwanted.  With the spam button, ISPs have given recipients increased control over what messages they wish to receive and this feedback is used to gauge a sender's reputation and future delivery.  This puts the onus on senders to overcome those hurdles with every recipient – to make their messages recognized, expected and wanted.  Until they do, invited email will continue to be delivered to the bulk folder.”      

 

Easy Message Content Fixes

Lyris also ran 1,716 unique emails from the sample through a content score application using the Spam Assassin rule set to see how they measure against ISP spam filters.  The top three most frequently triggered “red flags” were emails containing images with little to no text, a “from” name that isn’t real and messages that are 60 percent or more HTML. 

“Several of the triggers stem from poor HTML coding and design, and can be easily corrected to improve inbox delivery,” said Pollard.  “Message content doesn’t carry the same weight as sender reputation in determining where a message is delivered, but there’s still value in doing everything you can to tip the scales in your direction.”    

To view the report, click here.

 

About Lyris, Inc.

Lyris, Inc., (OTCBB:LYRI.OB), formerly J.L. Halsey, is a leading marketing technology company that provides hosted and installed software solutions for marketers at mid-size businesses. The company offers marketers an integrated technology platform through its Lyris HQ product and point solutions including ListManager, EmailLabs, ClickTracks, BidHero, Sparklist, Hot Banana and EmailAdvisor. These sophisticated, yet easy-to-use tools provide marketers a suite of best-of-breed applications for managing email marketing campaigns, publishing and managing Web site content, creating landing pages, optimizing Web sites and managing pay-per-click campaigns. Clients include Nokia, Adobe, PalmSource, Johns Hopkins University and Jupitermedia. For more information, please visit www.lyrisinc.com, www.lyris.com, www.emaillabs.com, www.clicktracks.com, www.hotbanana.com and www.sparklist.com. The company is based in Emeryville, Calif.

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