{"id":224741,"date":"2020-04-17T07:55:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T02:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qcsglobal.com\/?p=224741"},"modified":"2020-04-18T17:10:15","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T11:40:15","slug":"email-deliverability-quarterly-cx-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/email-deliverability-quarterly-cx-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Email Deliverability Quarterly | CX Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Email deliverability is constantly changing, as inbox providers adjust their filtering algorithms, blacklists tweak their listing criteria, and consumers evolve their definition of spam. That\u2019s why even the best email marketing programs suffer deliverability problems<\/a> sometimes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To help you avoid trouble, the Email Deliverability Services team at <\/span><\/span><\/span>Oracle CX Marketing Consulting<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> shares the latest news and tips for what to watch out for. Here\u2019s what\u2019s going on at key inbox providers and what it means for email marketers<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Verizon Launches Email Deliverability and Performance Feeds for AOL and Yahoo Mail<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

What this means for marketers:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Campaign Performance Feed \u201cprovides key metrics such as delivers, opens, reads, glances, skims, deletes, and clicks for a sender domain,\u201d according to Verizon, while the Placement Feed offers brands inbox placement data.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Campaign Performance Feed appears to compete directly with panel data providers,\u201d says Clea Moore, Director of Deliverability Strategy, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting<\/span>. \u201cPerhaps not coincidentally, <\/span><\/span><\/span>Validity announced<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> in mid-January that they are ending panel data collection.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVerizon is the first ISP to offer deliverability data,\u201d says Kent McGovern, Senior Strategic Consultant of Deliverability Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. \u201cIf VMG has a lot of senders signing up for this new service, more ISPs will likely start providing this type of data, too. Having another data point that senders can leverage will only help the email industry as a whole.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As this offering is currently in beta, we are unsure what the pricing structure will be, and therefore what the uptake will be. But mailbox providers have been looking for ways to monetize this type of data for a while.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Validity to Acquire 250ok<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

What this means for marketers:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many questions that come to mind regarding this move,\u201d says Moore. \u201cWhat will become of the two once-competing platforms? Will they retire one product suite and focus on shifting the existing client base to the other? Will they keep the best features from both platforms? We will all have to wait and see. Merging the expertise from both Return Path and 250ok should only mean good things for users of either platform.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis acquisition of 250ok could be a highly effective way to quickly expand their client base, increase talent pool, and have more options with technology and platforms,\u201d says Heather Goff, Director of Deliverability Strategy, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to see how it pans out.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gmail Promoting Unsubscribes with Active Subscribers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Anecdotally, we\u2019ve seen a number of people being prompted by Gmail to unsubscribe from brands whose emails they\u2019ve recently opened. In one case, Gmail indicated to one of our consultants that they hadn\u2019t opened an email from the sender in 30 days when they\u2019d in fact opened one the previous day. We began to notice this behavior at the beginning of the year, and it seems to be sporadic, affecting brands and users inconsistently.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What this means for marketers:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn our ISP benchmark reporting, we noted a significant year-over-year and month-over-month increase in the Gmail unsubscribe rate, starting in December 2019,\u201d says Moore. \u201cThis trend was especially pronounced for the retail sector, with a 75% YoY increase in December 2019, where we don\u2019t expect unsubscribes to increase until January. It\u2019s possible that this spike could be caused by this strange unsubscribe prompting behavior. It\u2019s likely that this is a bug that Gmail is in the process of fixing, since we have seen a reduction in this behavior recently.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

BIMI Standard Makes Advances<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

The AuthIndicators Working Group reported<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> that the Branded Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) initiative made great strides in 2019. This initiative allows fully authenticated senders to have their logo appear next to their sender name in the inbox, providing a stronger branding experience and combating spoofing. Highlights include:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese unusual unsubscribe prompts seem to be part of a pattern of strange behavior that we have seen from Gmail in recent months,\u201d says Moore. \u201cFirst, there were <\/span><\/span><\/span>inexplicable drops in reputation and changes in placement back in September\/October 2019<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>. Then, tab placement began fluctuating at the end of December 2019. Now, most recently, we have seen this strange unsubscribe prompt behavior.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Having <\/span><\/span><\/span>previously acquired Return Path<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>, Validity has now entered definitive agreement <\/span><\/span><\/span>to acquire 250ok<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>. \u201cThe move has narrowed the playing field for email delivery analytics considerably,\u201d says Moore<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In February, Verizon Media Group joined Microsoft and Google in providing an <\/span><\/span><\/span>email performance data feed<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span> directly to senders. Rather than providing the data via a separate UI as Google and Microsoft do, Verizon Media Group\u2014which controls Yahoo, AOL, and Verizon.net\u2014has elected to provide direct data feeds to be digested by the sending brand. However, there\u2019s a catch\u2026 They plan to make this a paid service.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n