Litmus, a company offering various rendering and spam filter test tools to email senders, has just announced a new partnership with Microsoft. The two companies will collaborate on fixing rendering issues that senders have been confronted with when sending to Outlook users for quite some time.
This could be a big deal for those who struggle with design for various email clients. According to the announcement, Litmus will prioritize and report information on rendering issues and bugs to Microsoft, for their developers to then address.
It seems that everyone who works with email design may benefit from this partnership. Microsoft is effectively acknowledging that Outlook has been a problematic email client for design. They are now putting resources into improving the product for both users and email senders alike. Of course, it is unknown how long it will take to see the fruits of their labor, but it is great to hear that that they are working on making Outlook better!
Since I focus a great deal of my efforts on email delivery, I’d also like to remind you that no matter how lovely your email design may be, it will go to waste if it you aren’t able to deliver the message to your intended audience!
The day before Litmus announced the Microsoft partnership on their blog, the deliverability community was abuzz with news of Spamhaus, a blacklist operator with significant influence, blacklisting IPs belonging to many email senders that were on the receiving end of subscription form bombing over the last few weeks.
Subscription form bombing is where someone (who apparently has too much time on their hands) will dump email addresses and other data into email subscription forms, typically through the use of a bot network (hijacked computers). Often the email addresses entered into those forms will be the true target of the attack; with the same addresses being added to numerous email lists around the globe. The mailbox owner may then be flooded with messages, possibly crippling their email systems if not just becoming a nuisance. If you aren’t using some form of COI (confirmed opt-in) process to vet new addresses added to your list, you may unknowingly contribute to such an attack on behalf of a wrongdoer.
Spamhaus chose to notify many affected senders by listing a “.0/32” IP address in an affected range, which isn’t a usable IP address for sending email. I applaud Spamhaus for taking such an approach, as it should help provide warning to those affected without crippling their overall email delivery, as one might expect if the actual sending IP addresses were immediately added to the blacklist as they could have very easily done.
I dug into our database, finding email addresses associated with the form bombing had made their way into some Informz client lists. We promptly suppressed those addresses, so they should not cause problems for you. While a few of those addresses came through Informz-hosted subscription forms, the majority came through syncs with remote client databases. We can only assume this means the subscription form on their own website was hit by the form bombing.
The dust seems to have settled on this a bit now, but it is a good reminder to use a COI (Confirmed Opt-In) process when collecting email addresses from new subscribers. COI has long been a best practice for growing a healthy subscriber base. It involves new additions to your list being sent a confirmation email where a link is clicked to verify consent. In some jurisdictions, where proof of consent is required before sending any commercial email, it may be a critical part of your process. Even if consent is not a legal requirement for you, operating an open subscription form without confirming new addresses puts you at risk of diluting your list with:
- Invalid addresses
- Typos
- Spam traps
- Spam complaints
- Unsubscribes
As we saw earlier this week, your form and subsequent email campaigns may be a vector for abuse by those with ill intent, too. Moving to a COI process not only keeps you from unknowingly contributing to such abuse, but it also helps improve the overall health of your email program. Utilizing COI increases engagement and reduces the likelihood of deliverability issues. Your list will be more effective than the larger, unconfirmed list you may be working with today!
Ready for more deliverability tips to decrease delivery issues? Check them out here.
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