The Messaging Times

Although it isn’t really a laughing matter if you’re trying to get a nicely formatted HTML email to render successfully across various email clients; here’s a light view of what email marketers are up against today without HTML email standards in place.

* To see this and other comic strips by The Messaging Times, just click the strip.

The Email Standards Project is working hard to get email client developers and designers to implement standards for HTML email.

For more information about HTML email design and rendering, read the posts below:

• Email Design Tips (while we eagerly await HTML email standards)
• Developing Standards for HTML Email
• Designing Email with Compatibility, Image Suppression and Mobile Devices in Mind (Oy Vey!)
• Email Rendering Problems with Yahoo! Classic (what’s new?)
• HTML Email Design Considerations
• Email Marketing: Developing HTML Standards for Email

If you have Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and Gmail recipients on your email list and are tired of pulling your hair out because your messages end up in their junk or spam folder (or not arrive at all,) there are things that you can do to improve delivery rates (and save your scalp):

1. Implement DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to certify your sender identity and avoid secondary filters.
2. Apply to be on Windows Live Hotmail’s Safe Sender’s list and feedback loop
3. Apply to be on AOLs Safe list, CertifiedEmail and feedback loop.
4. Find information, best practices and tips for getting email delivered to Yahoo recipients.
5. Request that recipients add your email address to their contact list or whitelist utility in Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and Gmail.

Work with ISPs and email providers, not against them.

Recently, Google announced that eBay and PayPal have successfully implemented DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signatures. As a result, any email that comes to a Gmail inbox from @paypal.com or @ebay.com is actually certified to be from them. Those pretending to be from those companies (in the form of phishing emails) will not make it into the inbox because they won’t pass the DKIM signature test.

“…eBay and PayPal have worked hard to ensure that all their email is signed with DomainKeys and DKIM. Armed with this information, Gmail can easily reject as a fake anything that doesn’t authenticate. We’ve been testing this for a few weeks now and it’s working so well that few people really noticed.

We think it’s great that PayPal and eBay have taken on the challenge of securing email, and we’re pleased to have put our best efforts together to make this work. It’s a bold move, but one that will really help fight phishing. Our hope is that this will set a good example for other organizations to follow (yes, it can be done!) and that over time more and more email will become trustworthy…” continue reading

We discussed the importance of certifying yourself as a sender previously on this blog:

“…Mark Risher, the anti-abuse product manager for Yahoo! Mail, explains that emails that aren’t authenticated with [DomainKey] signatures are deemed suspicious and routed through additional message-screening filters before getting to the recipient inbox…” continue reading

The importance of email certification is being embraced by many organizations who rely on the integrity of email. This is illustrated by the recommendation of the Banking Industry Consortium to its members to start authenticating their emails.

“… Adoption continues apace throughout the Internet space, and Risher also said banking industry consortium BITS recommended adoption of DKIM for financial institutions. That would go a long way toward restoring trust in email messages from banks, a regularly spoofed item by criminal phishers…” continue reading

If you are interested in implementing DomainKeys or DKIM into your email marketing strategy, a good place to start is the DomainKeys Identified Mail website, dkim.org

The Email Standards Project is working hard with email client developers and the design community at large to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. Email marketers understand how difficult it is to get their lovely HTML messages to render successfully across various email clients. What looks good in a Yahoo inbox might not look so good in Gmail and vice versa. It shouldn’t be so difficult, but it is because there are no standards in place.

Here is the clever plea to Gmail (and other email client developers not yet on board) from the Email Standards Project. Spread the word.

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