Majors accept pay e-mail

If you use e-mail marketing, would you pay to ensure that your e-mails reach their destination? Two major e-mail services are betting you will.

AOL and Yahoo intend to use a pay-to-send e-mail system, known as Goodmail CertifiedEmail, to help ensure that commercial e-mail reaches its intended inbox-es, with links and images intact.

Yahoo will use the program only for “transactional e-mails”—messages containing information about bill payment, order confirmation or financial statements. AOL will use it for all types of e-mail, beginning as early as May.

The announcements have prompted much concern and some misinformation among online advocacy and direct marketing circles, some of whom fear that it will create a “privileged class” of e-mail that shuts out non-paying senders. Others confuse this concept with the “urban legend” warning of an “e-mail tax.”

Goodmail’s service is sometimes called an e-mail postage system, but it is more like the guaranteed-delivery services offered with traditional mail, such as certified or registered mail, or private delivery services like FedEx and Airborne Express. For now, it will affect primarily people who receive e-mail at AOL or Yahoo e-mail accounts, which Goodmail estimates to be 40 to 50 percent of all e-mail accounts.

In the short term, retailers and other small businesses that use e-mail marketing to communicate with customers and clients should not be affected, despite the loud debate. Most small businesses will not pay to send e-mails because it will be neither cost-effective nor necessary.

Just the facts
No one—business or individual—will be forced to pay to send e-mail. It’s strictly a service that senders can purchase to ensure their messages reach recipients’ inboxes—with the images visible and embedded links functional. Currently, many e-mail systems, including AOL, strip the links and images from some inbound messages to protect the recipient’s privacy and prevent “phishing” (messages that mimic those of legitimate senders, using fraudulent links to lure people to reveal valuable information), although users can change the default setting to allow images and links.

Users can also block e-mail from specific addresses, and even Goodmail certification will not get past such user-controlled “blacklists.”

E-mail messages from senders who do not pay will receive the same treatment they currently receive. According to a media release from AOL, the same spam filters and other technologies that block unwanted messages or sort messages into bulk folders will be in place. E-mail from paying senders will be identified in the inbox as certified by Goodmail (not duplicable by spammers or phishers).

Spammers will not be able to “buy access” to users’ inboxes. In addition to paying a small per-message fee (a quarter of a cent to one cent per message), senders who use Goodmail must qualify for the service by adhering to a strict set of e-mail marketing best practices guidelines, according to a Goodmail media release.

Senders must show they have a good track record of not using deceptive e-mail practices and agree not to send messages to anyone who has not specifically consented to receive e-mail from them. They risk being barred from the system if they are found to be in violation of Goodmail’s strict policies or if Goodmail receives a very small number of credible complaints from recipients about them.

Immediate effects
Most analysts agree the system is unlikely to affect spam volume. It will not prevent spammers who are not currently blocked, but it will not increase the volume either, because spammers will ignore the new system.

It may, however, reduce “false positives”—legitimate e-mail block-ed by a spam filter or diverted to a bulk mail folder. Marketing e-mails from businesses that have a relationship with the recipient are common false positives.

Phishing attempts may eventually be more obvious to AOL and Yahoo recipients. Most major senders are expected to use Goodmail for their “transactional” e-mails so that AOL and Yahoo recipients know which messages to open and which to avoid—once they come to understand the system.

It’s too early to say how many and which major businesses will pay for messages that are not transactional. Most analysts agree that the fee is too high for most small businesses to consider it.

Concerns
Aside from the unfounded fears of those who do not understand the system, there may be legitimate concerns from small businesses that worry their larger competitors, who can afford to pay for preferential treatment, will get better “click-through” (response) rates. If Goodmail catches on, the market may eventually force most businesses to pay as well.

These concerns arise from the fact that Goodmail shares the fees it collects from senders with the e-mail service provider—AOL and Yahoo at this point. Some e-mail marketing analysts predict that this new revenue stream could give e-mail providers an economic incentive to reduce the amount they invest in keeping free e-mail working effectively, thus driving more senders to Goodmail, from which they would profit.

Goodmail and others who defend the new system argue that AOL and Yahoo will not allow their spam filters and other e-mail systems to deteriorate, because they would lose customers (e-mail accounts), who would switch to a provider with better e-mail service.

“AOL will not reduce the resources it invests in free e-mail once it starts offering certified e-mail,” said Nicholas Graham, a spokesperson for AOL.

Skeptics counter that few customers would give up a well-established e-mail address because of concerns about messages being handled wrong (slightly more spam or more false positives—wanted e-mails that are filtered out).

Further, they suspect that AOL’s increased revenue from paying senders could make up for the lost revenue from those few customers.

What you can
do today

Small businesses need not be overly concerned about the pay-to-send system immediately, because it is still new and the credible concerns only affect the long-term. But the issue raises e-mail deliverability concerns that all businesses should consider, whether or not they can afford Goodmail.

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, editor of Web Marketing Today, advises small businesses to:

• Ask Yahoo and AOL subscribers to place you in their address book, which will get you through the spam filters directly to them.

• Observe e-mail marketing best practices so that if you have to use some kind of paid sender certification in the future, you can prove compliance of both your list and your practices.

In addition, most e-mail marketing experts advise businesses to apply with Yahoo and AOL to be added to their “whitelists” (or if possible, for AOL’s “enhanced whitelist” which has very stringent requirements). The application process will inform you about what is considered e-mail marketing best practices today.

The subject of e-mail marketing best practices—how a business manages its subscribe requests, unsubscribe requests, bounce backs, spam complaints and more—is widely discussed on the Internet. A good overview is available at www.optinnews.com.

Improving your “e-mail hygiene” (using clean lists and sound practices) will ensure that more of your messages are delivered as intended. That should mean a better return on your investment, even if you never pay to send e-mail. It also means an overall reduction in spam, happier customers and a better future for e-mail marketing.