Email deliverability

In 2012, B2C ecommerce sales grew 21.1% to top $1 trillion for the first time, according to new global estimates by eMarketer. This year, sales will grow 18.3% to $1.298 trillion worldwide, eMarketer estimates, as Asia-Pacific surpasses North America to become the world's No. 1 market for B2C ecommerce sales.

Microsoft Outlook users in the UK can now make and receive voice and video calls from within the Outlook web client — with the same functionality set to roll out to the US and Germany in the coming weeks.

The move was announced on Tuesday and is designed to more closely integrate the US giant's communication platforms. Microsoft completed its $8.5bn acquisition of Skype in October 2011.

TIS & TINS are two acroynms used by the ISPs to allow their client-recipients to provide feedback about the emails you send.

According to a study commissioned by iContact, small and midsize businesses are allocating the largest share of their marketing budgets to email, with more than half spending up to 20 percent of their total marketing dollars on email marketing efforts.

Edge Research was commissioned by iContact, an email service provided by Vocus, to conduct an independent study surveying 601 email marketing decision makers at companies with an annual revenue of $1 million to $50 million and no more than 1,000 total employees. Respondents had to be involved in email marketing decisions, have knowledge of how their marketing budget was distributed, and belong to an organization that owned their own list and used an email service provider.

Email delivery can fail at any number of places along its journey from the sender to the intended recipients…even if the recipient is you! As the possible issues are limitless, in this post, I've covered some of the most common reasons that emails may not be delivered to an inbox.

There was a time when spam was regarded as a major threat to the smooth functioning of email. Apart from the network overhead caused by spam, other issues such as malware were constantly on network admins’ minds. Then there was the precious time users spent deleting spam mail from their inboxes. However, it’s still something administrators have to incorporate in their planning, and users do come across the occasional spam message in their inbox.

Google Apps and Gmail have become the preferred email solution for many businesses, in part due to the ease of maintenance. One of the best ways Google Apps makes life easier for admins is the simplicity of configuring a domain’s anti-spam measures.

Two-thirds of marketers (66%) state that email delivers an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI, with 8% of businesses achieving more than half of their sales through this channel.

Poor quality data is the biggest barrier to effective email marketing, according to the new Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Census 2013.

Half (50%) of respondents stated that the quality of their email database caused problems with their email campaigns, meaning that it has been the most common barrier for three years running. A further 43% cited a lack of strategy as a key problem, followed by lack of time (41%) and poor segmentation (39%).

The Email Marketing Census looks at the amount and type of email marketing carried out by organisations, the way that email marketing is conducted, issues affecting the industry and the effectiveness of email compared to other digital marketing channels. More 1,300 respondents took part in the 2013 Census, which took the form of an online survey in January and February 2013.

Although I foresee no really revolutionary changes that would immediately disrupt email marketing, several shifts are happening now that require your attention and action.

If not, your company could get passed up by more forward-thinking and nimble competitors, leaving significant revenue on the table, under-serving customers, and undercutting your other marketing channel. These shifts are helping to create a new email-marketing paradigm with six essential buckets of ideas.

In the constant struggle between ISPs and spammers, legitimate marketers get caught up somewhere in the middle. ISPs have an array of techniques and technologies they employ to keep out spammers and to determine legitimate senders of email, and one such technique is the spam trap or honey pot.

All of us are far too familiar with the newsletters, promotions, pitches, and other email marketing messages that bombard our inboxes on a daily basis. I have an email account with over 1,000 unread emails, created specifically for junk mail. Among these 1,000 emails are sure to be great deals that I’d love to partake in. Unfortunately, they go unread because my inbox is way too cluttered to find content that actually pertains to me. The only solution I’ve found is to unsubscribe entirely. Countless other consumers find themselves in the same dilemma...

Sky Yahoo! Mail offers now Sky customers a secure mail service with 10GB storage, mobile email, mail forwarding, calendar, chat and much more - at no extra cost.

Spam is one of the biggest headaches any email user has to encounter, and as an administrator, you’ve probably implemented one of the anti-spam solutions provided by your email host. While Google Apps and other email providers make it really easy for you to stop incoming spam, there’s another – equally important – front in the fight against spam – outgoing spam from your domain.

You might very well say that as a legitimate business, you aren’t going to send out spam to your (existing or prospective) customers. However, the truth is that many users are unaware of the legal, ethical, and practical implications of activities like mass mailers, mailing lists, and contacting prospective customers. Often, new employees, interns, or those who simply aren’t aware of business email etiquette might end up sending out mass mailers or bulk email, resulting in your messages being tagged as spam.