Goodmail CertifiedEmail Blog

Greening Your Message

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, four million tons of direct mail is sent to the dump every year. The USDA Forest Service reports that even though all the trees that are cut down for the production of direct mail are replaced, there are still 100 million trees cut down for the production of bulk mail. This equals approximately one whole tree for every family in America.

Yikes!  That’s a lot of trees.  It’s also a lot of wasted paper.  Over the past few months, I’ve been looking at a number of companies that offer innovative email applications. Specifically, solutions that reduce the cost of client communication yet increase the value of the message; solutions that are green friendly.  Solutions that provide an email alternative that compliment Goodmail’s core technology and vision – of trust in email with 100% guaranteed inbox delivery, with images and links rendered.

Last Monday, Goodmail launched CertifiedEmail SecureDoc  with our partner Striata. Striata is a global leader in Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP).  They’ve spent the last 10 years helping companies go paperless – with a deep understanding of the paperless environment and its challenges.  We are all very excited about the potential of this partnership.  We’ve teamed up with the best.

Next week, Goodmail will be exhibiting at the BAI Payments Connect conference in Kissimmee, Florida.  Those of us based in New York are looking forward to a short respite from the snow – but we are also thrilled to have the opportunity to engage in discussion around our new solution.  If you are coming to BAI – please stop by – we’re in space 313.

Mary Byrne

VP of Compliance Product Sales

Bring More Value To My Email

NACHA - The Electronic Payments Association, estimates the average household receives 20 bills and financial statements monthly - each including envelopes, statements, support documents and often return envelopes.

WOW, that’s a lot of paper -– but it’s not landing in my mailbox.  I’m a Green Queen.  I went paperless years ago.  All of my bills are paid online.  My financial statements sit on a variety of bank and brokerage house web portals.  My daily New York Times and Wall Street Journal arrive each morning on my Kindle and the books I read come to me the same way.  Email of course, is central to my paperless status as most of my business and personal communication is done via email.

I’m amazed and pleased to see the progress of email over the years.  The quality and content for both marketing and transactional email continues to improve.  I do wish that there were more of an effort to allow me to engage/act within the message though – instead of continually being sent to a company’s web portal.

For example, last month I received an email from my wireless company – letting me know that my bill was ready to view on the portal.  I read the message, clicked out with the intention of paying the bill when I had a free moment.  Well, as luck would have it – I simply forgot.  About 10 days later I received a phone call from my wireless company – reminding me that I had to pay the bill now!

Hrumph.  Ok, I dutifully headed right for the portal and paid the bill, but what if the company had allowed me to pay the bill, right from the email they’d originally sent?  Payment would have been received promptly and there’s one less thing on my to-do list.  Convenient, easy, efficient.

And it could also be secure. At Goodmail we are working closely with our clients and partners, to create solutions that continue to expand the use of email with a keen eye on security and deliverability, and going green with much less paper.  Stay tuned!

Mary Byrne
VP of Compliance Product Sales

Still Offering The Best Privileges For The Best Senders

Goodmail's proposition is simple and straightforward - the highest quality commercial senders should be able to send communications to people who have asked to receive them.   There’s no reason why senders with great track records should have 20-25% of their mail stuck in the spam filter or blocked altogether.

Over the past few days, a couple of industry bloggers have asked whether Goodmail still adheres to the highest standards of sender quality.  Frankly, we welcome the question because we’re very proud of the system that we have set up for accrediting senders and monitoring the quality of their campaigns.  It’s the best in the industry.

Here are the facts:

1. Goodmail only certifies messages sent by senders with the best sending practices. Our accreditation process ensures quality standards: every sender goes through the industry's most rigorous vetting process before they are admitted into the program. Fewer than 20% of senders that apply for accreditation by Goodmail are actually accepted into the CertifiedEmail program. 

2. Goodmail is very responsive to input from its ISP partners. When some of our partners (interestingly, not including Yahoo) raised a concern over the practices of a couple of our CertifiedEmail senders, we responded by immediately suspending, and ultimately eliminating, those senders and further tightening our AUP –  which was already the strictest in the industry.

Our current AUP can be found at http://www.goodmailsystems.com/about/policies/acceptable-use-policy.php . Our relationship with our ISP partners is very important to us, it only makes sense that we are attentive to their wishes and concerns.

3. Only Goodmail actively monitors all CertifiedEmail senders in real-time.  Traditionally, we have used complaint rates as the primary quality metric because it is objective and directly represents the voice of the consumer receiving CertifiedEmail. In order to retain their privileges, senders have always been required to maintain low complaint scores (under 0.22% complaint rate).  We have recently expanded the number of factors that we use to evaluate a sender's reputation. Our real-time dashboards alert us about any quality issues as they happen. If a campaign yields an unacceptably large number of complaints, we suspend that sender immediately.  Once in a long while, a sender with a low complaint rate will send emails that don’t pass our “smell” test—if so, we reserve the right to terminate them as well.

4. We enforce the prompt removal from a mailing list of any user who hits the Spam button by monitoring repeat complaints for the same sender/recipient combination. We have a host of additional measures in place, including that all RFC-822-From addresses and all IP addresses must be pre-approved before sending CertifiedEmail.

Still have questions?  Please give us a call or send us an email. We’re always happy to share our thinking and to also listen to your thoughts.

Daniel Dreymann
President & Co-Founder, Goodmail Systems

EEC Was Da Bomb

We had a Miami Beach backdrop at the Eden Roc.  Hip. Cool. Latin slant. Add an extra layer of energy from the upcoming Super Bowl there. 

Even 11 inches of rain wouldn’t dampen the energy and networking at EEC No.10.  Attendance was very strong –blew away the organizers expectations.

Took great interest in hearing from leading brand marketers regarding their own challenges and how they finding fresh approaches to problem solving.  Every session I was in was full and there were healthy questioning.

Was very impressed with Alaska Airlines presentation.  This “stealth” airline is doing some extremely smart marketing and fully leveraging technology solutions to get the job done.  These folks are setting the standard in the travel industry on several fronts.

Another great presentation was AARP. They provided an extremely thoughtful case study on the challenges the non-profit faced two years ago and the methodical steps they took to foster greater professionalism and accountability in their email marketing.  Given the sheer size and how disparate the organization it was fascinating to hear how they made slow, deliberate progress.

The ever effervescent Lisa Harmon of Responsys/Smith-Harmon – got everyone out of their rooms early the final day and engaged in her “Email Idol” creative shoot-out.  Despite working on only a few brain cycles from the late night before, EEC-ers made it an SRO event.  Discussing the sometimes subtle nuances to different creative approaches was fascinating.  And, the real-time voting was awesome (instant gratification thank you).  But, the stats from the real market test was most revealing.  Very engaging. Very worthwhile.  These panels are what make EEC a must attend event.  They fuel the industry discourse and the networking.

For three days: Cool ideas. Good work. Great fun.  This is a movable feast but, I’d like to see it back in Miami again next year.

Mike Rogers
SVP Sales

CertifiedEmail™ – ISP Progress Report

Things are busy here at Goodmail as they have always been. We have just completed the implementation with two leading email providers: Verizon and Mail.com. Our clients have realized the significance of ISP footprint consolidation, and the opportunity to shift expensive resources towards better content and email practices. Our senders continue to enjoy spectacular business results -- typically greater than a 30% increase in sales when they use CertifiedEmail. We've just completed a new case study with The Territory Ahead that we're pleased to share it with you.

CertifiedEmail’s privileges are earned through hard work. To that end, we have just released Goodmail’s latest Reputation Manager, a comprehensive and unparalleled email reputation monitoring and reporting system that gives email senders the best in class tools to continue and refine email practices ensuring the best user experience. More details on this topic in the future.

For reasons that are not really related to our relationship, effective February 1st, there will be a reduction in privileges granted to CertifiedEmail messages sent to yahoo.com and other domains controlled by Yahoo. We are continuing to work with them on restoring full service as soon as possible. Yahoo was one of the very first email providers to see the value and necessity in CertifiedEmail. I am convinced this original vision of consumer’s security and the facilitation of structured communication between businesses and consumers are essential to email functionality.

Goodmail remains committed to its CertifiedEmail platform, the only solution for senders, receivers and consumers who expect the highest level of security, best email practices and Inbox functionality. During 2010, CertifiedEmail will grow its ISP footprint and we will launch new and exciting products.

And very soon, we expect to announce a new and exciting partnership -- one that will explore the many possibilities of email-based communications and commerce -- with a major ISP.

Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit '10

 
Coming from snow covered Boston, it was a pleasure to go to Miami for the Marketing Sherpa Em@il Summit.  The conference had many great keynote speakers and this year the break out sessions were split between B2C and B2B with a very even split of conference attendees.

In Joseph Jaffe’s keynote, “Flip the Funnel:  How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones – Email’s Critical Role”, Jaffe passionately demonstrated email’s importance as a channel for valuable and timely dialogue with your customers.  And that your customer’s experience with your brand can be profoundly influenced with meaningful communications.  These communications can enable your customers to advocate your brand through referrals to social networks, trusted peers, and their communities.  One of the key takeaways was that email is not dead and it is one of the most powerful tools to help you build your competitive advantage. 

Social media is here to stay and our email marketing programs need to embrace it as our new best friend.  Social sharing allows our email recipients to share email content on social networks and this helps to extend the reach of email content to new customers, which increases your brand awareness.  Email continues to work well to increase engagement and it is important to integrate your marketing across all mediums.

At the conference, Goodmail participated on a panel discussing the new deliverability challenges. Email marketers want to do more with rich media content to enhance their brand, but are challenged with their messages being blocked by email inbox providers.  With email, video is just the beginning of the use of rich media and the reason that Goodmail has announced CertifiedVideo.GIF .  In partnership with Liveclicker, a developer of advanced video commerce applications, Goodmail is able to provide deliverability and automatic play of Liveclicker enhanced video emails through all of Goodmail’s ISP partners.

These are just the beginning. The future of email will be determined by the value consumers will find in their inbox and not so much by what has been filtered out.

John Pozerski
Sr. Director, Channel Sales

2010 Predictions - don't say we didn't tell you

This is the time of year when we all make resolutions and predictions. I’d like to make one prediction myself. I think this year (or soon enough after it) that we will hear more people and politicians talking about the need to address cyber security. It may not be to the same extent we have recently heard President Obama discussing the Christmas Eve Delta Airlines security breach, but it’s probably not that far off…

USA Today recently reported: “The American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a separate PC used exclusively for online banking.” The article discusses steps small and medium businesses should take, but there is nothing fundamentally different here than what consumers should be aware of and do.

USA Today explains the popularity of the so-called “cyber-robber's banking Trojans.” Hundreds of new Trojan variants appear on the Internet every day. The number should top 200,000 in 2009, up from 194,000 in 2008, according to PandaLabs, the quoted source. It also discusses the inconvenient truth associated with the ease of distributing these Trojans. Earlier last year in the IC3 Cyber crime Report, we were informed that most cyber crime attacks are carried out via email. It takes just one rogue email and a click on a tainted link to join the club of folks that either lost their money or their time fighting the banks as they tried to get their hard-earned money back.

“The FBI says it has investigated more than 200 cases, mostly in 2008 and 2009, in which cyber-robbers executed fraudulent transfers totaling about $100 million.” However, “Banking and tech security experts say many more cases of ACH and wire transfer fraud are going unreported.”

Terry Austin, CEO of security firm Guardian Analytics is quoted as saying:

“Many banks rely heavily on their online channels but fail to implement the necessary protections," says Austin. "Cybercriminals are capitalizing on this opportunity."

In my opinion, the situation is basically a ticking time bomb and it will happen because… it can.

Similar to the war against terror, there is no one single silver bullet solution. But, a lot can be done to protect consumers without asking them to go online from virtual bunkers.

Goodmail has been working with the leading ISPs for several years to protect consumers on the email front. And our flagship product, CertifiedEmail, guarantees the authenticity of the sender and the integrity of the message without any action required by the consumer – protecting against security breaches like cyber-robber attacks.

Consumers should be vocal about their right to be protected online – the infrastructure is already available through most of the leading ISPs.

Happy New Year and here’s to a safe and secure 2010!

Gal Chanoch, VP of Product Management

2010 Online Marketing Spend Trends

Just pulled together some recent stats on spending trends to make some sense out of them.

The recession is clearly put a wet blanket on marketing spending.  And despite some of the recent optimism, I think we can count on many more months of with mixed signals on the economy.  I do think that online media has bottomed out and is now headed north.  In December, eMarketer forecasted a 5.5% gain in U.S. online ad spend (vs. -4.6% decline in 2009) -- reflecting a full 10 point swing in the market in one year's time.  Moreover, they see a 6.8% gain in 2011.  Obviously, some sectors of online ad spend will rebound faster than others.  You can bet the fastest sectors to rebound will be ones that can readily demonstrate ROI.

What is fascinating is the myriad of online advertising choices that marketers have today -- within the medium itself. Even within the broader definitions there are plenty of choices.  Take the fastest growing segment video: it is expected to see double-digit growth in 2010 for sure.  Marketers have available to them so many methods to implement video now that tracking it all is not an inconsequential task. 

Most of the mainstream discussion is about video on webpages. And,not much discussion about implementation of video in email. 

When you consider that Forrester predicts that by 2013 there will be volume of 840 billion emails. Then consider the targeting and control capabilities of email (not to mention the growing sophistication of multi-platform marketing analytics) -- you have a perfect storm of opportunity for exponential growth in customer interactivity, loyalty, relevance and ultimately: revenue.

Online retailers and entertainment marketers will be the first to run with this opportunity and see results from initial testing.  This is one storm I'm looking forward to.

Mike Rogers
Senior VP of Sales

MediaPost's Email Insider Summit 2009

I had a great opportunity to be part of the well attended Email Insider Summit 2009 (Park City, Utah). This venue brought plenty of insights and meetings with the leaders in the email industry.

As it has been the case for quite some time now, questions about the end of email marketing have been raised and discussed. The maturity of email was contrasted with the excitement around the emergence of social networking and mobile marketing. To me, it is clear that the destiny of the email industry is driven by the consumer. There is little consumer interest in the mechanics, of email --functionality and security are the key factors in the user’s experience—and through that the future health of email.

Email can absolutely maintain its growth and be complemented by social networking.

Here at the conference, Goodmail discussed the progress achieved and senders’ success with CertifiedVideo . The feedback was enthusiastic and followed by the question we are always receive from the community: “when the product will be available in other ISP’s?”

In email, video is just the beginning of the explosion in Rich Email. This week, Goodmail and TommiMedia announced a collaboration that will enable email embedded video chat, yet another capability that among other things can change the way businesses and consumers communicate while email delivers an unparalleled platform.

These are just the beginning. The future of email will be determined by the value consumers will find in their inbox and not so much by what has been filtered out.

Rich Email applications are the beginning of something new and very exciting.

Gal Chanoch
VP of Product Management

A Review of MAAWG's 17th General Meeting in Philadelphia

Spammers stayed clear of Philadelphia during the last week of October as mailbox providers, technology vendors and a slew of public policy folks attended the 17th General Meeting of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group (MAAWG).  Sponsored in part by Goodmail Systems, MAAWG has been a leader in bringing industry leaders together to fight messaging abuse in all of its various forms.

The keynote address was provided by Brigadier General David B. Warner of the US Air Force Space Command.  His presentation was engaging and informative, outlining the government’s new military cyber security defense initiative.

 

Also attending were the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), the Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) , Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kids Come First (FIRST Online), National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), The Shadowserver Foundation, along with researchers and experts from academic institutions.  The three days of sessions culminated in a professional training class for industry professionals.

 

MAAWG was started in 2004 and has proven to be a terrific resource and opportunity for collaboration for the entire messaging community. Goodmail is proud to be a part of the work being done and continues to participate in coordinating sessions, sponsoring the organization and participating in open discussions to combat abuse.

 

I was particularly pleased to be able to see so many colleagues that have, over the years, become good friends.  Goodmail was there in force and had plenty to talk about with new ISP’s integrating our technology, new products that have launched as well and others on the near horizon.

 

I look forward to sharing our next round of achievements at the 18th General Meeting which is scheduled to be held February 16-18 in San Francisco.  Hope to see you there; let me show you what Goodmail is up to.

 

Charles Stiles

VP of Worldwide Business Development