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Email Marketing column on
the
Microsoft web site:
Anti-spam filters
Spamming means
indiscriminately sending email and/or newsletters without the permission of the recipient.
Besides being annoying, spam can also be extremely expensive for the recipient.
Anti-spam filters can be used to fight this phenomenon. Anyone doing email marketing must know how the filters work, to avoid having one's own message
filtered out, even if the recipient asked for it.
The filters can be deployed by:
-
the internet service
providers
(ISP), to limit the amount of spam addressed to the users of their
service;
-
the user, who can use the
system that came with their email program or obtain appropriate
software.
The filters work by detecting the principal elements
that identify spam, for example, a non-existent domain in the sending
address, certain words in the Subject line, an originating ISP known to serve spammers. The data for these are inserted in
databases that are continually updated.
Therefore, to avoid having our message filtered out, even if the recipient
wants it, it is a good idea to pay close attention not to use
typical spammer techniques in composing the Subject line:
-
Emphatic
phrases with an exclamation point, for example:
Lose extra pounds in three days!!
The exclamation point, especially when doubled, is one of the first elements that the usesr choose for
filtering.
-
Unbelievable offers that contain
verbs, symbols and adjectives like save, win, offer, free, exceptional, extraordinary and the %
sign, for example:
"You have won a week in the mountains"
"Save 70% on office supplies"
Spammers often use the words shown above and so the users or the ISP put them in the
filters. Even when they manage to get past the filters, a recipient who is quickly choosing which messages to read and which to
delete, could mistake a message with a subject like these for spam and delete it.
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Capital
letters. Using capitals is the internet equivalent of shouting. An experienced user who observes
Netiquette
(that collection of rules of good behavior and
guidelines developed spontaneously over the years among internet
users) would rarely use them in a Subject line the way that spammers do:
RE: INFORMATION
LANCIANI NEWSLETTER
Furthermore, it could happen that the ISP that we are using to send email may have
unwittingly ended up in databases of ISP's serving spammers, and thus
our messages are being filtered out. In this case some filtering software
will return the message to the sender, specifying the reason for non-delivery. However, this is not a widespread practice, so it would be good to check
these databases and if your ISP appears in several lists, considering changing
ISP.
Authors: Adriana Galgano and Eugenio La
Mesa (blog)
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