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How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

blog.mailchimp.com

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Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#141

Post by eli »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #26
Ricapar wrote: post #16

For some reason, this paragraph irked me more than it should have: If the subscriber has tabs but they didn’t opt to include the Promotions tab, Gmail will deliver to Primary instead. That’s good news. Other than that, we’re definitely testing the new inbox and trying to figure out how it works. My sense is that Gmail wants all marketing email to go to the Promotions tab. Even if we did find a tricky way into the Pri…

A lot of people think that their special snowflake of a spam is the one that users actually want to see. These people deserve to be tasered in the mouth repeatedly, but sadly that hasn't happened yet.

If it's spam, then it belongs in the spam folder, not in any part of my inbox. If it's not spam, I want it in my inbox; that's why I'm subscribed to the list.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#143

Post by eli »

gertef wrote: post #125
dbarlett wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a feedback loop. http://www.dirigodev.com/content/email-feedback-loops/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_Reporting_Format https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6650

WTF? There is an IETF standard for certifying that an spam victim's email address is valid and therefore should be exploited by sending more spam?

Huh? How did you conclude that?

Tracking image loads and clicks would be a much more effective method of determining that an address is valid for both legitimate mass emails and spam.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#144

Post by zrail »

gertef wrote: post #125
dbarlett wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a feedback loop. http://www.dirigodev.com/content/email-feedback-loops/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_Reporting_Format https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6650

WTF? There is an IETF standard for certifying that an spam victim's email address is valid and therefore should be exploited by sending more spam?

I don't have actual numbers, but a cursory examination of my Gmail spam box says spam senders don't generally provide a valid List-Unsubscribe header. One of Gmail's spam triggers may in fact be, someone clicked on the List-Unsubscribe header and the FBL message bounced.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#145

Post by scott_s »

gertef wrote: post #126
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, YOU are using the term as corrupted by email marketing people, and the post to which you replied is using it as sensible people use it. If I give a company my email address so I can get my receipts from them, and then I get "valuable offers" and "service announcements" from them, that's spam, plain and simple. Sure, it's legal in the USA, but that doesn't make it not spam. Similarly, attaching promotional materia…

Are you a spammer everytime you browse a website or visit a store but don't make a purchase?

Browsing is entirely different from spamming. With browsing, a store (online or offline) has opened its doors and said "Please come in! Look around, see if you want to buy something!" And we do. It's understood in this model that we are not obligated to buy something. We are browsing.

Email is a means of personal communication. I trust that when I give out my email, it will only be used for the promised purposes - such as giving me order receipts, or establishing an account. Giving out this email for one purpose is not implicit permission to use it for another purpose.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#146

Post by zrail »

qwerty_asdf wrote: post #118
pepve wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do I find out more about this? A quick web search didn't yield anything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 There are laws regulating e-mail solicitations. People can be sued for SPAM, and incur criminal charges. Basically, if any mail provider notices that lots of its users complain about SPAM, they have legal standing to bring that person before a judge. Sending out a warning of possible legal repercussions is the first step. Presumably, the spammer is contacted via e-ma…

While that's sort of correct, there actually is a technical "ping" called an FBL message that gets sent by the big providers when someone clicks the "report spam" button.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#147

Post by mindcrime »

fps wrote: post #140
mindcrime wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they're not doing a very good job of it. I disabled this tabbed nonsense right away, because the categorization is shit. They put all sorts of messages under "promotions" that were nothing of the sort, and same for "social". In fact, glancing through the tabs, there really appeared to be almost no coherence whatsoever between what appeared in one tab or another. As far as I'm concerned, Gmail tabs are totally us…

Gmail's filtering in this case seems to be 100% spot on for me. It's grabbed all the stuff I consider spam and hidden it away, and hasn't touched anything from people who I want to hear from. A few thousand messages have been properly sorted since I opted in.

Interesting. My experience has been nearly completely opposite of that. Especially in terms of "false positives" where things are being put under the "promotions" tab that aren't promotions at all. :-(

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#148

Post by eli »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #82
ErikHuisman wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do this using Mailchimp and have a suspicious high unsubscribe / marked as spam rate your account will be suspended.

How does Mailchimp monitor spam marking rates? Generally, if it's a trade secret.

I don't work for Mailchimp, but it isn't that complication: Feedback loops with major email providers, monitoring bounes and engagement rates, and (of course) tracking abuse complaints. If you're sending out bona fide spam, many people will take the time to send a message to abuse@yourprovider.com

Among the consumer-grade ESPs, Mailchimp has a reputation for being extremely strict about anti-spam enforcement.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#149

Post by eli »

cloudwalking wrote: post #77
dangrossman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider language/framework/library group lists, local developer groups/meetups, security/vuln announcement lists, and my family's discussion list to be promotional. But they can all be sent through MailChimp and other services that also send promotional mails.

I suspect Gmail is filtering based on content, not based on email service.

The contents of my Promotions tab included many things that were not promotional in nature, including -dev mailing list digests.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#150

Post by _delirium »

eli wrote: post #141
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think that their special snowflake of a spam is the one that users actually want to see. These people deserve to be tasered in the mouth repeatedly, but sadly that hasn't happened yet.

If it's spam, then it belongs in the spam folder, not in any part of my inbox. If it's not spam, I want it in my inbox; that's why I'm subscribed to the list.

I actually like the in-between category. When Chase sends me some miscellaneous offer email, it's not spam per-se, because I'm a Chase customer, so we have a preexisting relationship. I also haven't specifically opted out, although I don't recall opting in, so it's not a mail I have specifically asked for. Either way, it's not important email that I really want to see immediately. It's perfectly fine to file it into a "Promotions" tab: it's not spam in the sense that overseas-Viagra-pharmacy emails are spam, but it's not a regular email, like one from a colleague or my parents.

If I had been more diligent about setting up folders and email filters, of course, I would've filed these kinds of mails into their own folder already, like I already do with mailing lists. But they crop up often enough (every time you do business with a new company) that it's tedious to keep up. So I like that Google is helping me out in helping to auto-sort them.

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