Christianity QA » Christian Religion » How do I avoid spam filters – how fast can I send out emails?
Question:
Kris Baker wrote And lo, Andrew Heenan didst speak in alt.www.webmaster,alt.www.marketing,alt.marketing.online.ebay: They are only ‘legit’ if they have subscribed … opted in to receive them. And if they’ve opted in, they will be unlikely to have you blocked. I used to think so, but actually working in "the biz" I’ve learned it’s not always the case. We occasionally send out an email newsletter to our customers which no one specifically opted-in for. That’s from YOUR side; it’s spam from MY side.
That’s why we have deranged loonies, for balance. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
Response:
And lo, Kris Baker didst speak in muchos newsgroups: And lo, Andrew Heenan didst speak in some places: They are only ‘legit’ if they have subscribed … opted in to receive them. And if they’ve opted in, they will be unlikely to have you blocked. I used to think so, but actually working in "the biz" I’ve learned it’s not always the case. We occasionally send out an email newsletter to our customers which no one specifically opted-in for. That’s from YOUR side; it’s spam from MY side.
If one of my emailings ever reaches your inbox, cupcake, please go ahead and report me. We have a list of customers, all of whom have invested significant amounts[1] of money in our equipment. No one has begrudged us a simple newsletter, for updates and new product news, yet. Grey [1] Top-of-the-line ATI graphics card? Hah, that’s kid-stuff. — The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the pitfall corollary that nothing is ridiculous. – http://www.greywyvern.com/ringmaker – Orca Ringmaker: Host a web ring from your website!
Response:
Do you have any idea why motions to take action against spam take so long and mutate so much while being voted on in various countries? It’s not because they don’t *want* to take action. Rather it’s because it’s *not* as cut-and-dry as you’d like to believe.
The problem is getting a single definition of "spam." Oh, in *most* cases you’re correct. But cold-calls, and *targetted* cold-emails, still bring a lot of small businesses livelyhood which they couldn’t get otherwise.
That’s true too. I myself have sent a number of people unsolicited emails to potential customers, offering to redevelop their website. Most of them politely decline. According to your logic, that was me spamming.
Mmmm – were they one-to-one emails? The most commonly accepted definition I’ve seen is "unsolicited" + "bulk". One-to-one unsolicited emails aren’t spam, by that definition. — Coming to you from Southern California’s High Desert, where the temperatures are as high as the gas prices! / 888.480.4NET (4638) "Life’s like an hourglass glued to the table" –Anna Nalick, "Breathe"
Response:
And lo, JC Dill didst speak in some alts: Anytime you send marketing emails to an address that was not confirmed by the subscriber as desiring said emails, you ARE spamming.
Do you have any idea why motions to take action against spam take so long and mutate so much while being voted on in various countries? It’s not because they don’t *want* to take action. Rather it’s because it’s *not* as cut-and-dry as you’d like to believe. Oh, in *most* cases you’re correct. But cold-calls, and *targetted* cold-emails, still bring a lot of small businesses livelyhood which they couldn’t get otherwise. I myself have sent a number of people unsolicited emails to potential customers, offering to redevelop their website. Most of them politely decline. According to your logic, that was me spamming. You’d actually be right in more cases if you added "bulk" to your list of criteria. Grey — The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the pitfall corollary that nothing is ridiculous. – http://www.greywyvern.com/ringmaker – Orca Ringmaker: Host a web ring from your website!
Response:
And lo, Charles Sweeney didst speak in a bunch of newsgroups: Kris Baker wrote Crikey, the competition is intense in here for the most-dense-poster award.
Viper and Karim both seem to be away, so it truly *is* a wide open field. Grey
Response:
He’s an old time regular here (alt.www.webmaster). If Ship says they are legitimate recipients, then they will be just that. Thanks for the support, Matt! Sometimes people can be *stupidly* cynical and fail to answer questions on the merits of the question and nobody gets anywhere!
Why are you posting this to alt.marketing.online.ebay? This isn’t about eBay. It’s off topic for this newsgroup. If you want to ask questions about mail server rate limiting and spam, I suggest you find groups that discuss those topics, instead of posting on a group that discusses eBay. One group where this is on-topic is a mailing list called spam-l. NOTE: Unless your list is confirmed opt-in, you will not be given ANY assistance on spam-l. Confirmed opt-in means that your subscribers must confirm via email that they have elected to receive mail from your list, before you "add" them to the list or send them any "marketing" emails. Anytime you send marketing emails to an address that was not confirmed by the subscriber as desiring said emails, you ARE spamming. jc
Response:
Kris Baker wrote – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! If your customers want to be on your mailing lists, remind them when they sign up for the list that they should whitelist you in their spam filter. These aren’t sign-ups; he *purchased* this names.
Crikey, the competition is intense in here for the most-dense-poster award. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
Response:
And lo, Andrew Heenan didst speak in alt.www.webmaster,alt.www.marketing,alt.marketing.online.ebay: They are only ‘legit’ if they have subscribed … opted in to receive them. And if they’ve opted in, they will be unlikely to have you blocked. I used to think so, but actually working in "the biz" I’ve learned it’s not always the case. We occasionally send out an email newsletter to our customers which no one specifically opted-in for.
That’s from YOUR side; it’s spam from MY side.
Response:
ship wrote We have about 30,000 legitimate users on our database.
Yum yum! — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
Response:
bp wrote Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! If your customers want to be on your mailing lists, remind them when they sign up for the list that they should whitelist you in their spam filter.
Or remind them not to use filters that block legitimate mail. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
Response:
And lo, Andrew Heenan didst speak in alt.www.webmaster,alt.www.marketing,alt.marketing.online.ebay: They are only ‘legit’ if they have subscribed … opted in to receive them. And if they’ve opted in, they will be unlikely to have you blocked.
I used to think so, but actually working in "the biz" I’ve learned it’s not always the case. We occasionally send out an email newsletter to our customers which no one specifically opted-in for. However, all of our customers on the email list have previously purchased some of our not-fscking-cheap electronics, and what we email them is news of newly released products and upgrades they can take advantage of. There are close to 80 people on my main list, and I’ve sent out a number of "waves", one even with a 400kB PDF attachment![1] No complaints yet. However, I am *quite* sure our domain is on many of their whitelists. Grey [1] I *did* notify our host before doing this 
— The technical axiom that nothing is impossible sinisterly implies the pitfall corollary that nothing is ridiculous. – http://www.greywyvern.com/ringmaker – Orca Ringmaker: Host a web ring from your website!
Response:
Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! If your customers want to be on your mailing lists, remind them when they sign up for the list that they should whitelist you in their spam filter.
These aren’t sign-ups; he *purchased* this names. Kris
Response:
ship wrote – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – He’s an old time regular here (alt.www.webmaster). If Ship says they are legitimate recipients, then they will be just that. Thanks for the support, Matt! Sometimes people can be *stupidly* cynical and fail to answer questions on the merits of the question and nobody gets anywhere! Okay here’s the deal. We have about 30,000 legitimate users on our database. It cost us a *lot* of money to acquire them through legitimate marketing channels (much of it printed media, fwiw), so we are extremely careful about how and when we contact them. We dice and slice the database and send messages that are often pretty much hand-crafted to users – (depending upon what they have expressed an interest in before.) Our emails are pretty much like hand crafted letters that we write to our customers. We try to avoid some of the more obvious trigger words much as "free" and "unsubscribe" [Anyone know of a good up-to-date, comprehensive list, incidentally. Or better yet an online tool one can use to test copy for filtered words...?] HOWEVER what we have previously found is that if we send out emails TOO FAST, then the big domain mailservers (e.g. AOL, Hotmail, yahoo etc) may assume that we are spamming them. So we not trickle the emails out… but I am suspicous that we are still sending them out too fast. As an aside we recently seem to have have discovered that including *any* images seems to lower the response rates. And again our suspicion is that our mail is being filtered our as spam somewhere along the line! As you can see below the *specific* problem today was that our own internal emails have been intercepted by "http://spamcop.net/". And yes I have been trying to contact our ISP to find out more. HOWEVER I didnt ask about our specific problems of today, I asked if there were any "industry norms" of how fast to send out emails etc, that we would be well advised to stick to so as to avoid similar problems in future. Obviously I *could* contact www.spamcop.net too, but I wanted to know what you guys thought that the current state of play is. So… no we are NOT sending out unsolicited emails – and YES our users have explicitly requested to get the information from us on a regular basis. So finally… how fast *should* we be sending out our emails?! with thanks Ship P.S. Are any of you guys also using btconnect.com (like us) ? They are ABSOLUTELY AWEFUL in our experience. Many emails not arriving for hours and hours, sometimes days. But they have tied us into a 12 month contract from which they wont let us escape without a punishing financial penalty! I wouldnt recommend them to my worst enemy! Okay, yes I would but only my WORST enemy… P.P.S. here are the bounces of this morning for what they are worth. And dont look too closely because I have stripped out any identifying information! —–Original Message—– Sent: 22 June 2005 13:16 http://spamcop.net/ (from mill.xxx-edited-out-xxx.co.uk) (BST) from host811-130-161-20.in-addrr.btopenworld.com [811.130.161.20] —– The following addresses had permanent delivery errors —– Message/delivery-status Reporting-MTA: dns; c2bt1homr03.btconnect.com X-Message-Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 553 5.3.0 Rejected – SPAM from 194.73.173.211 – see http://spamcop.net/ Action: failed Status: 5.1.3 Remote-MTA: DNS; mill.xxx-edited-out-xxx.co.uk Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 553 5.3.0 Rejected – SPAM from 194.73.73.211 – see http://spamcop.net/
A real-life example of how the futile "fight" against spam, achieves nothing other than fucking up innocent users. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
Response:
Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers!
If your customers want to be on your mailing lists, remind them when they sign up for the list that they should whitelist you in their spam filter.
Response:
@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com: We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers!
Sorry. Ive run ISP servers including mailservers. I dont think this is a problem of innocence. We always had alternatives available such as elists or off-hour queues. If you are overloading their server then do one of your own. Any old computer in the closet will work. Gandalf Parker
Response:
He’s an old time regular here (alt.www.webmaster). If Ship says they are legitimate recipients, then they will be just that.
Thanks for the support, Matt! Sometimes people can be *stupidly* cynical and fail to answer questions on the merits of the question and nobody gets anywhere! Okay here’s the deal. We have about 30,000 legitimate users on our database. It cost us a *lot* of money to acquire them through legitimate marketing channels (much of it printed media, fwiw), so we are extremely careful about how and when we contact them. We dice and slice the database and send messages that are often pretty much hand-crafted to users – (depending upon what they have expressed an interest in before.) Our emails are pretty much like hand crafted letters that we write to our customers. We try to avoid some of the more obvious trigger words much as "free" and "unsubscribe" [Anyone know of a good up-to-date, comprehensive list, incidentally. Or better yet an online tool one can use to test copy for filtered words...?] HOWEVER what we have previously found is that if we send out emails TOO FAST, then the big domain mailservers (e.g. AOL, Hotmail, yahoo etc) may assume that we are spamming them. So we not trickle the emails out… but I am suspicous that we are still sending them out too fast. As an aside we recently seem to have have discovered that including *any* images seems to lower the response rates. And again our suspicion is that our mail is being filtered our as spam somewhere along the line! As you can see below the *specific* problem today was that our own internal emails have been intercepted by "http://spamcop.net/". And yes I have been trying to contact our ISP to find out more. HOWEVER I didnt ask about our specific problems of today, I asked if there were any "industry norms" of how fast to send out emails etc, that we would be well advised to stick to so as to avoid similar problems in future. Obviously I *could* contact www.spamcop.net too, but I wanted to know what you guys thought that the current state of play is. So… no we are NOT sending out unsolicited emails – and YES our users have explicitly requested to get the information from us on a regular basis. So finally… how fast *should* we be sending out our emails?! with thanks Ship P.S. Are any of you guys also using btconnect.com (like us) ? They are ABSOLUTELY AWEFUL in our experience. Many emails not arriving for hours and hours, sometimes days. But they have tied us into a 12 month contract from which they wont let us escape without a punishing financial penalty! I wouldnt recommend them to my worst enemy! Okay, yes I would but only my WORST enemy… P.P.S. here are the bounces of this morning for what they are worth. And dont look too closely because I have stripped out any identifying information! – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ——Original Message—– Sent: 22 June 2005 13:16 http://spamcop.net/ (from mill.xxx-edited-out-xxx.co.uk) (BST) from host811-130-161-20.in-addrr.btopenworld.com [811.130.161.20] —– The following addresses had permanent delivery errors —– Message/delivery-status Reporting-MTA: dns; c2bt1homr03.btconnect.com X-Message-Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 553 5.3.0 Rejected – SPAM from 194.73.173.211 – see http://spamcop.net/ Action: failed Status: 5.1.3 Remote-MTA: DNS; mill.xxx-edited-out-xxx.co.uk Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 553 5.3.0 Rejected – SPAM from 194.73.73.211 – see http://spamcop.net/
Response:
You are a fucking arse. Ship is a regular in AWW, and good bloke. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
I’ve no idea whether Ship is a good bloke or otherwise, but until I hear anything different, I’ll believe his post and wont jump to any conclusions. I’d echo William: we need to know more… It sounds like it is the outgoing servers that are the problem – I dont see how many different recipient servers could form a view on his email rate. In which case, a call to his hosting company is in order. If the problem lies with the destination or intermediate servers, then this problem is likely to be something else, in which case we need to know about what he is sending and how… Chris
Response:
muttered You are a fucking arse. Ship is a regular in AWW, and good bloke. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com I’ve no idea whether Ship is a good bloke or otherwise, but until I hear anything different, I’ll believe his post and wont jump to any conclusions.
He’s an old time regular here (alt.www.webmaster). If Ship says they are legitimate recipients, then they will be just that. Which leads me to guess the "spam filters" are intermediate (perhaps at AOL or Road Runner for example) and the intended recipients are not receiving the email. Matt — Affordable budget advertising available. Banner ads, skyscrapers, rectangles and half-pages. Please email to discuss your requirements.
Response:
something like: We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?!
I’m not aware of any industry norms; it depends on the server configuration. However, I’m sure the larger, older mailing lists send out comparable volumes, so I doubt the volume is the issue. You’d need to be more specific about the problem to get more specific answers–are your messages going into spam folders and never being read? Are they being bounced back with an error message (and if so, what message)? Does the welcome message to subscribers include a reminder that they will need to whitelist your mailing list to ensure it is not caught by bulk mail filters? -Bertha — As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents. – George Orwell, the Road to Wigan Pier
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?! with thanks Ship Shiperton Henethe
Post your request over at news.admin.net-abuse.email. The group is populated with hundreds of sys admins and abuse-desk managers, and I’m just *ever* so sure they’ll be happy to give you advice. Lots of it, probably. — Ty Who is mostly just a slightly skewed Donna Reed A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. –Edward Abbey
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?! with thanks Ship Shiperton Henethe
Response:
Andrew Heenan wrote – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "ship" wrote … We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?! They are only ‘legit’ if they have subscribed … opted in to receive them. And if they’ve opted in, they will be unlikely to have you blocked. If you are sending ‘by the hour’ It’s almost certainly spam. If you send spam, many will trigger not just filters, but spam reports; manual or robot. Once there’s been enough reports, then all future mail will be filtered straight to spam folders. So even those who opted in will be denied a spammer’s newletter, because of the complaints. Spam filters are getting better by the week – and there’s so many, using so many different technologies, that the best answer is the simplest. Don’t spam.
You are a fucking arse. Ship is a regular in AWW, and good bloke. — Charles Sweeney http://CharlesSweeney.com
Response:
Hi We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?! with thanks Ship Shiperton Henethe
Response:
Writing in From the safety of the http://groups.google.com cafeteria Hi
How do you do? We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers!
Please specify – is this your own/hosts/ISPs mail server or the target mail server that is causing the issue? I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?!
Not sure there is a ‘norm’ – each mail server is (or should be) configured according to the whims^w specification of the owner. I use one that is configured for a max of 100 simultaneous connections from any one account and another that is configured for double that. I’ve heard of mail servers that pre-allocate a set number of outgoing mails per day. In reality I suspect you should have this conversation with the SysAdmin responsible for your mail server. — William Tasso
Response:
"ship" wrote … We keep getting caught by the spam filters on the larger mailservers when we market to our own legit customers! I think it may be because we are sending out emails too fast. – Does anyone know what are the industry norms? – How many emails per hour is one allowed to send from one IP number before a mail-server decides to attack all your mail?!
They are only ‘legit’ if they have subscribed … opted in to receive them. And if they’ve opted in, they will be unlikely to have you blocked. If you are sending ‘by the hour’ It’s almost certainly spam. If you send spam, many will trigger not just filters, but spam reports; manual or robot. Once there’s been enough reports, then all future mail will be filtered straight to spam folders. So even those who opted in will be denied a spammer’s newletter, because of the complaints. Spam filters are getting better by the week – and there’s so many, using so many different technologies, that the best answer is the simplest. Don’t spam. — Andrew http://www.weirdity/ebay/
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