• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 14, 2008

Phishing and SPAM increased 100% in 2007 compared to 2006, according to Des Cahill, the CEO of Habeas, speaking on the second day of the Email Evolution conference hosted by the Direct Marketing Association in San Diego. Understandably, this means consumers are also becoming more vigilant.

For example, a survey of a representative group of 2,300 U.S. Internet users found that 61% don't open mail if they aren't sure that it's actually from the purported sender. They're also signing up for multiple email accounts, shunting all non-personal emails to catch-all accounts. "So now it's not just a question of deliverability," Cahill said. "It's: 'Are you getting to the right inbox, the trusted inbox?'" On the positive side, 73% use email seven days a week, and most think they cannot get along without it, even with the crime.

In this context, Cahill warned that "really good content is no longer enough" to ensure delivery of emails. He urged email marketers to adopt the standard best practices, including conferring regularly with ISPs, frequently cleaning email lists of non-responders, and (of course) hiring email deliverability companies like his own.

But wary marketers are going further. Sal Tripi, the director of operations and compliance for Publishers' Clearing House, said the company guards its reputation as an email sender so closely that it now monitors all the advertisers who appear in its electronic marketing messages.

In cases where advertisers have bad email reputations, or even just questionable practices, "we'll walk away from the business," Tripi said. PCH has already broken off some profitable relationships because "the person who gets our email won't remember the advertiser as the problem; they're going to remember PCH." Tripi applies similar standards to companies PCH employs to drive traffic to its site.

Alison Shaffer, group manager of database marketing and analytics for WebEx Communications, an online conference company, said her company employs third-party vendors for tasks like list suppression, to protect the privacy of consumer email addresses. Email deliverability is key to WebEx's business because customers use a software link in the text of an email to patch into conferences; they can also invite other people to join their conferences via email--provided WebEx email gets delivered.

Finally, Cliff Seltzer, the CEO and co-founder of Puresend, said marketers should steer clear of "piggybacking" strategies--for example, getting "prospecting" emails delivered by sending them from an IP address previously used only for cleaner transaction emails. This strategy is likely to backfire before long, he said. In fact, he advised marketers who send prospecting emails to set up a separate IP for each different class of mail to avoid damaging the reputation of their "good" address.