My Week on the Naughty List: A Spam Lesson Learned the Hard Way
It was an honest mistake, but I should have known better. I share this here in the hope that others will be able to learn from it. You see…
I failed to follow my own advice and best practices, resulting in my email messages getting blocked and my domain getting blacklisted.
It all started when I sent a survey to around 10,000 people from a purchased list. This is not legally considered spam, because it wasn’t a solicitation; I wasn’t not selling anything, just doing research. Research (as well as many types of voter engagement and other activities that nonprofits conduct) is generally exempt.
Me: “It’s not really spam! What I’m doing is perfectly legal.”
The Internet: “I don’t care! People think it’s junk and they are complaining about it.”
The company that provides my survey software barred me from sending any more emails, after 11 spam complaints, for the sake of preserving their own online reputation. My domain ended up on the SORBS blacklist. A free diagnostic tool indicated that 71% of my messages were going straight to junk folders, and the remainder were getting blocked entirely, with exactly zero landing in people’s inboxes.
Here are some of the steps I took to get off the Spam Naughty List.
Turn DKIM on for my domain, following these instructions.
Relax my DMARC policy, which I will gradually make more strict, once I’m sure this issue is resolved.
Petition SORBS to delist a shared IP address used by Gmail that was affecting my reputation.
Set up Google Postmaster to monitor deliverability.
Submit a Gmail blacklist removal request via this Google deliverability form.
I’m not an expert on this, but fortunately I know a few people who are, and I’m good at following technical instructions. A week after my first clue that I was having deliverability issues, things are looking much better. Whew.
How to stay on the Nice List? Send messages only to people who opted in!
From now on, I will be using other methods to distribute research surveys, which not only protect my reputation but also ensure that people receiving a survey will embrace it with open arms, because they have signed up to get that kind of content. My newsletter and marketing messages have always been, and will continue to be, on a strictly opt-in basis.
I’m also going to monitor deliverability more actively in the future, so I can catch problems early.
I hope this doesn’t happen to you, but if it does, I hope this will save you time in figuring out a solution. Oh–and if you think I’ve been ghosting you, check your junk folder. 🙂
