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I was recently at the SIPA conference speaking about the basics of deliverability. The majority of the audience were B2B publishers that had only recently started emailing. It was interesting to hear all of the different perspectives of deliverability from these folks. Some had been learning about it and trying to follow best practices, while others had little to no understanding of it. One guy actually told me that it was all Voodoo.

This same gentleman then went on to ask me how he could improve his delivery rates, so I asked him about his business and his list. He told me that he had a list of about 50,000 names. None of them were opt-in, and he said that most of them were “scraped” from the Internet. Well, I wanted to look him in the face, scream at the top of my lungs, and let him know he will never improve his delivery rates because he is a SPAMMER.

Rather than doing that, I decided to explain to him that, at a minimum, he needs to send a re-engagement message asking people to opt-in to his messages. I went on to tell him how he would see better results from 5,000 people who wanted his mail, as compared to the 50,000 names who had no idea who he was.

After explaining this and answering a couple more questions, the gentlemen had one more question.. He asked, “Ok, I understand what you said about splitting up the 5,000 opt-in users from the other 45,000 users, but how do I get those other 45,000 emails delivered and opened?"

Once the session was over, I began wondering if anyone had been listening to what I've been preaching the last couple of years. Then I realized something. Some of the folks out there just don’t want to learn. I can go to conferences, talk with clients, write articles, but in the end, most ISPs look at senders and think of people like this guy.

So what does that mean for the true legitimate senders? You need to make sure that you are following best practices, not just giving them lip service. Make sure that you are keeping your list clean as possible. And finally, make sure that you understand how most ISPs might think of you, and be better than that.