Internet Postage Is Here
Published April 2006
"This is good for consumers and businesses," says Ted Leonsis, AOL's vice chairman. "If email costs a little money to send, then legitimate companies have an incentive to send less of it, which means less mail in your inbox. On the other hand, if businesses are sure that their mail will get through, they can more effectively reach their customers with important news and information. Everybody wins."
Under AOL's plan, every message sent as preferred email would be charged a fee of ¼-to-one-cent -- based on volume -- in exchange for special handling. Such mail, which would arrive in AOL inboxes as "AOL CertifiedEmail," would bypass AOL's spam filter – which often inadvertently blocks legitimate email. In addition, the preferred mail would also arrive with images and links intact, a promise that AOL cannot make for conventional email.
Yahoo! is working on a similarly structured plan.
"The program is totally optional," AOL's Leonsis says. "If your company does not want to participate, that's fine. Your mail will still get through if it doesn't violate our normal spam filters."
Not surprisingly, word of plans for Internet postage quickly generated a firestorm of controversy. Some industry insiders balk at the idea of a fee on any kind email. But others see the move as a definitive way to crush spammers and phishers – or criminals who attempt to extract credit card numbers and other data from consumers by sending slickly designed emails that appear to be from highly respected companies. Both scourges of the Internet have been a cancer on the medium for years.
"I've never been a supporter of the Internet postage concept, because it's an artificial fee," says Jeanne Jennings (http://www.jeannejennings.com), an Internet marketing consultant. "I think the true solution to spam and phishing lies in technology. Once we are able, without a doubt, to identify the sender of an email, we can trace it back and hold spammers and phishers accountable."
But Mike Adams, CEO of Arial Software (http://www.arialsoftware.com) -- makers of email marketing software – is not willing to wait. "Let's face it: the email medium has a reputation problem," he says. "Spam has polluted our inboxes and phishing has made us distrustful of even opening email from our own banks. The medium of email needs to be rescued, and I have long argued for a solution that would require that some sort of expense be paid by email senders."
Other supporters of Internet postage agree, adding that the guarantee of assured delivery, and the certification that the email is genuine, easily outweighs any concerns over the nominal fee AOL and Yahoo! want to charge. Indeed, email will inevitably take on a much greater perceived value, they say, when recipients seeing a "certified" label are convinced such email is authentic, and they begin, once again, to place more trust in communications sent via the Web.
Internet postage will also mean that email marketers will not have spend as much time retooling message designs to ensure their emails get through the filters of Internet Service Providers like AOL and Yahoo!, supporters say. Indeed, currently, many email marketers must design one email message layout for general delivery, and another just for AOL delivery, since AOL's spam filters often strip out images and links of those design elements that aren't placed "just so" within an email.
Moreover, the paid email model will also translate into real savings for all companies, who too often find too much of their IT resources ensnarled in anti-spam prevention, Adams says. "Every Canadian company, every corporation that accepts email, anywhere in the world, spends far more on email than it should. If the email medium were cleaned up, the global savings in terms of reclaiming lost employee productivity and anti-spam resources would be practically incalculable," he says.
But Jennings doesn't believe the change will be so rosy. "Obviously, smaller Canadian businesses will be hit harder by this than larger ones," she says. "Their email budgets are smaller to begin with. Some are having real success with email, but many aren't. So this is one thing that increases their costs and cuts into what may already be a negative or small marginal profit on their efforts."
A two-tier email system – one that charges for some email messages, and not for others – will also leave companies opting to send free email with the same old spam filter problems, some analysts say. Indeed, 20% of all legitimate email in now currently blocked by overly aggressive spam filters, according to Ferris Research (http://www.ferris.com). And it's hard to believe that the same ISPs responsible for that blocked mail are going to put major resources into solving the problem, when they can simply charge companies a fee to solve the problem, these analysts say.
Others also fear that grudging acceptance of a fee for an optional preferred email service may ultimately lead to a fee for every email sent. Plus, ISPs might also begin charging additional fees based on the size of email content. There might be one rate for plain text email, a higher rate for email with links and images, and still an even higher rate for email with attachments like e-documents, audio and video. "Anything is a possibility," Jennings says.
Julie MacLean, marketing manager for Mailworkz (http://www.mailworkz.com), another email marketing software firm, also sees higher costs for consumers. "Both larger and smaller business will see an impact in end costs, and most likely the postage fee will be passed along to the consumer if the marketer chooses to use a paid Internet postage program," she says.
Fortunately, the good news is that no matter how you perceive the advent of Internet postage, you'll still be able to send email for free for the time being, and be reasonably confident your message will arrive intact. The secret is to engage in "white list" practices, which signifies your company agrees to engage in extremely recipient-friendly email practices. Key among those practices include:
- GETTING ADDED TO A RECIPIENT'S ADDRESS BOOK:
While it's tough getting users to take the time to add your company to their email program address book, it's well worth the effort to at least keep requesting the favor. Many marketers, for example, make the request at the close of every email they send to a mailing list subscriber. Getting listed in a user's address book generally enables your email to breeze past many spam filters. - KEEPING A CLEAN MAILING LIST:
Increasingly, ISPs like AOL and Yahoo! want to be assured that you'll "clean" your list regularly of bad email addresses, addresses of recipients who have requested you remove them from your mailing list, and the like. Companies maintaining clean lists also agree to add only subscribers that have requested to be on their mailing lists, and must make it easy for people to unsubscribe from the list. - BEING SPF-COMPLIANT:
Major ISPs have endorsed the concept of forcing email marketers and others to clearly identify the mail servers they are using to send email. Essentially, being able to pinpoint precisely where an email is coming from enables AOL and others to track the source of spam, and ideally, shut it down. In computer-speak, agreeing to disclose the locations and identities of the machines you're using means you're SPF -- or Sender Policy Framework -- compliant. You can find out more about SPF at: (http://www.spf.pobox.com). - BEING SENSIBLE WITH YOUR SUBJECT AND SENDER LINES:
By now, even the guy who wears the lampshade at the office party knows that obnoxious subject lines are a turn-off to virtually every email recipient -- and can get your email caught in a spam filter. In contrast, reasonably worded subject lines mean your message will less likely be blacklisted as spam. Rule of thumb: in addition to avoiding THE SHOUT, or subject lines using only capital letters, keep your sender address line to about 16 characters, and your subject line to about 50 characters. - BEING EXTRA CAREFUL WITH HTML MESSAGES:
Many ISPs have a strict policy of blocking HTML emails that are not formatted properly, so you'll need to ensure your Web staff takes special care to ensure your HTML emails are squeaky clean. Check the HTML requirements of specific ISPs for detailed information. - MEETING COMPLETE WHITE LIST REQUIREMENTS FOR SPECIFIC ISPs:
If you're still having problems getting your mail through, you may want to take the time to join the white lists of specific ISPs like AOL. Be forewarned: you're company while be forced to jump though a great many hoops to get such a listing, and you may have to redesign the layout of some of your emails to get such a listing. But many company's feel it's worth the hassle. You can check out the specific requirements for getting on AOL's white list, for example, at: (http://postmaster.aol.com/guidelines/enhanced.html).
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