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Email Marketing Basics
- Bulk Email Marketing
- Bulk email marketing is when mass email is sent to targeted email lists. The amount of email sent can range from thousands to millions. It's a cost-effective way to reach large audiences for promotions, newsletters, and lead generation.
- Cold Email
- An unsolicited email sent to a recipient who has no prior relationship with the sender. Cold emails are commonly used for B2B lead generation, sales outreach, and business development. Success depends heavily on personalization and targeting.
- Warm Email
- An email sent to someone who has had some prior interaction with your brand, such as visiting your website, attending a webinar, or being referred by a mutual connection.
- Transactional Email
- Automated emails triggered by user actions, such as order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications, and account updates. These typically have higher open rates than marketing emails.
- Marketing Email
- Promotional emails sent to subscribers to advertise products, services, or content. Includes newsletters, promotional campaigns, and announcements.
- Email Blast Software
- Software platforms designed to send large volumes of email efficiently. Email blast software typically includes features like list management, template builders, scheduling, and analytics.
- Targeted Email Lists
- An email list filtered by specific demographics, locations, professions, industries, or behaviors. Targeted lists improve engagement rates by ensuring content relevance to recipients.
- Email Segmentation
- The practice of dividing your email list into smaller groups based on specific criteria such as demographics, behavior, purchase history, or engagement level. Segmentation enables more personalized and relevant messaging.
- List Management
- The process of organizing, maintaining, and optimizing email lists. Good list management includes removing invalid addresses, segmenting subscribers, and keeping data up to date.
- Recipient
- The person or email address that receives an email message. Also referred to as the subscriber or contact.
Email Authentication
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
- An email authentication protocol that allows domain owners to specify which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of their domain. SPF records are published in DNS and help prevent email spoofing.
- DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
- An email authentication method that uses cryptographic signatures to verify that an email was sent by the claimed domain and hasn't been altered in transit. DKIM adds a digital signature to email headers.
- DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication)
- A policy framework that builds on SPF and DKIM to give domain owners control over how receiving servers handle emails that fail authentication. DMARC also provides reporting on email authentication results.
- Reverse DNS (rDNS)
- Translates an IP address into a hostname (e.g., "mail.example.com"). Essential for email delivery as most ISPs automatically block email from servers without proper reverse DNS configuration.
- PTR Record
- A DNS record that maps an IP address to a domain name. PTR records are used for reverse DNS lookups and are critical for email server authentication.
- MX Record
- Mail Exchange record in DNS that specifies the mail servers responsible for receiving email for a domain. MX records include priority values to determine which server to try first.
- TLS (Transport Layer Security)
- A cryptographic protocol that provides secure communication between email servers. TLS encrypts email in transit, protecting it from interception. Most modern email servers support opportunistic TLS.
- HELO/EHLO
- Commands used in SMTP communication where the sending server identifies itself to the receiving server. EHLO (Extended HELO) is the modern version that supports additional SMTP extensions.
Email Deliverability
- Email Deliverability
- The ability to successfully deliver emails to recipients' inboxes rather than spam folders or being blocked entirely. Deliverability depends on sender reputation, authentication, content quality, and list hygiene.
- Inbox Placement Rate
- The percentage of emails that land in the recipient's primary inbox versus spam/junk folders. A key metric for measuring true deliverability success.
- Sender Score
- A numerical score (0-100) that rates the reputation of an IP address based on email sending behavior. Higher scores indicate better reputation and improve deliverability. Factors include complaint rates, spam traps, and bounce rates.
- IP Reputation
- The trustworthiness rating assigned to an IP address based on its email sending history. Poor IP reputation results from spam complaints, blacklistings, and sending to invalid addresses.
- Domain Reputation
- The trustworthiness rating of your sending domain based on historical sending patterns, engagement, and complaints. Major mailbox providers like Gmail heavily weight domain reputation in filtering decisions.
- Email Warmup / IP Warmup
- The process of gradually increasing email volume from a new IP address or domain to establish a positive sending reputation. Warmup typically takes 2-8 weeks and involves sending to engaged recipients first.
- Dedicated IP
- An IP address used exclusively by one sender. Dedicated IPs give full control over reputation but require sufficient volume to maintain. Recommended for senders exceeding 100,000 emails per month.
- Shared IP
- An IP address used by multiple senders. Reputation is shared among all users, which can be beneficial for low-volume senders but risky if other senders have poor practices.
- Blacklist
- A list of IP addresses or domains identified as spam sources. Being blacklisted severely impacts deliverability. Common blacklists include Spamhaus, Barracuda, and SORBS.
- Whitelist
- A list of trusted senders whose emails bypass certain spam filters. Getting whitelisted by recipients or ISPs improves deliverability but is difficult to achieve at scale.
- Spam Traps
- Email addresses used to identify spammers. Types include pristine traps (never used by real people), recycled traps (abandoned addresses), and typo traps. Hitting spam traps damages reputation significantly.
- Spamhaus
- One of the most influential spam-blocking organizations, maintaining real-time databases of known spam sources. Being listed on Spamhaus can severely impact email delivery worldwide.
- Email Throttling
- Limiting the rate at which emails are sent to avoid overwhelming receiving servers or triggering spam filters. Many ISPs have hourly or daily limits for incoming email from a single source.
- Feedback Loop (FBL)
- A service provided by ISPs that notifies senders when recipients mark their emails as spam. FBL data helps senders identify and remove complainers from their lists.
Email Metrics
- Open Rate
- The percentage of recipients who opened an email. Calculated by dividing unique opens by delivered emails. Note: Apple's Mail Privacy Protection can inflate open rates by pre-loading tracking pixels.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within an email. Calculated by dividing unique clicks by delivered emails. A more reliable engagement metric than open rate.
- Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)
- The percentage of email openers who clicked a link. Calculated by dividing clicks by opens. Measures how effective your email content is at driving action among engaged readers.
- Bounce Rate
- The percentage of emails that couldn't be delivered. High bounce rates damage sender reputation and indicate list quality issues. Industry standard is to keep bounce rate under 2%.
- Hard Bounce
- A permanent delivery failure caused by an invalid, closed, or non-existent email address. Hard bounced addresses should be immediately removed from your list.
- Soft Bounce
- A temporary delivery failure caused by issues like a full mailbox, server downtime, or message size limits. Soft bounces may resolve on retry but should be monitored.
- Complaint Rate
- The percentage of recipients who marked your email as spam. Complaint rates above 0.1% can trigger deliverability problems. Monitor via feedback loops.
- Unsubscribe Rate
- The percentage of recipients who opted out of future emails. While unsubscribes reduce list size, they're preferable to spam complaints. Average rates are 0.1-0.5% per campaign.
- List Decay
- The rate at which email addresses become invalid over time due to job changes, abandoned accounts, and other factors. B2B lists decay approximately 25-30% annually.
- 550 5.1.1 Error
- An SMTP error code indicating "unknown address" or "invalid user." This means the email address doesn't exist. The specific message varies by ISP, so always check the description text.
Email Compliance
- CAN-SPAM Act
- U.S. law regulating commercial email. Requirements include: accurate header information, clear identification as an ad, valid physical address, easy opt-out mechanism, and honoring unsubscribe requests within 10 days.
- GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
- European privacy law requiring explicit consent for email marketing, clear privacy policies, data access rights, and the right to be forgotten. Applies to any business marketing to EU residents.
- CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation)
- Canadian law requiring express or implied consent before sending commercial emails. One of the strictest anti-spam laws globally, with penalties up to $10 million per violation.
- Opt-In
- When someone voluntarily subscribes to receive email communications. Opt-in can be single (one-step signup) or double (requires email confirmation).
- Double Opt-In
- A two-step subscription process where users confirm their email address by clicking a link in a verification email. Produces higher-quality lists and provides proof of consent.
- Opt-Out / Unsubscribe
- The process of removing oneself from an email list. All commercial emails must include a clear unsubscribe mechanism, and requests must be honored promptly.
- Suppression List
- A list of email addresses that should never receive email, including unsubscribers, complainers, and known bad addresses. Maintaining suppression lists is critical for compliance and deliverability.
- Global Suppression
- A master suppression list applied across all campaigns and lists, ensuring that opted-out addresses never receive email regardless of which list they appear on.
Technical Terms
- SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
- The internet standard protocol for email transmission between servers. SMTP handles outgoing mail delivery and is used by email clients and servers to send messages.
- MTA (Mail Transfer Agent)
- Software responsible for transferring email between servers. Popular MTAs include Postfix, Sendmail, and custom-built solutions. The MTA handles routing, queuing, and delivery.
- IP Address (Internet Protocol)
- A unique numerical identifier for devices on a network. Email servers use IP addresses for identification and reputation tracking. IPv4 (e.g., 192.168.1.1) and IPv6 formats exist.
- Netblock
- A range of consecutive IP addresses allocated together. Netblocks are often evaluated collectively for reputation, meaning bad behavior from one IP can affect others in the same block.
- ISP (Internet Service Provider)
- In email context, refers to mailbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and corporate email systems. ISPs filter incoming email and maintain their own reputation databases.
- Email Header
- Metadata at the beginning of an email containing routing information, authentication results, timestamps, and sender/recipient details. Headers are used for troubleshooting and authentication verification.
- MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
- A standard that extends email to support attachments, HTML content, and character encodings beyond ASCII. Multipart MIME allows emails to contain both HTML and plain text versions.
- HTML Email
- Email formatted with HTML markup, allowing rich formatting, images, and styled layouts. HTML emails require careful coding for compatibility across email clients.
- Plain Text Email
- Email containing only unformatted text without HTML. Plain text emails have universal compatibility and are sometimes preferred for personal-feeling messages.
- Email Validation / Verification
- The process of checking if email addresses are valid and deliverable before sending. Verification typically includes syntax checks, domain validation, and mailbox existence verification.
- Catch-All Domain
- A domain configured to accept email sent to any address, even non-existent ones. Catch-all domains make verification difficult since all addresses appear valid.
- Disposable Email
- Temporary email addresses from services like Mailinator or Guerrilla Mail. These addresses are often used to avoid spam and should typically be filtered from marketing lists.
- Role-Based Email
- Email addresses associated with a function rather than a person, such as info@, support@, or sales@. These often have multiple recipients and higher complaint rates.
- Merge Tags / Personalization Tags
- Placeholders in email templates that are replaced with recipient-specific data (e.g., {{FirstName}}, {{Company}}). Personalization improves engagement and response rates.
- Spintax
- A syntax for creating email variations by defining alternative text options. Format: {option1|option2|option3}. Used to create unique versions of messages and avoid spam filter patterns.
- A/B Testing (Split Testing)
- A method of comparing two versions of an email to determine which performs better. Test variables can include subject lines, content, send times, or CTAs. Results guide optimization.
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