Getting started with email marketing requires learning a whole host of new terms. These terms are essential for understanding what email marketing is and its biggest challenge: the deliverability. To help you on your journey, Plus2Clics offers a compilation of important concepts to understand and master.
Beware of confusion between delivery and deliverability
A good deliverability is measured by whether or not your messages are placed in your recipients' inboxes.
To be confused with delivery which refers to sent messages that were either accepted or not accepted by the recipient servers. This corresponds to the number of emails sent – the non-deliverable emails (NDR).
Further confusion: ESPs and ISPs
One Email Service Provider (ESP) is an email sending service provider that integrates tools to manage your contacts, create your messages, and send your campaigns.
One Internet Service Provider (ISP) is an internet service provider (Orange, SFR, Free). They also offer email services like Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo!, or AOL.
Some basic internet terms
One IP address (Internet Protocol) provides a unique identification for any device connected to the internet or a network.
One domain is also a way to identify and access servers or devices connected to the internet.
One subdomain defines a subset of a domain dedicated to a particular activity.
www.mailissimo.com is the domain name of our ESP.
mail.mailissimo.com is our subdomain configured to manage your email dispatches.
Reputation at two levels
The reputation of an IPIP reputationis defined by email service providers based on the history of messages sent from that address.
The reputation of a domainDomain reputationIt is defined by what you send with your domain name. This reputation is becoming increasingly important for email service providers. It is therefore very important to use your own domain to fully control its use and reputation.
Ancillary terms to reputation
The Domain Name System (DNS) allows a domain to be converted to an IP address.
The Mail eXchange DNS Record (MX Record) indicates where to send messages intended for a particular domain.
One TXT DNS Record allows additional information to be associated with a domain. Certain services (like Gmail's postmaster tool) require you to add information in the TXT Records of a domain to prove that you are indeed the owner of that domain.
The terms used to describe authentication systems
The Sender Policy Framework SPF allows email services to verify that an email sent from a domain is indeed from that domain. The sender's address is compared to the set of authorised IPs to send emails from the sender's servers.
The DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) indicates that the email sent is indeed associated with the sending domain and the data is encrypted to ensure the authenticity of the data.
The Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) helps combat phishing. A sender indicates that their emails use SPF and DKIM and they receive a report back indicating if any messages are in error, potentially signalling an identity spoofing attempt.
Your shipments' performance: the key terms
The No problem, I'm available. (Hard Bounce) is a return from a recipient server indicating that an address is no longer valid (a non-existent address on the domain, for example). These addresses must be directly deactivated as their situation is permanent.
The NPAI Soft (Soft Bounce) is a bounce received by a recipient server indicating that the message cannot be delivered temporarily (mailbox full).
Terms of engagement
The’Opt-in and the double opt-in means you have your recipients' consent to email them. See our article on opt-in.
La Complaint about spam (SPAM complaint) indicates that a contact is marking your email as spam. These reports negatively impact your reputation with email services.
La feedback loop (Feedback Loop) allows senders to retrieve spam reports to unsubscribe contacts who have clicked the «This is spam» button. Processing these returns helps maintain your sender reputation.
The action Tins (This Is Not Spam), which is the act of reporting that a message is not spam, allows the sender to be whitelisted and improves your reputation.
La whitelist (Whitelist), as opposed to blacklist, tells messaging services that they can consider you an approved sender by your recipients.
And those of bad behaviour
The’address trap A (Spam trap / Trap hit / Honey pot) is an inactive address that does not generate an NPAN (Non-Existent Address Notification) bounce. It allows email services to identify spammers and senders with poor-quality databases. It is essential to clean your databases at all costs to avoid damaging your reputation.
La black list (Blacklist), as opposed to whitelist, indicates to mail services that you are considered to have had bad practices. Blacklists can flag either your IP or your entire domain.
The article doesn't answer all your questions? Feel free to Contact us for more information.
