Emails bounce.  It’s a fact of email marketing that some percentage of your emails will not make it to the intended customer, partner or vendor.  Inbox providers are leveraging more and more technologies to prevent spam, malware and phishing attempts from making it to their users, which means there are more reasons to bounce email.  Email bouncebacks come in many forms:

• Malformed email addresses
• Email addresses that do not exist
• Email box is full
• Bad forwarding addresses
• Blacklisted senders
• SPF authentication failures
• DKIM signature issues
• DMARC authentication problems

With all these complicating factors, inbox providers have gone beyond the RFC standards in creating response codes for bounced emails.  Businesses need to keep abreast of these new responses in order to actively manage their email deliverability.

MxToolbox Bounceback Analyzer

MxToolbox experts focus on helping legitimate email senders get their mail delivered.  Our newest tool, Bounceback Analyzer, leverages our expertise in email to give you insight into the many reasons your email may be bouncing.

How does it work?

When you get a bounceback email from an inbox provider, simply copy the email and submit it to our Bounceback Analyzer tool.  Our tool will diagnose the reasons for your bounceback with our unique centralized repository of bounceback messages that span hundreds email provider responses.  Even better, if we don’t have the bounceback response in our library, the tool will let us know so we can go get it.

The Importance of Managing Email Deliverability

Your business will suffer if you are not actively managing your email deliverability.  How can you effectively communicate with your customers, vendors and partners if your email never reaches their inboxes?

Actively managing email delivery involves:

• Monitoring Blacklist issues with your email senders
• Monitoring and managing your email DNS configuration – MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI
• Monitoring and managing SPF, DKIM and DMARC compliance rates
• Researching Fraud and Phishing using your email domains
• Investigating Bouncebacks
• Leveraging Feedback loops
• Keeping track of Email Deliverability standards and technologies

MxToolbox Experts constantly monitor trends and technologies that benefit email deliverability and incorporate those in our products.  MxToolbox Delivery Center is the best tool to actively manage your email deliverability, leveraging all of our expertise in a central integrated platform.

MxToolbox is pleased to announce our latest Email Deliverability Tool – Inbox Provider Feedback Loops.  Feedback loops are a mechanism where Inbox Providers can submit feedback about how your email recipients perceive the email you send them. With Feedback Loops, you can reduce your spend on email, improve your email deliverability and improve your email reputation.

What are Feedback Loops?

Major inbox providers world wide have created a method to let legitimate email senders obtain feedback on the email they send.  A Feedback Loop or FBL is a standardized XML format that tells a sender which of their emails have been flagged as spam and, often, by what recipients.  Some feedback loops even give insight into which emails were not flagged as spam.

How do Feedback Loops Work?

Most inbox providers allow email senders to apply for the right to receive email feedback.  The application process allows the inbox provider to verify that you are a legitimate sender and owner of the domain you are asking for feedback on.  If you are accepted, then the inbox provider will periodically send you feedback their users provide on the email they receive from your domain.

How do Feedback Loops Improve Email Deliverability?

If you are sending a large volume of email, Feedback Loops give you tremendous insight into how your email is perceived by recipients.  For example:

• Which users routinely mark your email as “SPAM”?  You can compile a list and remove these users from email campaigns in the future, saving yourself money and improving your email deliverability.
  Note: not all inbox providers provide email addresses of users.
• What email campaigns get the most “SPAM” warnings?  Some subject lines, body texts and graphics can be a trigger for spam.  Your marketing team can then change email copy to improve this perception and may even see open rates improve!
• What technical problems may be causing my emails to be flagged?  Occasionally, your email configuration may be detrimental to email deliverability.  SPF, DKIM, over-aggressive re-delivery, multiple emails to the same address, etc. may cause your email to appear as spam to a user or inbox provider.

What does MxToolbox Feedback Loops do?

MxToolbox Feedback Loops goes beyond the basic feedback from Inbox Providers like Yahoo!, Rackspace and others.   We provide both the original header and our expertly tuned analysis of the “Spammy” nature of the email.  With MxToolbox Feedback Loops, you will get better insight into why the user or inbox provider flagged your email as spam and how to correct the issue in future emails.

What MxToolbox Products have Feedback Loops?

Currently, Feedback Loops are available to Delivery Center Plus and Delivery Center Managed Services customers.  Please contact support to begin testing Feedback Loops for your business.