Email Delivery to the Big Four:AOL, Google, Microsoft, and YahooA White Paper on How Email Deliverability Differs Between the Four Most Popular Global Email Providers

Patrick OwensEmail Technology SpecialistAccuData Integrated Marketing

Contents

Introduction...3

Current Popularity of Global Email Providers...4

How Each Provider Differs with Deliverability...7

What Does the Future Hold for Digital Marketers...11

IntroductionEmail marketing remains atop the list as the primary marketing tactic for small and large businesses alike. Approximately 97% of businesses are using email marketing to try and convert recipients into buyers and it must be working as 76% of subscribers have made a purchase from an email marketing message.1

According to research by VentureBeat, nearly 70% of marketers will use more email marketing in 2015 than in 2014.2 The value is high, therefore businesses everywhere are working to improve the coverage and quality of their emails and are sending even more. There’s a fire hose of content aimed at every inbox and only the best of the best will stand out.

As a reputable email marketer, what can you do to ensure that your emails are delivered to the inbox and seen by your intended audience? Anything that affects whether your outgoing email appears in front of the recipient comes under the heading of deliverability.

Email deliverability differs greatly between the four most popular global email providers. With fewer than 80% of legitimate emails ultimately hitting their intended recipient’s inbox, it’s important to understand those differences and how to navigate them to ensure the success of your marketing efforts.3

Email Delivery to the Big Four 3

One of the biggest concerns marketersface today is therisk of subscribers drowning in a delugeof irrelevant content.

Current Popularity ofGlobal Email ProvidersDuring B2C deployments, the majority of records fall within a handful of global service providers: AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, and Yahoo (Hotmail and Outlook both fall under the umbrella of Microsoft). Over the last decade, there has been much discussion on which email service is the most popular.

This is important information for email marketers, as each service provider poses different challenges when it comes to deliverability. Understanding and overcoming these challenges will help email marketers maximize the deliverability of their email campaigns, while increasing the overall ROI of their marketing efforts.

AOLBefore 2000, AOL was one of the primary email accounts in use by the majority of internet users, but over the past decade, AOL has remained flat showing very little growth.

Present day, we see a much different AOL email environment. New AOL accounts are virtually nonexistent; only legacy accounts are still in use by users that have not switched to other more popular services.

AOL accounts are seen as a good solution for spam accounts, in that people use these email addresses to sign up for accounts and services from which they intend to receive a lot of spam. Generally, these users will never check the account after the initial registration process.

GoogleAfter 2005, Gmail took hold of the internet landscape by ushering in a new minimalistic search experience called Google. Online consumers quickly took notice and Google took a foothold.

Google has immersed itself in everything to do with the internet and today is a popular solution for email. The majority of new email accounts being created will come from Google services through the remainder of 2015.

MicrosoftWith Microsoft's constant influence on our day-to-day work flow, it is no wonder that their Hotmail service began gaining momentum in 2005 alongside Google. It is important to note that Hotmail merged with Outlook.com as one universal service in 2013 (this merger also included Live.com).

While Hotmail emails are still in use, all new accounts created will fall under the Outlook.com domain. Microsoft email services are still being utilized to a large degree as a runner up to Google services.

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17%

6%

77%

Sender Reputation Filters4

Domains in Content: 6%Content: 17%Sender Reputation: 77%

YahooBetween the years 2000 and 2005, Yahoo’s popularity was propelled through the increasing use of their very popular search engine.

In 2014, Yahoo started to mirror AOL’s life cycle with less new account creation and movement to other services. Hotmail, Gmail, and Outlook.com have taken hold of the Internet as the new choice of email services. Yahoo, like AOL, is used by many as a spam account that will be checked infrequently, if ever.

Google trends highlighting consumer interest inemail providers over time

Hitting spam traps during an email campaign can result in severe deliverability issues for the sender, including a poor reputation.

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How Each Provider Differs with DeliverabilitySpam TrapsSpam traps are used by email providers to target poor sending practices. Spam traps are either abandoned email addresses that have been made into a trap or a specific email address created with the sole purpose of being a spam trap. Email marketers may run into spam trap issues when purchasing and renting lists, especially from a vendor that does not ensure opt-in verification. Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo may classify third-party opt-in as unsolicited bulk commercial email and result in high bounce rates, even if spam traps have not been triggered.

AOL creates spam traps from abandoned or canceled accounts after a year or more. Microsoft does not create spam traps; however, sending to inactive accounts will impact a sender’s IP reputation over time. Microsoft recommends standard list hygiene measures to avoid any potential issues. Google, like Microsoft, does not make old emails into spam traps, but focuses on how many inactive emails are engaged during a campaign. Yahoo has very little information public about their spam traps.

EngagementAs global email volumes increase, providers are relying heavily on the engagement activity of emails to determine the legitimacy of the senders. For a long time now, email marketers have relied on basic rules to make sure they were avoiding spam:

• Certain words were advised not to be included in subject lines• An equal ratio of image and text in creative should be maintained

While these rules are still important to remember, they do not play as large of a role in determining whether a sender’s email will have a shot at actually hitting the inbox as they did in the past. The majority of email providers gauge a sender’s reputation solely on engagement actions of the campaigns sent before, usually on a per account recipient level.

Email marketers need to focus on creating highly engaging, targeted emails concentrating on creating the positive engagement actions detailed below.

All service providers make a point of stressing that they do not track links clicked within emails, as this poses a privacy issue. Other levels of engagement are weighed differently by each service provider.

AOL focuses on engagement actions like moving email to a folder, reporting as spam, moving from spam to inbox, and forwarding. AOL looks at engagement per account level, so while a sender’s email may not hit one AOL user’s inbox, it can hit another.

Google utilizes a complex algorithmic measurement of user engagement, averaging all user actions per account level. Google believes opens are not a large indication of engagement.

Engagement Factors5

Mailbox Providers look for signals that your subscribers love your emails:

Messages ReadMessages Read Multiple TimesRepliesDeleted Without ReadingForwardsThis is SpamThis is Not Spam

Microsoft looks at similar engagement actions as AOL while also focusing on email replies (puts the sender on a safe list). Conversely, Microsoft also tracks recipients who delete an email without reading it.

Yahoo focuses on bounce rates, emailing to unknown users, total email volume, a sender’s IP neighborhood, complaint rate and spam trap hits, as some of its main indicators of reputation. Bulk emailing Yahoo servers, even opt-in, may get a sender’s email severely deferred.

Important TipsAOL recommends utilizing the tools at your disposal as marketers to improve campaign results. At a certain point, AOL recommends not to continue to re-engage, unengaged recipients. Simply remove them from your list. If an AOL user does not log into their email for more than 180 days, their account is turned off.

Compared to Google, a sender is much more likely to hit an inactive email since AOL’s time frame is so short. AOL recommends authentication of your emails including signing up to their feedback loops.

Microsoft deactivates a user’s account following 1-2 years of inactivity. Feedback loops are critical for Microsoft and should be used by Email Marketers. An email feedback loop happens when the mailbox provider forwards the complaints originating from their users to the sender’s organization.

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One-In-Six6

For every six commercial messages sent worldwide, one never reaches the subscriber's inbox

Spam: 6%Missing: 11%Inbox: 83%

Marketers can remove these subscribers from their future sends and they can analyze complaint rates to determine if their marketing content is not appropriate for the recipients.

Google would rather accept all connections from a sender’s email platform and then filter it into spam, instead of blocking at the connection level. Google has an incredibly large infrastructure to accomplish this.

Yahoo would rather do the opposite and block a sender’s connection at the initial level and not accept any of the message content into their servers.

Google looks at spam reports as a major indication of reputation. Google usually sees higher complaint rates with larger volume campaigns. Reactivation campaigns see the highest spam complaints. If the user has not signed up for a sender’s message the chances they will get into a Google recipient’s inbox is very low over time.

Yahoo likes to receive limited connections and messages from the same sender. Throttling your connections and sends to Yahoo is very important for delivery to this service provider. Senders also must make sure to have a reverse DNS, host name with an A record, valid SPF and working DKIM.

Yahoo uses Spamhaus blacklist, so make sure you are not listed there if you are experiencing issues with Yahoo.

6%11%

83%

DNS: Domain Name ServersSPF: Sender Policy FrameworkDKIM: DomainKeys Identified Mail

What Does the Future Holdfor Digital Marketers?

Google and Microsoft will continue to be the major players in the email space moving into the next decade, while Yahoo and AOL will most-likely fade into internet history.

In the digital marketing mix, email has long been the leader in terms of revenue and on average, returns $38 for every dollar invested.7 It’s the top preferred channel for customers who wish to receive information from brands, in fact, 72% of adults surveyed want brands to contact them through email.8

However, information overload on every channel has caused many challenges for email marketers. One effect in particular is that the average person’s attention span has dropped by nearly half in the last ten years. The impact on email is an ongoing decline in click rates because people have less time, less patience, and more rapidly scan content when hunting for meaningful information. Email marketing is expected to continue to grow and become an essential element in the marketing mix for businesses of all sizes.

Email Marketers should focus on sending highly engaging and targeted emails with great offers as service providers will continue to rely heavily on recipients’ engagement with previous campaigns to determine whether to ultimately deliver the email into the inboxes of your users.

Email marketers will need to become very knowledgeable with the engagement actions Microsoft and Google focus on to allow messages into their users’ inboxes. This will be critical to email marketing’s success into 2016.

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1The Houston Chonicle, The Effect of Email Marketing on Consumer Behavior, August 18, 20152VentureBeat, Email Marketing Report, April 7, 20153Marketing Sherpa, 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, February 20134ReturnPath Sender Reputation Filter Infographic, 2014 Inbox Placement Benchmark Review, September 24, 20145ReturnPath Engagement Factors Infographic, 2014 Inbox Placement Benchmark Review, September 24, 20146ReturnPath One-In-Six Infographic, 2014 Inbox Placement Benchmark Review, September 24, 20147The Direct Marketing Association (UK), DMA National Client Email Report, April 20158Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Research Chart: How Do Consumers Want to Communicate?, February 3, 2015