Thank you, dear readers! Another year is done. Spam Resource received more than 684,000 views in 2022, and I appreciate each and every one of them. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and see what were the most popular posts from 2022, shall we?
Here are the top five things posted to Spam Resource in 2022, ranked by views.
Apple MPP was introduced in the latter half of 2021, and it took a while both for the technology to be disseminated across the Apple user base and for marketers to get hip to what was happening. How MPP affected open tracking and specifically, what marketers should be doing about it. Thus, 2022 was truly "the year of MPP" and I'm glad to have helped educate folks and share what I've learned on the topic myself.
Impressively, my Kickbox colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz wrote two of the most popular Spam Resource blog posts in this past year. In this one, she shares her concerns around how broad adoption of Gmail’s new political sender program “is a flat degradation of trust for the end user” and is likely to lead to more unwanted mail. The jury’s still out, especially considering the RNC is suing Google instead of participating in this program, but I think there’s a strong chance that she’s ultimately correct here, in that mass adoption of this program carries a very significant risk of users having to deal with more spam.
It’s Jennifer Nespola Lantz again! I wish I could hire my Kickbox colleague to run this blog for me, because she knows what to write about and executes it perfectly. This time around, she wrote up a whole series on IP warming for the Kickbox blog, and my summary and links to the series turned out to be extremely popular in 2022. This highlights her very deep deliverability expertise, and helps to explain why she is a sought after deliverability consultant.
Yahoo blocks unwanted mail, and sometimes well-intentioned senders get caught up in that filtering. And Yahoo, like many ISPs, improves their filtering over time, so some edge case or “not so great” senders observed their mail landing in the inbox at first, but then later end up blocked after Yahoo updates their spam filters. Here I cover Yahoo Mail deliverability best practices and what to do when you have trouble. And remember, it's not about how close you can get to the edge of what you can get away with, because filters get better and better year over year, and a squiffy practice that was okay in 2021 can get you blocked in 2022. Long term deliverability success means sticking honestly and directly to permission best practices.
Like Yahoo, Gmail also has been improving their spam filtering throughout 2022. What’s new for Gmail is that mail is more likely to be blocked for being spam or otherwise malformed or unwanted; as opposed to in the past, when they would have perhaps just put that mail in the spam folder. Bounce rates at Gmail are increasing as Gmail gets “less scared” to block more unwanted mail at the edge versus letting it through the door. In addition to blocking more mail based on a low (spammy) domain reputation, Gmail’s filters now better attempt to enforce compliance with various internet specifications regarding email headers, and this caught a bunch of folks off guard. If you suddenly started seeing bounces referencing RFC 5322, that includes you. Here I explain what that means and what to do about it.
This one just missed the top five, coming in at number six. With Apple announcing (and then implementing) BIMI support in both their MacOS and iOS email clients, I think it might be fair to say that BIMI has reached critical mass, with marketers who might have been on the fence before are now finally implementing BIMI (and DMARC, needed to support BIMI). Now we just need Microsoft to jump on the BIMI train.
In closing, it’s nice to see that the top topics most read on my blog really align with the top challenges I’ve been helping clients with throughout 2022. Perhaps the only thing missing from this list is Microsoft, as they continue to be challenging for some senders. But, note that Yahoo and Gmail are catching up, getting better at, and more likely to, block certain types of unwanted mail. As always, my recommendation is to keep a clean house and avoid trying to “get close to the line” so that you don’t stumble over that line, if and when it moves.
Thank you, dear readers! Another year is done. Spam Resource received more than 684,000 views in 2022, and I appreciate each and every one of them. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and see what were the most popular posts from 2022, shall we?
Here are the top five things posted to Spam Resource in 2022, ranked by views.
Number five: A tie! Two Apple MPP-related posts ranked very similarly: Apple MPP Opens: Spam Resource Data and Let's track Apple MPP opens
Apple MPP was introduced in the latter half of 2021, and it took a while both for the technology to be disseminated across the Apple user base and for marketers to get hip to what was happening. How MPP affected open tracking and specifically, what marketers should be doing about it. Thus, 2022 was truly "the year of MPP" and I'm glad to have helped educate folks and share what I've learned on the topic myself.
Number four: Jennifer Nespola Lantz: Gmail “Political Pass for Messaging” Program
Impressively, my Kickbox colleague Jennifer Nespola Lantz wrote two of the most popular Spam Resource blog posts in this past year. In this one, she shares her concerns around how broad adoption of Gmail’s new political sender program “is a flat degradation of trust for the end user” and is likely to lead to more unwanted mail. The jury’s still out, especially considering the RNC is suing Google instead of participating in this program, but I think there’s a strong chance that she’s ultimately correct here, in that mass adoption of this program carries a very significant risk of users having to deal with more spam.
Number three: The definitive guide to IP warming
It’s Jennifer Nespola Lantz again! I wish I could hire my Kickbox colleague to run this blog for me, because she knows what to write about and executes it perfectly. This time around, she wrote up a whole series on IP warming for the Kickbox blog, and my summary and links to the series turned out to be extremely popular in 2022. This highlights her very deep deliverability expertise, and helps to explain why she is a sought after deliverability consultant.
Number two: ISP Deliverability Guide: Yahoo/AOL (Updated for 2022)
Yahoo blocks unwanted mail, and sometimes well-intentioned senders get caught up in that filtering. And Yahoo, like many ISPs, improves their filtering over time, so some edge case or “not so great” senders observed their mail landing in the inbox at first, but then later end up blocked after Yahoo updates their spam filters. Here I cover Yahoo Mail deliverability best practices and what to do when you have trouble. And remember, it's not about how close you can get to the edge of what you can get away with, because filters get better and better year over year, and a squiffy practice that was okay in 2021 can get you blocked in 2022. Long term deliverability success means sticking honestly and directly to permission best practices.
Number one: Gmail: Weird RFC 5322 bounces and what to do about them
Like Yahoo, Gmail also has been improving their spam filtering throughout 2022. What’s new for Gmail is that mail is more likely to be blocked for being spam or otherwise malformed or unwanted; as opposed to in the past, when they would have perhaps just put that mail in the spam folder. Bounce rates at Gmail are increasing as Gmail gets “less scared” to block more unwanted mail at the edge versus letting it through the door. In addition to blocking more mail based on a low (spammy) domain reputation, Gmail’s filters now better attempt to enforce compliance with various internet specifications regarding email headers, and this caught a bunch of folks off guard. If you suddenly started seeing bounces referencing RFC 5322, that includes you. Here I explain what that means and what to do about it.
Bonus: BIMI: Fake it til you make it
This one just missed the top five, coming in at number six. With Apple announcing (and then implementing) BIMI support in both their MacOS and iOS email clients, I think it might be fair to say that BIMI has reached critical mass, with marketers who might have been on the fence before are now finally implementing BIMI (and DMARC, needed to support BIMI). Now we just need Microsoft to jump on the BIMI train.
In closing, it’s nice to see that the top topics most read on my blog really align with the top challenges I’ve been helping clients with throughout 2022. Perhaps the only thing missing from this list is Microsoft, as they continue to be challenging for some senders. But, note that Yahoo and Gmail are catching up, getting better at, and more likely to, block certain types of unwanted mail. As always, my recommendation is to keep a clean house and avoid trying to “get close to the line” so that you don’t stumble over that line, if and when it moves.
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