Showing posts with the label bad ideas

Bad Ideas: Why Giving Your Email List to a Third Party Is Just Dumb

A story recently broke on 404 Media that made deliverability experts everywhere cry a little inside: YouTube channel Channel 5 admitted to handing a CSV file of its email subscribers over to a third party so that person could market a new product to them. Putting aside the specific names and political figures involved (which are irrelevant to the underlying email mechanics) this incident se…
Read more

Bad ideas: From Sticky Widgets to the Spam Folder

Let’s say you run a business selling, oh, I dunno, widgets. Maybe sticky, flat widgets, printed on one side, where you peel off the back so buyers can slap them onto a laptop or a bumper. You’ve sold a lot of those widgets over the years, which means you’re sitting on a massive…

DELIVTERMS: Hashbusting

It is time to clarify another technical concept here on Spam Resource, in our series DELIVTERMS, where we decode email and related acronyms and terms, helping you better understand the messaging ecosystem that surrounds you. Today, the word we’re defining is: hashbusting . If y…

Dear Jerkwad, or: Garbage in, garbage out

As mentioned in passing in this week's Masters in Marketing (which is a great email newsletter that you should subscribe to), I'm very wary of open field personalization. It's an example of "garbage in, garbage out." Maybe another name for it would be the…

Email Hosting Hacks: No longer working?

I've seen a significant number of folks asking for help lately on various mailing lists and online forums ( like Reddit ), saying that they're now having trouble with email authentication, starting sometime in April, 2025. In this post , the author talks about DMARC fai…

Ask Al: Can we email the opt-outs?

A friend sent me the following question the other day: “Hi Al! How are you? I have one client who wants to send an email to more than 600,000 recipients who have already opted-out. I’m worried that this is a very bad idea, but I do not see a lot of documentation out there. What…

Purchased lists: Updated guidance for 2025

Here's a common question I am hearing lately: "Everybody buys business intelligence data from business intelligence data providers. Usually including email addresses. Can't I just take that list and upload it into Mailchimp (or some other email marketing platform) …

IFAQ: Where I answer Infrequently Asked Questions about Cold Email

I get asked periodically for tips and tricks, best practices for cold emails. The question came again just a few days ago. Thing is, I don't have anything like that, because I have observed that cold emails just aren't a practice compatible with long term, solidly posit…

Tuesday Tip: 285 spam trigger words to avoid!!!

It's time for another Spam Resource Tuesday Tip. The goal? To share short and actionable deliverability tips and tricks. More often simple hacks than deep deliverability dives.  This time around: Were you worried about using the word free in your subject line? What about i…

Cold email? Shiver me timbers! And three points.

Lo! A different guy just popped up in my Linkedin feed to say that cold emails are cool, because they're not illegal. ( I've heard it before .) And for a bonus, he wants to argue about whether or not cold email truly is "spam" -- he says no. That's fine, e…

I know you've got to fundraise, but...

I get it. Everybody needs to make money. If you're in fundraising, advocacy, hyperlocal news, content newsletters, animal rescue, or almost anything, you're in it to make money. Maybe not to get rich, but to get things done takes money and if you want to help your organ…

Do you have a deliverability problem? Do I?

That screenshot above is from an email message that I received recently. I get a lot of wacky emails, but this one takes it to a whole new level. This person did not research his target very well, and I find the content to be borderline deceptive. They are careful to say "…

The billion dollar unsubscribe link

Adam Silver silver is a "contract interaction designer with a strong technical background" and a savvy blogger, who just figured out something that I've known for a while: One-click unsub is a bad idea . I don't fault him for being new to the party -- you don&…

The opposite of success

Or, how to scare your potential new customers by doing a whole bunch of things wrong all at once, leading to the big warning box of doom. Cold leads, not sending using a full name, and not authenticating properly. Trying to be friendly and sending mail as "Bob" can ba…

The truth about cold email

A friend recently shared a link to a spammer’s blog post bragging about how what they’re doing isn’t illegal. Weird flex, but OK. Going on your blog and defend your business model that way? "We’re not actually breaking the law! We promise! Cold lead emails are totally leg…

Australian woman arrested for email bombing

From Bleeping Computer : A woman in Australia was arrested for sending over 32,000 emails to a Federal Member of Parliament, impacting systems enough that people weren't able to do their normal jobs as a result. She faces charges that could result in a prison term of up to …

Pro-tip: No emojis in the friendly from

This is one of those things that a client learned about the hard way, so I wanted to share with you all with the hope that you can avoid some of the same pain that they, and I, experienced, while helping them troubleshoot this issue. Avoid including emojis in the friendly from …

Email authentication, fact vs fiction

The other day, I ran across a complaint on Linkedin. "Just saw another email go to the Promotions Folder with DKIM, SPF, and DMARC set up perfectly. Stop telling people this will fix their e-mail problems!" It's not the first time I've heard this, and I can u…

Bitly (still) gets you blocked

Eleven years ago, Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise warned: Using bit.ly to shorten links in your emails will get you blocked . Indeed, Spamhaus made a change back around that time that led me to warn that link shortening tools were likely to end up blocklisted more often. Fas…

Is it right to purchase email lists as long as the data is ‘opt-in’?

Another day brings us another simple reminder that buying lists will cause you trouble.  Toshi Onishi, writing for the Dotdigital blog , succinctly shares with us the three major issues around transparency (and consent) that comprise insurmountable roadblocks when it comes to p…