Get your email delivered to AOL subscribers the old fashioned way: FREE
February 2006
When AOL announced that it would be using Goodmail's postage model to guarantee email reach, it raised questions about how or if best practices would impact inbox reach going forward. At first, it seemed the standards-based Enhanced Whitelist was going to be replaced by the stamps program, though AOL has since clarified that it will stay as an option. While AOL has not yet confirmed the exact standards for its Enhanced Whitelist or the paid stamp program, it has made it clear that paid stamps will be just one option to reach the inbox.
The other option is still to follow the highest level of best practices, just as Return Path clients do now to achieve 5%-25% improvement and consistent 92%-98% deliverability across all corporate receivers and ISPs including AOL. These best practices focus on things like complaint reduction, list hygiene (reducing unknown users and spamtraps) and content filtering, to name a few. When AOL finalizes the standards and options over the next few weeks, we'll be sure to fill you in and help guide your business decisions around paid email programs.
Meanwhile, there is one thing you can do now to increase delivery and make sure your images appear at AOL: get added to the subscriber's address book. Customers have quite a bit of control over what gets filtered and what gets delivered to their inbox. In essence, email users create their own personal whitelist of companies and publishers they want to hear from by using their address book.
Why would a subscriber add you to their address book? The obvious benefit is what you see at the top of so many email messages today, To always receive these great emails, add us to your address book. That benefit may not appeal or convey urgency to a large portion of your audience. Test out some variations, don't miss any discounts or keep getting this email in your inbox, not junk or we'd appreciate your adding us to your address book so we can keep sending you email. Test using incentives, Add us to your address book and we'll send you a $5 coupon. What appeals so some won't appeal to all. Alter the message over time so that it stands out and entices the broadest set of readers.
Use a multi-step process to achieve personal whitelisting:
1. Always use a consistent From address for all emails. Many subscribers look at this first, so it will help with response, as well as deliverability.
2. It's important to encourage consumers at sign-up by providing specific instructions. A great location for this is on the confirmation or thank you page. We've used this free tool to help clients get started: http://www.cleanmymailbox.com/whitelist.html. Or click here for the Return Path whitepaper with specific whitelisting instructions for each major ISP that you can post on your site.
3. Send a welcome message that includes whitelisting instructions.
4. HTML emails should always include a link to a browser page in case the message is garbled or turned into text-only. (Often seen as If you cannot view this email message, click here.) Be sure to list out that URL, and give instructions to cut and paste it into the browser, if the link is broken. Then, that browser page should include a call to action to whitelist future emails, and include instructions on how to do so.
5. Many marketers also include whitelisting instructions in the header, alongside the link to a browser page. This is the Add us to your address book to continue to get these great emails strategy discussed above. We also recommend including a call to action for personal whitelisting in your footer. For this we recommend keeping the language simple and then send users to an instruction page, rather than bogging the email down with long explanation.
