Email Spam (not a rant, need help)

[W00DY]

Hi All,

Is there a way to format or send *legitimate* emails to people without them going into their spam folders?

I send emails to my clients all the time from my business email address and many times they get caught in the clients spam folder and the client does not always see the email. This is especially frustrating if it is a new client enquiry I am trying to reply to. The email just has text and a Jpeg image in the signature (is that the problem?) but other than that the subject is normal and the email does not look like spam.

I have had occasions were a client has called me up a littel angry when I didn't respond to their email, I had responded and asked them to check their junk mail... sure enough my email was in there (at least they apologised )

Does anyone else have this problem when sending from business email addresses?

Cheers,
Andrew

[sirhc55]

Woody - pure logic would suggest that the problem does not in anyway apply to you sending the emails. It is the recipients inbox that is directing your mail to their junk/spam folder.

I have had clients phone me asking when will they receive the work I’m doing for them - there are two answers I give, check your junk mail and check your filters. Normally they say contritely, we have not received it can you send again and I then know that they are full of b*llsh*t

[Glen]

That's how you worked out I was full of it!

[W00DY]

Woody - pure logic would suggest that the problem does not in anyway apply to you sending the emails. It is the recipients inbox that is directing your mail to their junk/spam folder.

Yeah I agree, but I was wondering if anyone knows how emails are treated as Spam, so to try and avoid it. I thought maybe becouse I have a Jpeg image in the signature (my logo) but that is all I could think of, everything else is just plain text. Do these spam filters look for keywords or anything?

I have lost 3 new clients in the last 2 months because my reply email went to their Spam folder!!! I always try and ring new clients rather than reply via email but they do not always leave their contact numbers.

[sirhc55]

The jpeg maybe a clue - I work on a Mac (all forgiving) but I have had clients tell me that they have not received pics from me. I usually tell them to turn off the jpeg filter in their mail program.

I’m no genius on the computer but in my experience about 99% of people on this planet are just plain moronic and are under the impression that it is always the computers fault and /or the sender and it’s not them - wake up f*ckwits

[gstark]

in my experience about 99% of people on this planet are just plain moronic

That's being very generous, I believe.

I have lost 3 new clients in the last 2 months because my reply email went to their Spam folder!!!

No, would I doubt that very much. Please see Chris's observations.

[surenj]

if anyone knows how emails are treated as Spam, so to try and avoid it.

I bet the spammers want to know this as well. A google search into anti spamming technology may help, as well as warning clients upfront..

[Glen]

Surenj suggestion of warning clients up front is great. Why don't you put a note there asking them to please add your address to their address book?

How do they contact you, through a form or via an email adress?

[Reschsmooth]

I don't know the technical causes of the problems, but possible solutions include:

1. If they are contacting you, via email, from your website, put a notice saying that they should check their spam folder for any reply if they do not see the incoming mail within a short period.
2. Put a "read receipt" on your email - if you don't get that receipt within 24 hours or so, try to follow them up with a phone call. If they don't leave a phone number, you are probably a bit stuck.

[W00DY]

I have lost 3 new clients in the last 2 months because my reply email went to their Spam folder!!!

No, would I doubt that very much. Please see Chris's observations.

No, I have. These clients did leave their contact numbers but I replied via email first. After a week I called them and they said they never received my emails and they had already booked someone else. I asked them if they would mind checking their junk folder (as this is when I started thinking something was wrong) and sure enough they said the emails were there but they never saw them

put a notice saying that they should check their spam folder for any reply if they do not see the incoming mail within a short period.

That's a good idea, thanks for that.

[gstark]

Andrew, and with all due respect ....

I have lost 3 new clients in the last 2 months because my reply email went to their Spam folder!!!

No, would I doubt that very much. Please see Chris's observations.

No, I have. These clients did leave their contact numbers but I replied via email first. After a week I called them .

I rest my case.

Why did they not check their spam folder? I do it several times daily. It takes but a few seconds. Chris's point is eminently valid.

And finally, why did you wait a week?

[W00DY]

Why did they not check their spam folder? I do it several times daily. It takes but a few seconds. Chris's point is eminently valid.

And finally, why did you wait a week?

Chris's point is valid, I never said it wasn't but if I can find a way to get my emails into their inbox rather than their spam folder than that is a good thing.

Actually, what happens (as it happened to me also) is if your email is with google, goodle traps the spam on the server and does not pass it down to the mail client on your computer (until you turn that function off) so you have to actually login to your web mail to check your spam folder... Most people would not do this. I found this out the hard way when my new hosting company changed my mail to google mail and suddenly I was not getting very many emails... I logged onto the server and sure enough the spam folder on the server had heaps of emails in it (include ones from my website!!!).

Why did a wait a week? Because I was busy and did not get a chance, but anyway that is not the point of the thread. I also should not have replied via email first!!!

[gstark]

but if I can find a way to get my emails into their inbox rather than their spam folder than that is a good thing.

It is.

But you can't. It's out of your control, so don't sweat it. Understand the problem, and deal with it as best you can: be preemptive, as has already been suggested, and where possible, use the phone for personal contact in the first instance.

Actually, what happens (as it happened to me also) is if your email is with google,

Why would a business have its email with Google, which is a free service? I have an issue in dealing with any business that is so cheap that it chooses to have SomeBusinessName@Gmail.com, or SomeOtherCheepArsedBusiness@Telstra.net. For the minimal costs involved, there is no excuse for anyone running a business to not proudly have MyEmail@MyBusiness.com.

it's not a matter of cost: it costs peanuts to set up. It's not a matter of technical expertise either.

so you have to actually login to your web mail to check your spam folder... Most people would not do this.

Interesting comment: I haven't got a clue as to what "most people" might, or might not, do. Again, I defer to Chris's observation, and can only suggest that one works towards satisfying the LCD factor.

[W00DY]

Why would a business have its email with Google, which is a free service? I have an issue in dealing with any business that is so cheap that it chooses to have SomeBusinessName@Gmail.com, or SomeOtherCheepArsedBusiness@Telstra.net. For the minimal costs involved, there is no excuse for anyone running a business to not proudly have MyEmail@MyBusiness.com.

it's not a matter of cost: it costs peanuts to set up. It's not a matter of technical expertise either.

Gary, stop arguing

my email address IS <name>@follanphotography.com .au but the company that hosts the email addresses use google mail to redirect to the follan photography address... so when you log on to administer your account you log onto google mail.

Anyway, enough, I guess my question has been answered.

[gstark]

but the company that hosts the email addresses use google mail to redirect to the follan photography addres

So what happens when you send an email, or a response? Does it appear (to a recipient) to come from gooooooogle, or from follanphotography.com.au ?

[W00DY]

but the company that hosts the email addresses use google mail to redirect to the follan photography addres

So what happens when you send an email, or a response? Does it appear (to a recipient) to come from gooooooogle, or from follanphotography.com.au ?

It comes from follanphotography.com.au & gets replied to follanphotography.com.au

The recipient does not see that it goes through google mail.

[gstark]

The recipient does not see that it goes through google mail.

Ok, good

[photohiker]

It comes from follanphotography.com.au & gets replied to follanphotography.com.au

The recipient does not see that it goes through google mail.

This could be a clue as to why your emails 'might' land up in spam folders. Although the users just see your real email details, the mail transport sounds like it is running through google. Despite Gary's insistance on 'real' email addresses, I use gmail quite a lot for multiple personal domains, (it's brilliant) and I have noticed that some email clients get cranky when I send mail from google as one of my other addresses. I think the issue is that the incoming email on your customer's system comes from a google server, but claims to be from your domain, which triggers the BS filter on some mail clients.

Sounds like you are on some kind of commercial arrangement and this may not apply, but worth checking out.

The good thing about owning your own domain is that you can move it between hosting providers if they are not providing adequate service.

Michael

[gstark]

Despite Gary's insistance on 'real' email addresses,

I too have a gmail address, and the gmail service is excellent, with excellent spam filtering.

But that's for personal stuff, which is different from any business identities I may have.

I contend that half-arsed personal and/or free email accounts are totally inappropriate if you are presenting to somebody within a business context.

Does MyCheepArsedPissPoorBusiness@gmail.com look in any way like I'm in whatever business for the longer haul? Fair enough to have this as a secondary or tertiary email contact, but as one's primary business email address?

The good thing about owning your own domain is that you can move it between hosting providers if they are not providing adequate service.

Or for any other reason that you consider reasonable. The really good thing though is that I have had the same primary email address for about ten years now, from when I was living in Dallas, through a couple of different providers in the US, and several here in Oz, and that will continue into the future, for as long as I can reasonably foresee.

I am not tied to any provider at all: I am, literally, master of my own domain.

[servaasproducts]

my email address IS <name>@follanphotography.com .au but the company that hosts the email addresses use google mail to redirect to the follan photography address... so when you log on to administer your account you log onto google mail

Andrew, we also use Google Apps for your domain for our email. We don't have any issues with spam, so I am not sure that is the sole cause of your issues.

I ran your domain through the health check at dnsstuff.com and your name is not on any blacklists. I also ran a test at http://www.checkdns.net/quickcheck.aspx ... detailed=1 and it finds several issues with your mail setup. Some ISPs are particularly fussy about mail setup. Some such as Comcast.net in the US will completely bounce email if you do not have a PTR record with a valid Reverse DNS entry. Others will identify your mail as spam if you have not set up SPF records, which I think is what is happening in your case. You may want to set up SPF by following the Google instructions here.

I would also suggest you talk to your webhost about the issues you are seeing. They should be able to fix the setup for you.

[radar]

Andrew,

One way to increase your chances of getting your email through is to only send your email in plain text. Some spam filters get fairly picky with the HTML email. Your email program should have the option of sending email as plain text only. Also, if you don't have to, do not put in embedded images or links in your email.

I've just send you a query via your website, just send me an email as you would to a prospective client and I'll let you know how it gets treated by my spam engine and I'll also look at the full source of the email to see if there is something that could cause it to be considered spam.

André

[W00DY]

my email address IS <name>@follanphotography.com .au but the company that hosts the email addresses use google mail to redirect to the follan photography address... so when you log on to administer your account you log onto google mail

Andrew, we also use Google Apps for your domain for our email. We don't have any issues with spam, so I am not sure that is the sole cause of your issues.

I ran your domain through the health check at dnsstuff.com and your name is not on any blacklists. I also ran a test at http://www.checkdns.net/quickcheck.aspx ... detailed=1 and it finds several issues with your mail setup. Some ISPs are particularly fussy about mail setup. Some such as Comcast.net in the US will completely bounce email if you do not have a PTR record with a valid Reverse DNS entry. Others will identify your mail as spam if you have not set up SPF records, which I think is what is happening in your case. You may want to set up SPF by following the Google instructions here.

I would also suggest you talk to your webhost about the issues you are seeing. They should be able to fix the setup for you.

Thanks for that, I will check it out and also raise it with my webhost.

[W00DY]

Andrew,

I've just send you a query via your website, just send me an email as you would to a prospective client and I'll let you know how it gets treated by my spam engine and I'll also look at the full source of the email to see if there is something that could cause it to be considered spam.

André

Thanks Andre,

I received your email I will reply and see what happens.

Cheers,
Andrew

[radar]

Andrew,

on a side note, when I went to your website, I found that it was a bit slow to load. By getting a size of the page, I got 2962672 bytes!! On a slow modem, it would take approx 560 seconds Even on my 1.5Mb ADSL link it took around 20 seconds

Also, some pretty nice photos on there

[bwhinnen]

It seems there are some tech savvy people in here that have an understanding of email and how it is transported around and what blacklisting, reverse lookup and SPAM are about Others are savvy in the way a user should monitor their email, which is also a good thing and as mentioned something most people lack, which is bad as SPAM filters are notorious for false positives!

Woody, first things first get a health check on your domain name. Ensure that the domain is setup correctly with respect to MX records and associated reverse DNS entries, this is essential these days, BUT only if you are relaying mail through your MX record!

The next thing to check is find out where your emails are actually relayed through, send me an email at brett at whinnen dot com and I'll pull the headers apart for you and let you know, I also have some strong SPAM and blacklist filtering in place so we'll see if it ends up in my SPAM box. If the server you relay outbound emails through is on a blacklist or does not have a valid reverse A record in DNS then you are screwed for a few sites. The good thing is not too many people have adopted the reverse lookup policies, but enough have to make it annoying.

Once we have that issue sorted, and be warned your emails will either be dropped then and there by the SMTP gateway or passed through as SPAM to the recipient (usually the former). In some cases you may get a return email saying that it is SPAM, but be warned this may end up in your SPAM box too... If the message is marked as SPAM, the majority of SPAM filtering applications out there will have a scoring mechanism, where certain things are of a certain value, once a set value is exceeded, the mail is marked as SPAM. The good thing about most SPAM filters is that they will put the scores in the extended header information of the email, which once again allows people like me to identify issues, and also write better SPAM filters!

So please send me a test email and we'll see where we go from there.

Cheers
Brett

[Glen]

Woody, 100% agree with everything Andre and Jeff have said here. A friend of mine has the same issues with the domain not matching the sending address.

I asked if people contacted you via form or an address (edit went to your website, it is form) as a form is great for you in reducing spam to you. An address is better to get email back to your client as many spam systems allow through addresses which have been sent to, of course for a client to contact you they will have to send you email. That should help your email get through but cost you time in deleting spam.

[radar]

I have received an email from Andrew and for me, it didn't get listed as spam, even with my fairly strict filters. However, the email is sent as HTML and it has Andrew's logo also attached as a jpeg. I would suspect that this could be a major reason why some spam filters may consider it spam.

As nice as HTML formatting is in email, I always recommend to my client to use nice and easy plain text. Most people don't use fancy formatting in email anyway, so why send HTML? I will always choose the old Keep It Simple motto

Just thought I would report my findings here in case others may be interested.

cheers,

André

[bwhinnen]

Nah a jpeg attachment is not grounds to SPAMify a message, most major corporations would be stuffed if it were as most of them have a jpeg as part of the outgoing corporate signature block (damn them).

I love my plain text emails

[Greg B]

Andrew, I suggest you remove all mention of penis enlargement from your emails. It
can only help.



cheers

[zafra52]

I echo all the above. The problem is at the receiving end. In many cases, the receiver has accidentaly marked your email as Span and once this is done all the emails with that adddress will end up in the Span Folder. It could be that the person has been receiving junk email from a similar address and has wrongly added your to the span filter.

Another problem could be your email address, but I suspect that is not the case for a serious person, unlike some of my students, will not have dickhead69@hotmail.com or similar type of address. I hope this is not your case, but I have heard of legitimate email accounts used to propagate junk email.

If the problem persist, I would suggest you create a new email account with similar name that identifies you or your business. I always advise my students to use a personal email accounts for their friends/relatives and a separate one for their business/student. I hope this helps.

[W00DY]

Andrew, I suggest you remove all mention of penis enlargement from your emails. It
can only help.



cheers

I should have know!!!!

Oh well there goes my promise of $1 million dollars from Africa if I forwarded the email 100 times

Thanks all for your help. I will speak to my email hosting company tomorrow as I think it could be something to do with all the junk in the header (thanks Andre).

[mic291]

Hey Andrew

There is nothing wrong with the email setup you have and your provider is fine in terms of not being on any blacklists. I checked out your MX record and checked out 150+ blacklist sites and the IPs your ISP uses and your fine so dont worry about that.

Best advice to give you is that you may be unfortunately getting blocked due to the crap anti-spam products some people use or more simply some rules that your clients have implemented to stop/quarantine all emails with attachments or emails with specific attachment file types such as jpg files. Check out whether your clients use MessageLabs, thats a standard situation with people that have implemented their service.

What you should try is to send the same exact email minus the attachment. Im pretty sure it will get through fine. Then send the email with the attachment in a password protected zip file. If that gets through they have setup content filtering with file types blocking jpeg files. As someone said earlier, try and see if you can contact your customer early and get put in a whitelist to stop this from happening, but try the above out also.

Unless your embedding cgi, urls, using malformed headers, your emails should be fine

I would suggest this is a pretty simple one.

Cheers
Mike

p.s. the security vendor I work for has the leading anti-spam product in terms of accuracy so let me know if you need further help here. You prob have it sorted with the advice so far