Making a Living as a Search Marketing Professional

By Barbara Coll,
April 7, 2004
Search marketing is a fast moving industry, with rapidly evolving business models. What's the best way to make money in this business?

A special report from the Search Engine Strategies 2003 Conference, December 9-11, Chicago, Illinois.

At the SEM Provider's Forum approximately 100 people gathered to talk about dealing with clients and business pricing structures. Interestingly enough we were all, on-the-surface, competitors and yet the complexity of being an SEM/SEO provider drew us together to discuss what in other industries would be held close to the chest.

The people in the room represented large SEM firms specializing in paid search marketing, popular search engine optimization (SEO) companies, companies moving from SEO to paid search marketing, pure SEO players, consultants and newcomers. The main topic was "How do you make money in this business?"

There were three pricing structures for pure SEO discussed: charge by the page, charge by the month, or charge by the number of keywords optimized. By the page optimization ranged from $100/page to $1500/page. People questioned the "by the keyword" model as it seemed to imply creating "special" pages for each keyword.

Larger companies with established reputations, experience and visibility in the industry typically charge a fixed price for the initial site review and keyword analysis, and then move into monthly maintenance agreements. It was very clear that companies/consultants who had established themselves early on in the industry and had maintained a "relatively" clean track record with the search engines, were charging more for their services than the more recent entries.

Many people asked about how to get more visibility for their services. eNewsletters, forum postings, SEMPO membership, organization directories, and speaking engagements were suggested. Individual SEOs with some experience may want to consider moving in-house as many firms are starting to see the high-value of SEM.

For paid search marketing companies there was a lively debate about whether or not you can make money providing pay per click (PPC) management services to small online businesses. The larger companies said that 12-20% management fees made money as long as the client was spending large amounts of money. If a client is only spending $2000/month on PPC then even a 20% management fee isn't going to go very far.

One participant suggested that small companies charge their clients a ramp-up fee to cover the cost of developing the keyword list, establishing the account and writing creatives. The management fee would then cover creative optimization, keyword expansion and bid management. Another participant suggested that the client pay a monthly retainer (some set amount of money) to the provider instead of making it based on spending. This was also suggested for SEO maintenance work.

Of course, everyone complained that many clients still felt that getting listed in search engines was all about optimizing meta tags, took no work to do properly, and therefore the cost of hiring an SEO firm should be minimal. As small businesses move towards tracking the actual ROI of their SEM activities, the more they will understand the value of hiring a search engine marketing firm to optimize their campaigns and keep them current in the almost daily changing world of search engine marketing. Until then, we need to keep raising the bar on quality of the services provided by SEM companies and consultants.

Barbara "webmama" Coll is CEO of WebMama.com, and president and chair of the board of SEMPO.

fr.: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3336861

Canada's Largest Search Engine Event Comes to Toronto May 11th-12th!
Search engine marketing is today's hottest and most important subject for agencies & marketers around the globe. Be part of this "must attend event" that comes to Toronto for the the first time on May 11th-12th 2004. Standing-Room-Only crowds of your fellow marketers and SES Alumni have been gathering in cities around the world to quickly learn how to maximize search engine marketing opportunities and stay informed of the latest search developments and solutions in this area -- don't be left behind!

Event Overview:

Organized by search authority Chris Sherman, Associate Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com and President, Searchwise, with an emphasis on issues specific to the Cananadian marketplace.
Delivers real-time actionable information you need to grow your business through search engine marketing.
Teaches the ins-and-outs of search engine marketing from top experts (both Canadian-based and from around the globe) and from the search engines themselves.
Provides a unique setting to network with fellow marketers and search engine

fr.:http://www.jupiterevents.com/sew/toronto04/index.html

Google's 'Gmail' under fire
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Search engine Google's new free e-mail service, "Gmail," is under fire from privacy groups even before it has been officially launched.

One campaign group, Privacy International, says Gmail violates European privacy laws because it stores messages on its system long after users have deleted them from their mailbox.

The group, which has offices in Britain and the United States, also opposes Google's plans to scan users' e-mail in order to paste appropriate advertising into messages.

"This is not just 'buyer beware.' Consumers should be aware that there's a vast violation of European law occurring here," Reuters quoted Simon Davies, director of citizens' group Privacy International, as saying.

Europe's privacy protection laws are much stricter than those in the United States, where Google is based. European consumers, for example, have the right to retain control over their communications.

"If a person deletes an e-mail, he should be confident that e-mail is actually deleted," Maurice Westerling, co-founder of Bits of Freedom, another privacy interest group, based in the Netherlands, told Reuters.

"Besides, Google cannot just open e-mails. Communication in Europe has a very high degree of protection."

As part of its service, Gmail would include a built-in search function that will let people search every e-mail they've ever sent or received.

According to company executives, users will be able to type in keywords to sort e-mails or find old missives.

Google, which is the world's most popular search engine and is launching Gmail to compete against rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft, argues e-mails will remain private because it will assign computers, not people, to scan content.

"No humans read your e-mail to target the ads," it said on its Web site.

It will come with one gigabyte of free storage -- more than 100 times what some popular rivals offer and enough to hold 500,000 pages of e-mail.

Analysts have said that Google -- whose technology is behind nearly four out of every five Web searches -- could shake up the free e-mail market.

Yahoo! dominates the e-mail niche, with 52.6 million unique users per month in the United States, according to a February survey by online research firm comScore Media Metrix.

Microsoft's Hotmail is next, with 45.4 million users. AOL has 40.2 million paying users.

Rivals have kept stripped versions of e-mail free and asked users to pay annual fees up to $30 or more for extra storage and spam protection.


fr.: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/04/06/google.email/index.html

Show me the money
No matter what sector, size or direction, businesses all need one thing: money - and usually lots of it. But many start-ups are missing a trick when comes to finding that all-important dough.

Probably the biggest hurdle facing would-be entrepreneurs is finding the money to launch and support a company during its fledgling months and years.

But for a large number of companies the process starts and ends with the bank manager. Many entrepreneurs - especially those from ethnic minority backgrounds - have trouble persuading traditional sources of finance to part with their precious cash.

So why not look elsewhere?

Private investor network Envestors calculates that there are at least 19 separate sources of funding for businesses. And increasingly, the moneymen are coming out of their shells to embrace entrepreneurs with sound ideas and solid business plans.

Envestors director Oliver Woolley comments: "Now is a crucial time for many entrepreneurs, who are looking to take advantage of the improving economic climate to start-up or grow a business, but require external funding to do so.

"There are many reasons why SMEs are facing difficulties raising finance, but there is much they can do to improve their chances.

"With more new measures due to be introduced to help rectify the situation, such as the government's Enterprise Capital Funds which are to be piloted later in the year, the problem is not lack of choice."

A recent poll of prominent people in the venture capital industry by Envestors, Imperial College Business School and Cranfield School of Management hinted that, in general, entrepreneurs must learn more about the different types of early-stage funding.

Sources of seed capital like business angels, specialist seed funds, grants, awards and the Small Firm's Loan Guarantee Scheme are little known, but often provide the best opportunities for SMEs.

"Entrepreneurs need to get to grips with the myriad of options open to them if they are to ensure they choose the most appropriate type or types of finance for their business needs," says Woolley.

"Once they have identified this they could save time, effort and money by doing some further research to find out who is investing the amount they need in their particular sector, so they take a targeted, rather than a scatter-gun, approach. "

Businesses that keep their eyes peeled and their ears to the ground will also have noticed the growing popularity of specialist venture capital events, in which promising businesses are matched with financiers, in a process akin to 'speed dating'.

One such event is planned for May 11 in London and is being organised by Beer & Parnters, the UK's biggest business angel network with more than 750 members.

Thirty businesses have been invited to attend and will be encouraged to flirt outrageously with money-laden suitors. Attendees are drawn from across the economic spectrum and most will be after funding of between #100,000 and #2 million.

According to Beer & Partners, few deals are completed on the day, but businesses that make a good show of themselves can set the ball rolling and usually guarantee follow up meetings with prospective partners.

David Beer, chairman of Beer & Partners, said: "This is a no pressure, informal gathering and generally regarded as the most enjoyable environment in which to weigh-up a large number of investment opportunities in one hit."

Another example took place on March 25, in the form of the seventh Springboard event for hi-tech firms, where companies looking for a total of #6 million courted moneymen from around the UK.

The event was hosted by Connect Scotland and this year 10 rising technology stars were mixed and matched to prominent members of the investment community.

"Although the climate remains challenging, we are seeing more deals being done. There is growing evidence of increased demand for funding from technology companies and a larger appetite among investors to strike deals," said Andrew McNair, a director at Connect Scotland.

"To help sustain and stimulate further confidence in the marketplace, we are reinforcing our commitment to the start-up sector by having a record three Springboards this year, in addition to our investment conference in October."

It just goes to show that the money is available, and that investors are throwing off their economic downturn-induced shyness to embrace businesses that promise growth and prosperity.

It's out there; you just need to know where to look.

fr.: http://www.businesseurope.com/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=all&docid=BEP1_Feature_0000063775&eventtype=newsletterlink

Managing customer data

Richard Roche
Richard Roche, head of multi channel retail and media markets, Royal Mail looks at how small businesses can make effective use of customer data.

Customer data is one of the most important assets for any organisation whether they're involved in business to business or business to consumer activity. If customer data is up-to-date, accurate and data analysis techniques are applied correctly, it can unlock great insight into customer behaviour. This information can then be used to target customers more effectively, increasing brand loyalty and improving investment returns on marketing campaigns.

This data can be used to predict customer needs and expectations. Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) can therefore develop marketing strategies, based around this information that will help them reach consumers with products and services that are both relevant and timely. And at a time when customers are starting to respond better to relevant communication, businesses of all sizes cannot afford to underestimate the value of data and the impact it can have on their business.

According to the Royal Mail, in 2002, 172m items of mail were sent to businesses that had moved or ceased trading, while 69 % of all business mailings contained one or more errors. Additional, research revealed that a business closes every minute, moves office every six minutes while 5.7 million businesses, overall register a change each year. It is further estimated that 6.3 million people move every year. All this has a serious affect on response rates and the impact and success of marketing campaigns.

Keeping track of customers is as fundamental as book-keeping. Yet tracking changes in data can be difficult and is often viewed as costly and time-wasting. It is estimated, however, that 37 % of customer records go out-of-date within a year, demonstrating the importance of maintaining accurate customer information. It's always worth remembering that the acquisition of new customers is also far more costly than retaining existing customers or significantly growing their level of spending.

As database technologies become more accessible, and operating systems start moving from the mainframe to the PC, so the opportunities for smaller businesses to employ traditional 'big business' techniques in managing their customer data have blossomed. There are now a number of products available on the market that can help small firms to improve the quality of their business and consumer data in a cost effective way.

As part of a new initiative to encourage businesses to keep customer data accurate, Royal Mail is offering firms a free 'data health check'. As part of the check, businesses must submit a representative sample of their data (between 5,000 and 10,000 records) for analysis. Sample data will be screened against Royal Mail's own postcode address file which contains complete address details for every one of the 27 million delivery points in the UK, as well as a range of files that verify residence, identify where a person has moved from an address and in many cases find where they have moved to.

Companies submitting data will then receive a summary report showing how healthy the data is and where they can make improvements to increase the effectiveness of direct marketing campaigns.

Once you know your data is clean and current you can then start planning your marketing activity. Although it can be hard to find the resources to invest in marketing activity, there are companies that provide software that can be installed on your desktop and used to develop and manage marketing campaigns.

These tools can help towards activity such as direct mail and email marketing, which are extremely cost-effective channels to reach customers. Businesses can achieve fantastic response rates if data is applied correctly and is accurate. Online tools are also available. These help businesses create and design promotional mail that can be sent to customers, reducing the need for specialist marketing agencies and enabling small companies to promote their products and services themselves.

For a small business it's not just the Managing Director, who has to understand the value of customer data and effective marketing, it is a sentiment that has to be driven throughout the whole organisation from manager to company secretary. Everyone has to buy into the company 'data and marketing' philosophy and be educated as to why quality controls are being put in place and how to maintain these standards. By implementing these initiatives you will set the agenda for an organisation that can build long-term profitable relationships with their customer base, cost-effectively.



fr.: http://www.businesseurope.com/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=all&docid=BEP1_Feature_0000063899&eventtype=newsletterlink

Google gets personal
NEW TOOL MATCHES SEARCH RESULTS TO USER INTERESTS

By Michael Bazeley

Mercury News


Google unveiled a new tool Monday that allows people to make their Web searches more personal, the latest in a string of announcements from the major search companies in the last several weeks as competition in the industry heats up.

Google Personalized Search, available for testing at the Google Labs page (http://labs.google.com/personalized/), allows people to create a profile of their interests, which is then used to filter their search results.

People can identify up to 216 areas of interest, from art history to motorcycles. The amount of personalization can be adjusted with a slider bar at the top of each search results page.

``The basic concept is fairly simple,'' said Jen Fitzpatrick, director of engineering for Google. ``Users know best what topics are most important to them, and this is a way to personalize the results.''

The ability to tailor search results to the individual is considered the holy grail of search technology. But few companies have released real-world versions of the technology, an indication of the complexities involved in developing such a tool.

Google bought two smaller companies in recent years that specialized in personalized searching, Kaltix and Outride. But until now, the Mountain View company had little to show publicly for those acquisitions.

Search experts gave the new service a lukewarm response.

Danny Sullivan, editor of the Web site Search Engine Watch, said the tool often returned results for him that were confusing, especially if he selected more than one area of interest.

``I think it's really significant,'' Sullivan said. ``It's just not very good. It's too easy to break it. It's got a long way to go.''

Fitzpatrick stressed that the tool is still in its beta-testing stage and will probably change based on user feedback. It does not yet appear to work with Macintosh browsers, for example.

Search engines can take two approaches to personalizing search results -- asking the user to supply personal information, or gleaning information about the user from their Web surfing patterns.

Online bookseller Amazon, for example, does the latter, monitoring what people buy and then offering personalized recommendations the next time they shop. Eurekster, a new search site, monitors which search results a user clicks on and gives those results more importance in subsequent searches.

Google, on the other hand, is relying exclusively on the profiles that people have created.

That's good, said Outride co-founder Jim Pitkow, because the search engine doesn't have to try hard to infer anything from the user's behavior. But it can also be a disadvantage, because a person's interests will change over time, but they may not update their Google profile to reflect that.

``It's really unclear what it's learning about me,'' said Pitkow, CEO of Moreover Technologies in San Francisco.

Posted on Mon, Mar. 29, 2004
fr.: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/8306273.htm

Italian decree gives registered e-mail legal status
IDG News Service 3/26/04

Philip Willan, IDG News Service, Rome Bureau
The Italian government has passed a decree giving a registered e-mail service the same legal status as recorded delivery letters, a measure expected to go into effect within the next two months, a spokesman for the Innovation and Technologies Ministry said Friday.

The decree, which puts Italy at the digital forefront in Europe, was proposed by Innovation and Technologies Minister Lucio Stanca and approved by the cabinet Thursday.

"The measure is an act of modernity. Electronic-mail is increasingly becoming an instrument of daily communication," Stanca said in a prepared statement.

In 2003, the number of e-mail messages handled by the public administration rose to 31 million from 14.6 million the previous year, the minister said. The cost to the civil service of sending conventional postal mail was estimated at €20 (US$24) per letter, compared to about €2 per e-mail, he said. Replacing traditional telegrams with e-mail correspondence has reduced the Foreign Ministry's paper consumption by more than 17 tons, Stanca said.

Some 20 Italian ISPs (Internet service providers) currently possess the technical qualifications to operate the registered e-mail service, the Council of State and the Privacy Authority spokesman Dario de Marchi said. Customers using the service will receive a message from their provider confirming that the e-mail has been sent and another message from the recipient's provider confirming its arrival, according to an Innovation Ministry statement. Authorized providers of the service will be obliged to keep a record of the message traffic for two years and information from their registry will be accepted as legal proof of a message being sent, even if the customer loses receipts regarding the correspondence, the statement said.

Government guidelines say the e-mail service must be safe from external interference and meet security criteria established by European and international authorities. "The government doesn't say what technology should be used. We just set the general parameters," De Marchi said. "We would be a communist state if we were actually determining the choice of technical protocols."

Italy is also the leading European country in the adoption of digital signatures in online financial transactions and official correspondence over the Internet, De Marchi said. So far, some 1.25 million Italians have registered a digital signature with the 13 companies authorized to issue them, he said. On Monday Stanca presented a 27-year-old Milan businesswoman, Teresa Panarella, with the one millionth smart card containing a digital signature issued by the information technology company of the Italian Chambers of Commerce, Infocamere SpA.

The number of registered signatures in Italy dwarfs that of Sweden with 100,000 and Germany with 25,000, de Marchi said. The use of electronic correspondence backed up by digital signatures is estimated to save Italian businesses more than €260 million a year, the spokesman said. During the course of 2003, digital signature-backed correspondence between Italian companies and chambers of commerce leapt from 8 percent to 80 percent of the total correspondence, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Friday.

In another first for Italy, the company responsible for e-procurement for the public administration announced Tuesday it is accepting digital signature-backed offers on CD-ROM, as well as traditional offer documents on paper, as part of the bidding process for a public tender. The competition is for a contract to supply hardware and software for the staff payments system at the Economics Ministry, the procurement company Consip SpA said.

fr.: http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/040326italianemail/

Five-domain Googlebomb explodes in boardroom

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 25/03/2004 at 03:33 GMT
The Register Mobile: Find out what the fuss is about. Take the two week trial today.


"Can anybody catch these guys?" is the question posed by Newsweek's cover story in the current issue. Veteran archivist Daniel Brandt has created a Googlebomb which makes the question rather redundant. The bomb is for the phrase 'out of touch executives'. Type the phrase with quotes into the Google search engine, and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky." Or click here, which has the same effect.

As with other Googlebombs, the word 'touch' doesn't appear anywhere on the top-ranking page: a Googlebomb is a simple demonstration of manipulating the search engine to place the page you want at the top of its search results. Famous bombs have included 'French Military Victories' and 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', a bomb with a witty payload.

But the remarkable thing about this demonstration is how few sites Brandt needed to break the search engine. Just eight pages, from five low 'PageRank' sites, and this we figure is a record. So no search engine optimizers (SEOs) or webloggers were harmed in the course of this production. Brandt, who began work on the demonstration a month ago, explaining his results as progressed, used four links from pages at Clusterclick and CIA on Campus, and these two from Google-Watch, one from Scroogle, and one other domain.

Yahoo! bombed! too!
Alas Yahoo! performs no better. The bomb works equally well. While the Google bomb requires you to enclose the phrase in quotation marks, out add dashes to out-of-touch, Yahoo!'s newly revamped search doesn't. Brandt is scathing about Yahoo!'s new pay-to-play Site Match at a new site, Yahoo! Watch.

Brandt performed the exercise in just three weeks to prove how easily it can be done, and the results took even him by surprise. He doesn't condone the practice: in fact several pages bear the message 'Help end Google bombs'. He achieved his Yahoo! bomb on March 13. Google took a little longer to fall. Brandt says that he hopes this will be the Last Google Bomb.

While Google officially maintains that Bombs are harmless, they do show how easily the integrity of the search results can be compromised.

"An easy fix for many bombs," explains Brandt "Google should not use terms in external links to boost the rank of a page on those terms, unless those terms are on the page itself. This is a no-brainer. But it means another CPU cycle per link, which is why Google won't do it."

"Consider what real spammers can do. They use hundreds or even thousands of domains to manipulate the rankings in Google. This has been going on for a couple of years," he says. "I haven't discovered anything new here," he told us.

Google's IPO is expected in July, but doubts are already being raised. "IMHO, they made a huge mistake in not having their IPO earlier as their 'superior technology' is increasingly being compromised," a Slashdot poster noted at the weekend. Google is still the world's most popular brand name , but the deteriorating quality of the results raises questions of whether it can get to the finishing line in time. Google's greatest threat is not the competition: but that it appears to have no Plan B. We certainly don't hear that 'Google is God' so much these days.

From its omniscient authority of just a couple of years ago, Google already looks like one of Silicon Valley's most spectacular burn outs. Only by popular folklore, they're supposed to burn out after they've IPO'd, or been destroyed by Microsoft. Google hasn't even IPO's yet. ?

fr. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36514.html

Ballmer: We fell down on search
Last modified: March 25, 2004, 12:43 PM PST
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com


REDMOND, Wash.--Microsoft's failure to invest more in Internet search technology was a significant misstep for the company, but it is working to catch up, said CEO Steve Ballmer.

"People say that Microsoft does it all, but this is the case where we didn't do it all," Ballmer told an audience of marketing and media executives on Thursday, here at the software giant's fifth annual advertising conference. Then, like an eager football coach pumping up the team for the second half, Ballmer reasserted that Microsoft is still in the game and plans to win.

"You'll see a lot of good competition in the area," he said emphatically, at one point throwing his pen.

Microsoft faces an uphill climb to catch up in one of the Web's hottest arenas. It is working hard to close the gap, but it's so far behind that right now, it gets most of its Web search results from one of its biggest rivals: Yahoo. And this week, European antitrust regulators ordered major changes in the way Microsoft designs its software--a move that could hurt its ability to put new features, including search, in future versions of its Windows operating system.

Ballmer did not comment on the European ruling but did sound an upbeat note for Microsoft's growing impetus in search development. He said the company has hired many top search software developers and plans to be the absolute best in search over time. He also downplayed the mystical reputation of Google's search tool.

"There's no magic here; it takes good, hard work...and hard-core software" to deliver relevant results, he said.

Ballmer would not plot an exact time line for the launch of a new Microsoft search engine, but he said first-generation technology from its development team will likely appear in the next 12 months.

Billion-dollar ad brains
Attendance at its advertising conference more than doubled this year, according to Microsoft, signaling renewed growth in the Internet ad market and increased interest on Madison Avenue. MSN's chief revenue officer, Joanne Bradford, characterized the group as one of the largest gatherings of marketing and media executives to consider online advertising, who together represented more than $60 billion in promotion dollars.

The morning session focused on encouraging spending on online advertising and on outlining Microsoft's vision of the future. After years of losses, the company's Internet arm, MSN, reported its first profit in 2003. But Microsoft faces significant challenges, as customers gravitate from dial-up Internet access to broadband.

Bradford said MSN is pushing for 8 percent to 12 percent of every media plan to be spent online by 2005. To usher that along, MSN showed research that indicates that online media is increasingly influencing offline buying habits. The mantra: Online media is "accountable."

Ballmer went further, saying that in 10 years, all media dollars will wind up online, because the separation among PCs, televisions and mobile devices will no longer exist. He predicted that within a few years, people will watch most video via the Internet rather than on a TV set, because it's more organized and packaged there.

The comments worked as a pitch of Microsoft's free streaming-video service, MSN Video, to advertisers. Microsoft recently signed a deal to deliver Major League Baseball games online, and MSN Video is advertising-supported.

The Microsoft CEO went on to describe the migration of people connecting PCs to TVs as an early indication of a future technology and device-connected world, where everything is centered on a home computer.

"At Microsoft, we couldn't be more bullish about the impact of the tech revolution we're in the midst of. That includes the PC revolution...the Internet revolution...the digital revolution...and the wireless revolution," he said.

However, he did not give a time line for the introduction of new technology for targeted search advertising, which, he said, is harder to pin down. Although Ballmer didn't mention it, Paul Ryan, the executive in charge of building ad search technology, left Microsoft in January, after a tenure of only four months.

MSN recently said it would redesign its search results pages this summer, clearly designating commercial search results and playing up its own ads, as opposed to those generated by its partner, Overture Services.

Ballmer brushed off speculation over whether Microsoft plans to buy America Online.

"It's always inappropriate to comment on that kind of a rumor," Ballmer said, responding to a question from the audience. "We do have a good relationship with Time Warner...and we have a good, healthy competition with AOL."

Ballmer was also asked about when the company would let advertisers target consumers by their surfing habits and behaviors. He responded by saying the company will have some interesting new offerings in the next year but that it is "sensitive to thinking through user privacy online."

fr. http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5179402.html?tag=nefd_lede

When Bad Things Happen to Good Email Marketers
by Michelle Keegan, Email Marketing DivaTM, Constant Contact?


I first started writing Email Marketing Hints & Tips in March of 2001 and I remember when, much to my surprise and disappointment, I received my first spam complaint. It was an email reply that went something like this: "You filthy spammer. More people hate you than Bin Laden. Get a real job and a real life."

Nasty huh? I have to admit I took it personally.

Email Marketing Hints & Tips is all about permission email marketing best practices. I had this person's permission to communicate via email. How could they think I was a spammer? What was I doing wrong?

Now, three years and 160,000 subscribers later, I understand that spam complaints occasionally happen to good email marketers. I try not to take it too personally anymore, but I also monitor my spam reports closely to make sure they are well below industry norms (see right). And, I make it a point to be prepared to act if I ever have a problem.

Any good email marketer should do the same. And that's what this issue of Hints & Tips is all about.

There are many reasons why your subscriber might decide to report your email as spam - the subscriber doesn't recognize or remember your company name and perceives your email as spam, he no longer trusts unsubscribe links due to abuse by spammers, he sometimes uses the "This is spam" button for unwanted email regardless of having given his permission, he feels you are sending too much email or that your email is no longer relevant, etc.

If your spam complaints are at or below industry norms, you are doing a good job.

If your spam complaints are above industry norms, you may have some problems with your list collection and maintenance practices, your branding or your targeting and email frequency that you need to address.

Here's what to do if you run into a problem:

Evaluate your list collection practices

Are you using your own permission-based list?
Remember - permission is not transferable, so you should never use purchased lists, or lists that you have swapped with another business. Learn the right way to get and keep permission here.


Have you communicated clearly about the type and frequency of your email communications?
Manage subscriber expectations. When people sign up to be on your email list, allow them to select their areas of interest (e.g. newsletters, sale notifications, new product or service announcements, event invitations etc.). Specify what they will receive and when they will receive it (e.g. "Sign up for Our Weekly Concert Announcement").


How old is your list?
Over time, people forget what they subscribed to, or change their level of interest in a particular product or service. This is especially true in situations where interest may be temporary (e.g. wedding planning or sports league participation).

How old is too old? Well, that depends on the nature of your business and how frequently, and recently, you have emailed your list of subscribers. If you have been adding subscribers to your list, but not sending emails, then any name older than one year should be removed from your list.

Even if you have been emailing regularly, list age is often a source of spam reports, so consider removing older or inactive subscribers from your list. Here are two different approaches to doing this without losing your best subscribers.


Choose to keep only the subscribers who have opened or clicked-through a recent campaign. This way, you know the subscribers want your emails and are responding to your messages.


Confirm the older portion of your list by sending subscribers a one-time message asking them to confirm that they want to receive future messages from you. If they respond, you know they are interested and will remain on your list. If they do not respond, they are removed from your list. Learn more about confirming your list here.


Are you using a pre-checked signup box?
Customers and prospects expect reputable companies to ask for permission - not presume it. So, you should always use an optional unchecked subscription box to gather email addresses for your list.


Are you using a gimmick for email address collection?
A few years ago, it was not unusual to see contests or giveaways used as incentives for subscription (e.g. "give us your email address and you will be entered into a drawing for a free vacation"). These methods gathered lots of email addresses, but also generated a high number of spam complaints. If part of your list was built using an aggressive collection campaign like a sweepstakes, you should remove those subscribers from your list.


Another way to reduce spam reports is to make sure your subscribers remember who you are and why they are receiving the emails you send. This is also an opportunity to reinforce your brand and build customer trust.



Is your company name familiar and consistent?
Did your subscribers join your list with the same company name or product brand that you are using today? Sometimes spam complaints occur due to an unpublicized transition in company ownership or product naming. If you have made a transition, remind subscribers of your original brand as you phase in the new brand, or new name. Learn more about the from line here.
Finally, target your emails to the right audience, and watch your frequency.

Are your emails targeted and relevant?
Sometimes spam complaints are simply a way for subscribers to tell you that you are not sending information or offers that are interesting or tailored to them. Targeted and relevant email campaigns will always yield a higher response and result in fewer unsubscribes and spam complaints. Segment your lists using interest groups or other criteria, so that your promotions go to the individuals most likely to respond to your offer.


Are you emailing too frequently?
Another complaint trigger can be sending too many emails to the same group within a short period of time. The appropriate frequency can vary widely by industry and by mailing type (promotions vs. newsletters). But, generally speaking, two to three times per month is plenty. Ask yourself how frequently your customers think about, or use your product or service and send communications accordingly.


Are you emailing too infrequently?
Communicating too infrequently can be just as bad as communicating too often. If you wait too long to reach out to your audience, then your list and the permission you obtained can become stale. Generally, once per quarter is the minimum recommended frequency.


By monitoring and understanding your spam complaints, you will be in the best position avoid problems, and to address any issues that may arise.


fr.:email marketing hits & tips