There is a dizzying array of information, discussions and banter regarding the importance of sender reputation, however very little substance about how the process technically works. Even more surprising is the continuous debate among ESPs as to whether its better to have a client on a shared IP address verses a unique IP address. Please tell me how a sender establishes a good reputation using a shared IP address? I still haven't figured out the risk logic to this yet. What's most shocking is that very few ESPs offer their clients custom DNS. What is custom DNS you ask? It's when you have the ability to send email from your own domain name such as This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it instead of your ESPs mail server domain such as This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . This involves pointing certain DNS records to the unique IP address your ESP provides. The IP has to be unique since reverse DNS needs to...

I was manning the EEC booth at the OMMA conference in New York last week when I met an academic looking fellow named David Blumenstein.  After I pitched him about the EEC and all the cool things the group was working on he grabbed a seat next to me and started to rant about how gray listing is the secret to fighting spam.  Naturally the subject piqued my interest so I prodded him to go into detail.  He said that spammers don't like to receive bounces because it overwhelms their servers.  As a result spammers turn off bounce mechanisms.  Therefore pinging a legitimate mail server will yield a mailer demon and pinging a spammer's server will yield nothing.  He concluded that putting all unknown senders in email purgatory until a mailer demon is received helps to eliminate most spam.  The biggest drawback is that his email is delayed for 12 minutes or so.  Pretty...

Another year in email marketing is almost gone and the good guys' battle against spam has barely made a dent.  Black lists, content filters and challenge response are all a joke to spammers.  Ninety-nine percent of spammers are never identified because of their uncanny ability to hide behind hijacked pc's and servers.  As an email marketer, the only real silver bullet to combat spam is the unified use of SPF or Sender Policy Framework.  SPF is a simple string of code attached to a domain that forces an email sender to be identified hence there is no place for spammers to hide.  The biggest issue to using SPF in the battle against spam is getting network administrators to implement it on their DNS (Domain Name Service) in addition to them not allowing email to enter their network from a sender who has not implemented SPF.  Two very simple things that need to be done in concert.  However there is...