[RCard991]

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum and I'm very frustrated.

I am having repeated problems with Comcast blocking my emails. Fortunately they always quickly remove the block after I submit my request for removal, but the damage to RP sender score has already been done. Then it cascades into blocks from the other ISPs. Comcast will allow me as many as 25,000 emails and then start blocking every subsequent email with identical email content.

Error message:

554 imta04.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net comcast 66.59.4.25 Comcast block for spam. Please see *BL000000

I believe I have everything set up properly FBL, rDNS, etc. Maybe not.

Any suggestions? I would really appreciate some help.

Desperate!

Rich

[ChrisW]

Hi Rich, that's an awful lot of email you're sending.. What's the time frame on the 25,000 emails? Or is it just a counter without expiration?

I would suggest contacting RP and see what they say, since their big thing is certification to help you avoid spam blocking on most major ISPs.

[RCard991]

Thanks for the reply, Chris. I am sending over 120,000 emails to Comcast each month or about 4,000 per day very consistently. I was blocked 11/9/2010, 12/30/2010, 1/17/2011, 1/28/2011, 2/3/2011, 2/4/2011, 2/6/2011, and 2/10/2011. I sent 240,000 Comcast emails from 11/10/2010 to 1/17/2011 without any 554 spam bounces. And since then the bounce frequency has accelerated.

I have noticed that TGW, Edwin Watts and GolfSmith have exceptionally low bounce rates and none are certified with RP, but the all use Silverpop.

[RCard991]

Oops. One 554 spam bounce in between 11/10/2010 and 1/17/2011.

[ChrisW]

Interesting... Who are you talking (no need to name a specific employee) to at Comcast to unblock you? I would perhaps try to work my way up the food chain there and see if someone can tell you what's really causing it to be blocked. I'd also ask them also how the other mass-mailers are getting through.

Again, talking with RP isn't a bad idea. I'd be curious to know what they have to say about this, too.

Also, what's the composition of the emails? I wonder if somehow the content of the messages are triggering something. It would be odd, though, since such a high quantity is going through correctly.

[RCard991]

I took ChrisW's advice and have had some detailed discussions with Return Path since his post. RP has already reviewed my detailed data they have been collecting for emails sent from my IP address and here are their recommendations:

1. Sign up for their Tools which will provide me with almost every detail imaginable for each individual ISP. Cost is $20,000 per year. (That works out to about $1.11/M in additional cost.)

2. Have RP perform a one-time audit. Cost is $5,000.

3. RP says there is no reason that 99+% of my emails won't be delivered to the recipients' inbox using the information provided using their Tools. Today my accepted rate (just being CONSIDERED for delivery at the gateway) is only 89.19% down from a high of 96.78% in early February.

4. RP is confident my inbox delivery rate will improve 10-15% possibly even more.

5. RP says I will need to continue with the annual fee after the first year because the ISPs are continuously changing their algorithms to keep spam emails from their customers' inboxes.

There is no question that if the inbox delivery rate improved at least 10% AND that translated to a 10+% order rate improvement, the RP service would more than pay for itself.

One of my largest competitors is a customer of RP and their accepted rate today is 99.37% and that's about as low as I have seen it in the last month or two.

Honestly I am a bit shocked at the $20,000 price tag for the Tools that would allow me to get my emails into my customers' inboxes. Since I pay my ESP $1.00/M, this will more than double my outsourced email costs.

I'll post more info when I get it.

[ChrisW]

Thanks for the update, I'm also shocked by the price tags that they're talking about.. I wonder what the one-time audit for $5,000 would achieve, that amount of money for what probably amounts to a few hours of work on their part is pretty staggering. One thought is that if you do decide to pay for the extra services from RP, that having them perform a "one-time" audit twice a year, rather than using their tools, would save you $10,000.

One thing I question is that a 10% increase in successful deliveries would equal a 10% increase in order rates.

I wonder if there's some difference in your email campaign as compared to your competitor that is giving them higher delivery rates. Are their emails possibly formatted in a more delivery-friendly fashion?