Improving deliverability to Comcast and Windows Live Hotmail

Two of the largest Internet Service Providers have recently introduced procedures designed to make it more difficult for unsolicited bulk email to be delivered to their customers. Unfortunately, your subscriber-based email may get caught up in this dragnet if you're not following these new email guidelines.

Comcast and Microsoft both have a dominating majority of customers in today's ISP market. Chances are if you're sending mass email marketing messages, a large number of your message recipients use these domains. The good news is that both Comcast and Hotmail are letting us know how they categorize emails, therefore giving you a chance to get your legitimate email messages delivered.

Here's a synopsis of the current procedures being used by both companies to prevent unsolicited bulk emails from being delivered, and what you can do to improve your own email message delivery percentages to these ISPs.

Windows Live Hotmail
Microsoft's Hotmail recently made a switch to what they now call Windows Live Hotmail. The changes with Hotmail involve more than a simple name change. These changes need attention from those who are new to email marketing, or are sending email marketing messages from a new IP address.

One major factor in determining your reputation is what Hotmail's clients are saying about you. If a client marks your email as SPAM, this is considered a complaint and a mark against the sending IP address. Other factors Hotmail takes into consideration:

Feedback from users
Windows Live Hotmail has over 250 million subscribers and has randomly selected many of these clients to participate in a junk-email reporting program. There is no indication as to how the selections are made, but purportedly they approach people who are already very familiar with the report as SPAM feature.

Sender ID record
Sender ID Framework is an email authentication technology that helps address the problem of fraudulent emails by verifying the domain name from which email is sent. Email that is SIDF compliant can be delivered more reliably. Windows Live Hotmail currently uses the Sender ID field to provide additional input to the junk email filter process, helping to determine if the email or sender is legitimate. More information on how to set up your Sender ID record and publish it can be found here

List cleanliness
Sender reputation can be adversely effected if you send messages to a large number of undeliverable email addresses. Contrary to popular belief, this is measured by many domains and used in determining your email reputation. Keep your list clean by recording bounced emails and removing them from your list. Do the same with any unsubscribe requests.

Sending consistency
Hotmail looks at emailers' "sending history." You have a better chance of getting your email through to Hotmail users if your sending practices are consistent. An example of this is sending a legitimate email message out to your list once a month, instead of once a year.

Message content
Microsoft has also continued to stick to the traditional way of determining if email messages are SPAM. It is a good idea to run your email through SPAM checkers to determine if the email has any SPAM like behaviors in it so that they can be corrected.

Hotmail delivery improvement solutions
Here are programs offered by Windows Live Hotmail designed to improve your deliverability with this ISP:

Smart Network Data Service
Smart Network Data Service is a program that you can sign up for to monitor your mail activity for irregular behavior. It will provide Activity Period, Traffic Data, Junk Mail Data, Virus and Malware infected emails, and your open proxy status. You can sign up for this service here.

Junk Mail Reporting Program
The Junk Email Reporting program sends an email notification to the sender of the message any time a MSN Hotmail or Windows Live or Hotmail user clicks the "Junk" button or "Mark as Unsafe." The sender can use this information to monitor how users respond to their emails and may use this to unsubscribe specific email addresses. You can sign up for this program here.

Sender Score Certified Email
Microsoft recommends the use of a third party company to get Sender Score Certified. This allows for you to be on a safe sender list. You can learn more about this service here.

Deliverability support
If you are carefully following Microsoft Sender policies and still have trouble sending into Hotmail, it is a good idea to contact Microsoft's Deliverability Support team. You can do so here.

Comcast
Many mass mailers have complained of having their IP address blacklisted by Comcast. This is not an uncommon occurrence, and if it happens to you it is recommended that you contact Comcast as quickly as possible to resolve the issue. Here are a few analytics Comcast uses to identify unsolicited bulk email:

Feedback from users
Comcast places a great amount of weight on complaints from their clients. If users are always pressing the junk button on your message, then you may have a difficult time getting your emails delivered to Comcast subscribers. Having a clean subscriber or opt-in list and honoring unsubscribe requests in a timely manor are key factors in reducing these complaints.

Email overload
A report has surfaced that claims mailers should limit outbound messages to Comcast addresses to six messages per second. This report further adds senders should limit their connections to the Comcast servers to 10 per IP Address. Throttling your email campaigns to Comcast subscribers appears to increase the deliverability rate greatly.

Scanning for SPAM
Comcast has recently made a switch from Brightmail Anti-SPAM technology over to Cloudmark. Cloudmark is a third party desktop software being offered to Comcast subscribers. The software scans the users email before it reaches their email clients.

This is a heuristic based program, which means it is still a good idea to run your emails through a SPAM checker to check for any behaviors or features in your emails that may be reason to have them flagged as SPAM.

List cleanliness
Again, it is always imperative that you do not send to a high amount of undeliverable addresses. This can flag you as a spammer. Always process your bounced email addresses timely and effectively.

Conclusion
Windows Live Hotmail has implemented a sender reputation policy, and Comcast indicates they are considering one as well. Your sender reputation will eventually be based on many of the factors above, currently used to determine if you are indeed sending legitimate email marketing messages.

Whether you follow all of the rules that Comcast and Microsoft have put forward or not, one benefit of compliance is the delivery improvement you will see overall. Many smaller ISPs eventually adopt these protocols themselves in an effort to relieve their own customers from SPAM. The resulting policies are designed to keep email's strength as the leading method of telecommunication.

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