Is a Feedback loop just Email Noise?

Is a Feedback loop just email noise?

Thinking about Feedback loops?

Email has many handlers, which translates into “not all your email will be delivered as intended.”  When an ISP receives many complaints about a particular email going through their email servers (where “many” is a number based on the discretion of the ISP), the ISP may deliver those messages to the recipient’s junk folder or decide not to deliver those messages at all.  (Complaints can be collected on report spam pages, webmail, email clients or other.)


If you’re the originator of the message, that isn’t good news as your marketing efforts are wasted: your intended recipients may never look at their junk folder or worse yet, they never received your email message because it was never delivered.

Consider a typical (major) ISP, such as AOL.  AOL like all ISP’s (for a variety of reasons) want to protect the in-boxes of their email recipients from SPAM and unwanted junk mail.  Ideally, they want to handle incoming email problems before they get out of hand and quickly resolve those “Report Spam” button issues. One way they do this is using a communication system known as FBL or “complaint” Feedback Loops.
Feedback loops are:

• A service that several major ISPs provide on an individual basis, to bulk mailers such as an ESP (Email Service Provider) like Dundee Internet Services.
  • An agreement between a major ISP and an ESP, where the ISP automatically forwards SPAM complaints originating from the ISP’s email box user to the ESP.  (The  sender’s organizations)
  • Used by the ESP to automatically removed the offering email address.
  • Critical for good list hygiene.

Feedback loops can:

• Identify companies that want a preemptive approach to reduce the amount of spam sent to their users, those companies that are diligent about monitoring their mailings for abusive or otherwise unwanted content.
• Streamline and automate the spam reporting process with specific identifiable-readable parts of an email:  using various headers used to describe the structure of MIME messages (RFC2045 and RFC1341)

Bottom line, as an ESP or any entity running mail servers with bulk mail distribution should sign up with the feedback loops programs as it’s a good way to curtail spam and maintain a good IP reputation.  Marketers using an ESP with FeedBack Loops benefit too, their ISP is a responsible sender and as a result, a responsible sender delivers their email.
Which ISP’s offer Feedback Loop agreements, check out this partial list
http://www.mequoda.com/articles/email-marketing/10-email-feedback-loop-lists/?floater=99