While e-mail advertising might not get the eye of a few more modern advertising channels to get, it’s nevertheless a tremendous manner with a view to generate leads and convert greater potentialities to your business.
A lot of companies still use email marketing to deliver campaigns, information, agendas and so many other utilities through it. But, using it is not as simple as it seems.
Using email marketing to very large mailing lists can cause some problems if you’re not careful enough. Your company domain can fall into a Block List, can be considered spam, and can even not be delivered. So, it’s very important to know the consequences of what you shouldn’t do and the tools that can help you in this process.
What is the Spamhaus Project?
The Spamhaus Project is an international non-profit organization that tracks spam and related cyber threats such as phishing, malware, and botnets. With this, Spamhaus provides real-time actionable and highly accurate threat intelligence to the Internet’s major networks, companies, and security vendors, and works with law enforcement agencies to identify and hunt for sources of spam and malware globally.
Originally founded in London in 1998, Spamhaus is currently located in Andorra la Vella, capital of Andorra, and is run by a dedicated staff of 38 investigators, forensics experts, and network engineers in 10 countries.
The Spamhaus real-time threat and reputation blocklist currently protects more than three billion user mailboxes and is responsible for blocking the vast majority of spam and malware sent on the Internet. Spamhaus data is used today by:
- most of the Internet’s ISPs;
- email service providers;
- corporations;
- universities;
- government;
- military networks.
In addition to DNS-based blocklists (DNSBL), Spamhaus generates special data for Internet firewalls and routing devices, such as Spamhaus DROP lists, botnet C&C data, and Spamhaus Response Policy Zone (RPZ) data for DNS resolvers, which Data protects millions of internet users from clicking malicious links in phishing and malware emails.
To meet public demand for its DNSBL, Spamhaus built one of the largest DNS infrastructures in the world. The Spamhaus network consists of more than 80 public DNSBL servers spread across 18 countries, serving billions of DNSBL queries per day to the public for free.
How Does Spamhaus Work?
Spamhaus Technology provides a continuously updated data source around the world that can easily provide threat intelligence to email administrators and security teams. Because of that, it is possible to block suspicious inbound emails and provide a strong first line of defense. These data sources are used:
- individuals;
- businesses of all sizes
- government departments;
- civil society organizations.
Listing criteria for Spamhaus vary widely. If you have to summarize it, like all other IP-based DNS blacklists, the list comes up when spam is seen or reported. However, since Spamhaus maintains a total of 6 different blacklists, significant granular control is possible, allowing spam to be sorted according to the needs of the end-user. Spamhaus recently added a Domain Block List (DBL) to its traditional IP-based blacklist, which will list domains that have been used in spam.
Spamhaus Block Lists
In total, there are six Spamhaus Block List that can be used according to the individual needs of each user. Following you will discover more about these Spamhaus blacklists and the difference between them.
The Spamhaus Block List: sbl.spamhaus.org
The SBL (Spamhaus Block List) shows IPs of hosts that appear to be under the control of, or in use by senders of unsolicited commercial or bulk email. Any listing in the SBL must meet Spamhaus`s internal definition of spam, which is that a message will be deemed spam if it is both commercial and bulk.
Exploits Block List: xbl.spamhaus.org
The XBL ir is a Spamhaus blacklist that contains the worst of the worst hosts on the internet, often listing hosts that are part of multi-thousand spamming and fraud networks.
The Policy Block List: pbl.spamhaus.org
While some ISP`s have business class divisions of their internet access, the residential side of their offerings does not allow one to directly submit an email from their dynamic IP connection.
The Domain Block List: dbl.spamhaus.org
The DBL maintains in the Spamhaus blacklist a list of domains, usually website URLs, that have been found within the body of emails.
ZEN Spamhaus: zen.spamhaus.org
The ZEN blacklist is Spamhaus`s combination zone. As it stands today, it is possible to make DNS queries to individual zones as listed above, combinations of them, or, use one zone, which includes them all. ZEN Spamhaus is the primary zone that contains all of Spamhaus’s data, and in turn, is the zone that most people use.
The Spamhaus DROP (Don’t Route Or Peer Lists)
The DROP listing has little or no flux and advocates that the replacement frequency with which it’s far downloaded now no longer be extra than as soon as a day.
Spamhaus Blocklist Removal
If your company domain or IP was caught by the Spamhaus Blocklist Removal, you must take action immediately. Check out some steps for you to follow through in order to regain normality and do not destroy your email reputation.
Lookup Tool: check your IP or domain
The Spamhaus Lookup Tool is a very precise and useful tool to use to check the situation of your company’s IP or domain. It will show you all the problems that you are having and why your domain/IP has been blocked. To see your reputation, you just have to access the Spamhaus Lookup Tool and put your Domain/IP there to check it.
Understanding why the email campaign delivery was blocked
One of the causes of your email campaign being blocked is if you’re sending bulk emails, that are characterized by the act of sending an email campaign to a large group of people at once. This email method can be used to send:
- marketing messages;
- newsletters;
- updates;
- coupons;
- invitations;
- product updates;
- and more.
Besides that, another characteristic of the Bulk email is that it can also be called mass email or email blasting. Most companies hire an email service provider (ESP) to handle the creation, scheduling, and delivery of marketing emails. These same systems are often used for transactional emails as well – password resets, ticket confirmations, bank statements, etc.
The key to make email marketing effective and deliverability is consistently delivering properly authenticated, well-targeted emails to engaged audiences. Well-maintained email best practices help build a strong IP and domain reputation.
Email marketing tips and best practices
There are a series of best practices and essential tools that you can follow to have a successful email marketing campaign. Following you can check what these practices are and details about them.
Make it double Opt-in (COI)
There are numerous methods to try this consisting of unmarried opt-in, double, and pre-showed opt-in to name a few. You should use a double opt-in method, that calls for recipients to now no longer most effectively click on a container for your sign-up page, however, to observe a hyperlink on your electronic mail that double verify that they intended to try this withinside the first place.
Trust – expectations should be set and delivered
The rules and nature of the email application ought to be said on the factor of subscription. Appropriate expectancies ought to be set and delivered: how often, what kind, what subjects and content, etc.
Identification – The company should be properly and clearly identified in the message itself
The business enterprise must be well and without a doubt recognized withinside the message itself and in Internet statistics inclusive of Whois. Properly registered domain names with running mail and net addresses must be used. Besides that, each area in use must pick out the business enterprise and cause an internet site that identifies that business enterprise.
Maintenance – Clean your mailing list regularly, unsubscribe requests and user-unknown bounces
Mailing lists must be saved. Unsubscribe requests and user-unknown bounces have to be eliminated promptly, without delay. The listing has to be mailed at everyday intervals. Stagnant lists initiate excessive grievance costs while they may be reactivated, even from true COI addresses.
Access SafetyMails blog to learn more about email marketing best practices and how to use them to your benefits.
How to get Delist from Spamhaus
The listing of an IP or domain by any of the Spamhaus DNSBLs or Spamhaus blacklists can be checked using the Spamhaus lookup form. And to submit a removal request you will need:
- understand that we will not be able to handle removal requests made through other channels (such as email);
- due to the number of requests, removal requests must be made by the registered owner of the domain or IP. If that is not you, you will need to contact your service provider for help.
But, if you are looking for the registered owner of the domain or IP, you should not use VPN during the removal requests from an IP address that can be associated with the requested IP or domains. Also, when you submit a removal request through the Blocklist Removal Center, make sure that you provide the correct information as such as:
- what caused the spam issue;
- what action you took to solve it;
- what further actions you take to prevent spam problems again in the future.
When these questions are answered, the request of removal can be handled appropriately.
You must be very careful in order to correct the issues of your IP or domain to recover your mailing list. If the problems have already been solved, you can access the tools at Spamhaus to see if everything is normal again, and give continuity in your campaigns.
If you liked this content about Spamhaus and want to learn more or have all the tools to achieve success and your marketing campaigns, check all that SafetyMails can provide you and contact us now!
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