OnYourMark, LLC Blog

This month‘s Pro is Kristen Day, Internet Marketing Consultant at OnYourMark, LLC. Kristen clears up rumors on email “taxes” and fees.

While email is a fantastic, free marketing tool, rumors have always circulated about email requiring fees like postal mail. Even Snopes.com, a site known for debunking urban legends, has cleared rumors about a supposed email tax.

In late January 2006, America Online announced its partnership with Goodmail Systems and controversy erupted. Goodmail is a screening service that looks into the history, credit scores and credentials of a company sending email. If the company meets Goodmail’s criteria, the company’s email is guaranteed and sent through to AOL’s users. In exchange for guaranteed delivery, companies pay a fee to Goodmail. Yahoo has also proposed using Goodmail.

While the fee may be a fraction of a cent per email, fees can quickly add up for small businesses who rely on email marketing because of its next-to-nothing cost. The screening can also hurt AOL and Yahoo users, who may not receive an email because a company is not on the Goodmail list. Some see the fees as a “tax” on email, or those on Goodmail’s list as “licensed to spam.” Despite extensive backlash, AOL has no intentions of backing down on certified mail.

At this time, there is not a universal fee for sending email. As spam problems increase, email providers may decide to implement more stringent spam filters or use third-party filtering companies like Goodmail to keep spam away. Often these fees and filters effect companies sending large amounts of email, not small companies sending a few hundred messages to a select list of users.

There are many things you can do to keep your emails from being tagged as spam. When sending email newsletters, use an opt-in subscription program like LISTMAN. LISTMAN requires users to subscribe and respond to a confirmation email before adding them to a list.

Make sure your commercial messages comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. Your email should include a truthful subject line, your complete contact information (including postal address) and a way for the recipient to opt-out of receiving messages.

Use emails at your domain (name@SampleNameHere.com), not emails from free services or Internet service providers like Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL. Spammers are notorious for using free email services. A company email adds legitimacy to your messages. You can also ask your website’s email provider what type of spam filters are in place. A free provider like AOL will implement mass filters for millions of users. An independent hosting company working on a smaller scale may tend to tailor spam control towards individual clients, not the masses. For example, we offer a spam-filtering service, Postini, which allows clients to set their own email filtering parameters.

Don’t start hoarding pennies yet to cover email costs, but be aware. Email marketing ethics will always be a hot issue, and it may be just a matter of time before small businesses or personal email users are affected by the impending rules commercial emailers face.

What would you like to ask the pro? Email your questions to askthepro@OnYourMark.com!