Email Terminology 101

Deliverability Terminology

ISP

ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. AOL and Comcast are examples of an ISP. You sign up for their internet service and they also provide you with an email address to send and receive email.

SPAM

Emails sent out as unsolicited bulk messages. These are the messages that you did not sign up for and spammers send to you.

Sent

The number of emails that you actually sent out of the system.

Delivered

The number of emails that are actually delivered to the ISP or inbox provider. This would include the emails that the ISP let into their network and delivers to their subscribers. This does not include any emails sent out by you but blocked by the ISP.

CAN-SPAM

Acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003. This is the law in the United States that defines rules for all commercial email messages. For more information on this - http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-Compliance-Guide-for-Business or check out our Marketing 101 guide.

Unsubscribe

When a current subscriber opts out of receiving future emails. This occurs when one of your contacts clicks the unsubscribe link in your email or unsubscribes from your emails on your website.

Bounced

The number of emails that were rejected by the recipient’s mail server and therefore did not show up in an inbox. Here are 2 specific examples of bounces:

• Hard Bounce: A permanent delivery failure in which additional delivery attempts will not be successful. An example of this is an invalid email address.
• Soft Bounce: A delivery failure in which retried attempts may be successful. An example of a soft bounce would be mailbox full.

Bulked

The delivered message was placed in the intended recipient’s “Spam” or “bulk” folder.

Blocked

The message bounced because the message, IP, or sending mail server violated the policies of the recipient’s ISP. This can happen when your emails aren’t CAN-SPAM compliant.

Spam Trap

Old or abandoned email boxes that are monitored by an ISP/Blacklist in order to lure and catch spam.

Blacklist

List of addresses or domains that are not allowed entry into a particular network. You can be blacklisted after violating policies of the ISP, meaning your email messages will no longer get delivered to recipients who use the ISP.

Whitelist

List of addresses or domains that are allowed entry into a particular network. Some ISPs offer a whitelist specifically for senders who need high volume of emails to be delivered into their network. Please note that being on an ISP whitelist does not guarantee emails will get through to recipients inboxes. Suspicious content, wording, or violations can cause an email to be categorized as SPAM and risk one’s placement on a whitelist.

Feedback Loop

Provides notification back to the sender if any recipient flags a message as “SPAM” after receiving it.

Opt-In methods

These are methods that allow your customers to opt-in to your emails. Here are three specific examples of opt-in methods:

• Passive: Check box on by default.
• Confirmed: Check box off by default.
• Double-Confirmed: Check box off by default, if checked a confirmation link is sent via email to then opt-in again.

IP Address

An Internet Protocol (IP) Address is a numeric label assigned to a device on a network. In email marketing terms, it is the numeric address of the mail server that sends your email messages. Think of it as your passport to the outside world when you are sending email. Your email reputation can be based upon your IP address, as well as your sending domain.