Am I crazy or iContact being crazy??

Jardini

New member
Dec 13, 2007
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台北
I sent out an email to about 3.5k subscribers in my list and about 30 of them marked my email as spam then iContact froze my account.

That's less than 1%

Not to mention I got the list from people either bought my product on my site or input their information, but didn't make a purchase. It is a pure whitehat good list.

I also browse around the web and saw a blog post about someone email their list of 8.8k subscribers, got 24 complains then account got froze by iContact.

This is pretty ridiculous. Is this pretty standard in email marketing? Can someone with experience in email marketing chip in?

PS. Their support just emailed me and told me if you get more than 0.1% (Yes, 0.1%, 1 out of 1000 emails) complain rate from someone using a yahoo email address, they will freeze your account.

I signed up for a yearly subscription plan, I want to cancel and they won't give me partial refund.

wtf iContact?, seriously, wtf??
 


Any of those companies are extremely strict. Some offer a little more room than others. Sounds like you needed to scrub your list a bit better. Try to get the list back with the 30 complaints so that you can remove them for future. I don't agree with the method of determining spam since most people select all and spam everything even their friends emails. There needs to be a better way but there isn't yet.

Either get them to double opt-in or send them a welcome email so that they can remove themselves or at least filter out those that don't want your mails.

But yeah 30 out of 3.5 is a lot. Some don't allow you more than 0.03% complaints ;)
 
How new is your account? I have an account with Aweber that's like 4 years old but I never have problems with spam rates even when it's high as fuck. Only had problems with "misleading" subject lines.
 
iContact has disabled some business accounts of mine, they are very very strict with their platform. I ended up eventually exploring new options once their deliverability dropped in the last couple months.

Too many people using it now or something.
 
I sent out an email to about 3.5k subscribers in my list and about 30 of them marked my email as spam then iContact froze my account.

That's less than 1%

Not to mention I got the list from people either bought my product on my site or input their information, but didn't make a purchase. It is a pure whitehat good list.

I also browse around the web and saw a blog post about someone email their list of 8.8k subscribers, got 24 complains then account got froze by iContact.

This is pretty ridiculous. Is this pretty standard in email marketing? Can someone with experience in email marketing chip in?

PS. Their support just emailed me and told me if you get more than 0.1% (Yes, 0.1%, 1 out of 1000 emails) complain rate from someone using a yahoo email address, they will freeze your account.

I signed up for a yearly subscription plan, I want to cancel and they won't give me partial refund.

wtf iContact?, seriously, wtf??
Hey Jardini,

I completely agree with you that spam complaints are a pain in the ass. But, hopefully, I can help you understand how complaints are received and measured.

When you send out using an ESP, like iContact, you are using their IPs which have been whitelisted with the ISPs (Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, etc.). iContact has to maintain their good sending reputation with the ISPs; therefore, they have to take action on accounts who generate spam complaints.

Now, as you know, spam complaints are generated when a subscriber of yours marks the message as spam in their email client. Because most people look at the "mark as spam" button as an easy way to unsubscribe, it can be a nightmare to a marketer to control these complaints. The downfall is that the ISP doesn't care why the subscriber marked it as spam. Their (ISP) goal is to make sure the subscriber stays with them and will do what they can to make sure they only receive emails they opt in to.

Now, when you look at the reporting of your messages in iContact, it will show you the total number of complaints received. While this is a good judge of how your message did, iContact has to look at the total number of complaints received with each individual ISP. This detailed reporting is not visible to you.

The acceptable threshold is usually between 0.1% and 0.3%. That means, 1 -3 complaints per 1000 subscribers for that ISP. So, if you sent to list that has 1000 AOL subscribers and generated 5 complaints from AOL users, that is .5% which is above the threshold.

If iContact allowed you to continue to send and generate complaints, it could impact the sending reputation of iContact with the ISP. This is why their Deliverability team disables sending to get a chance to talk with you about your account and come up with an action plan to try and resolve the spam complaint issues.

I would recommend contact the Deliverability team about your issue and seeing what you can do to resolve the issue. They will also take the time to inform you more about how deliverability works and how to be a better email marketer.

I hope that helps!

inboxd
 
Hey Jardini,

I completely agree with you that spam complaints are a pain in the ass. But, hopefully, I can help you understand how complaints are received and measured.

When you send out using an ESP, like iContact, you are using their IPs which have been whitelisted with the ISPs (Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, etc.). iContact has to maintain their good sending reputation with the ISPs; therefore, they have to take action on accounts who generate spam complaints.

Now, as you know, spam complaints are generated when a subscriber of yours marks the message as spam in their email client. Because most people look at the "mark as spam" button as an easy way to unsubscribe, it can be a nightmare to a marketer to control these complaints. The downfall is that the ISP doesn't care why the subscriber marked it as spam. Their (ISP) goal is to make sure the subscriber stays with them and will do what they can to make sure they only receive emails they opt in to.

Now, when you look at the reporting of your messages in iContact, it will show you the total number of complaints received. While this is a good judge of how your message did, iContact has to look at the total number of complaints received with each individual ISP. This detailed reporting is not visible to you.

The acceptable threshold is usually between 0.1% and 0.3%. That means, 1 -3 complaints per 1000 subscribers for that ISP. So, if you sent to list that has 1000 AOL subscribers and generated 5 complaints from AOL users, that is .5% which is above the threshold.

If iContact allowed you to continue to send and generate complaints, it could impact the sending reputation of iContact with the ISP. This is why their Deliverability team disables sending to get a chance to talk with you about your account and come up with an action plan to try and resolve the spam complaint issues.

I would recommend contact the Deliverability team about your issue and seeing what you can do to resolve the issue. They will also take the time to inform you more about how deliverability works and how to be a better email marketer.

I hope that helps!

inboxd

COOL STORY BRO, TELL IT AGAIN
 
Call and speak with their deliverability group. They may cut you some slack.
Explain the situation (i.e. all opt-ins), show that the email wasn't spammy, etc.

Basically, Yahoo & AOL are the culprits. The threshold is very low, and they make it very easy for people to complain.

Also, with any of these ESPs, be sure to back up your data on a regular basis in the event that they cut you off.


People are suggesting mailing on your own. If there's a good cost-effective solution for that, please post a link. Assume a list size of 100K or less.
 
COOL STORY BRO, TELL IT AGAIN

That's actually good information inboxd contributed, who the fuck are you again?

to Compound - Their deliverability team already resolved it for me. It is just crazy how low the threshold is