SpamHaus Effecting 1ShoppingCart Autoresponders
I’ve tested it time and again and the results were the same - my Aweber autoresponder outperform my 1ShoppingCart / Marketers Choice autoresponders every time..
That’s the main reason why I’m now trying to move away completely from 1SC. As good as they are, if my emails are not getting delivered then all the other bells and whistles don’t really matter.
Anyway, if you’re a 1ShoppingCart user you may want to take notice of this email they sent out recently, about their emails getting flagged by SpamHaus:
As of May 7th, 2007, we have identified a SpamHaus listing against our email service. SpamHaus, a third-party European based internet interest group, operates and monitors a list of potential Spam IP addresses online and provides that list to small ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) worldwide. This list is used by recipient ISP’s to help filter out Spam email.
We first encountered SpamHaus’ no-warning brand of justice in May of 2006. At that time we took their listing as a word of caution and began implementing new list management policies to better enforce ‘best practices’ amongst all our merchants. We have joined several email organizations such as Habeas and ESPCoalition to draw on their resources and research to provide the best possible permission based email services and tools.
We improved and expanded our opt-in process and made the double opt-in a default for all new accounts. We have provided better tools in the Autoresponder and broadcast sections to help opt-in old clients. We initiated feedback loops with major ISP’s worldwide to actively fight Spam as it happens. We have adhered more closely to CanSpam by implementing several changes, such as adding a signature to all outgoing mail and NO email leaves our system without a viable opt-out link. We even implemented a two-tier email system where legitimate businesses which adhere to email best-practices are rewarded with a ‘cleaner’ IP address from which their email is sent.
We are constantly working to improve and better your service.
Yet, despite making every effort to meet SpamHaus’ best practice policies, they have again made the decision to block all of the IP’s we use for our business and disrupt thousands of active, legitimate business owners who adhere to the recommended double opt-in procedure with their email lists.And, while we sympathize with and otherwise encourage SpamHaus’ core goal to help track, prevent and stamp out Spam, we cannot agree with or support their machinations to indiscriminately disrupt legitimate business owners as a haphazard solution to preventing unwanted bulk email from a very few offenders.
After all our changes over the past year we would like to feel we can hold our chins up, having put forth our best efforts to provide a reliable, responsive, and professional service with integrity, and would like to apologize to all our merchants that you may have been caught up in this and had your businesses adversely affected by such an unreasonable action of this self-policed organization.
The good news is, SpamHaus is used primarily by smaller ISP’s worldwide and not by major email providers. And while no blocked email is good, our monitoring of the situation so far has shown that less than 15% of outgoing email is being affected.
We are currently endeavoring to clear this block against our service by utilizing the limited channels provided by SpamHaus. As an immediate measure, we have changed the IP addresses and domains utilized by our Confirmed Email Tier (everyone who uses the double opt-in procedure), as well as those that handle all Opt-in Confirmations and Order Notices.
Despite their acrimonious measures, it is SpamHaus’ remorseless actions we disagree with and not the message they claim to work under.
We have always, and will continue to strongly encourage following email best practices to ensure a responsive, clean mailing list. As many successful business owners know, using a double opt-in system will eliminate suspicious signups and help ensure that only those people who WANT to be on your list remain.
We will continue to work through this challenge and keep you updated on our progress.
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2 Comments »
Gobala, sorry to hear you will be leaving our service.
Since you took the time to help spread the word about SpamHaus’ unreasonable actions this week, I wanted to post an update with you, for your readers…
As of this morning, May 8th, 1ShoppingCart has solved the SpamHaus block and ALL email is being delivered once again.
I would be interested to learn more about exactly HOW you have seen aweber out-perform our email service as we have comparable delivery rates and up-times. If you ever want to discuss it, you have my email address.
Cheers
Michael Valiant
http://blog.1Shoppingcart.com
Hi Michael,
Yes I’ve been using a private label version 1SC at MarketersChoice.com for almost 2 years now. I love the fact that 1SC is so integrated with all the tools I need including link tracking and payment processing. It makes it so easy to track advertising, set-up a lot of products, etc.
But I’ve always had bad response by email marketing, so when a friend suggested i use Aweber instead, I did in August 06. A few months back, I had a list of 8000 in 1SC and 8000 in Aweber, so i started testing.
With the same email copy, I found that the Aweber emails get delivered faster, and generates a higher click-through rate. I’m using the GoTryThis software so I can see live stats right after I send out emails on both systems.
Therefore I concluded that although the report shows 90% delivery rate, most of these emails are probably being delivered to the spam folders, and that the spam “bounce” stats in 1SC is not very accurate.
Now that the email list is reaching 10,000, after which I will have to pay more every month, I just don’t see the benefit of staying. I’m shifting 100% Aweber and also using JV Manager 2. JVM2 is nowhere as user-friendly as 1SC but something I earner is that no system can provide everything..