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Let me rephrase your query. If you send 2 emails and 1 bounces, then your SBUR would be 50% and so will you be banned? NO. We predicted this would happen. The

by sessy 8y ago

Let me rephrase your query. If you send 2 emails and 1 bounces, then your SBUR would be 50% and so will you be banned? NO. We predicted this would happen. The SBUR doesn't kick in for the first few thousand mails. Over time your list gets cleaner (because we keep track of bounces, unsubscribes and dont send them emails from next time on.) (I'm one of the engineers who developed SESS.)

massaman_yams 8y ago
Dirty spammer hack: include 50% of recipients as addresses you control, and that won't ever bounce, complain, or unsubscribe. That pushes SBUR down, likely below threshold. These are often addresses created manually by 'click farmers' so they don't have obvious patterns which could enable an email service provider to identify them. (I'm still working on figuring out ways to detect this...) Or, send spam to a new address via another service, then only use SESS to send to the ones who had opened or clicked on the other service. This is known as 'waterfalling'. Using this method, bounce rates can approach zero, and complaints/unsubscribes are likely to stay below 1% each - but make no mistake, ISPs can and will often still detect the email as spam. You will need more complex ways to detect approaches like these, as well as other forms of spam/abuse. I would suggest starting with looking at thresholds for bounces, unsubscribes, and complaints independently - sometimes complaint rates of 0.1% can be a strong indicator of spam. Related - don't limit your contractually-defined recourse to just SBUR rates. I would recommend including terms that allow you to ban or suspend users for any form of spam or abusive activity, "in the sole judgement of SESS.EMAIL" or similar. (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.)
- sessy 8y ago
  Hey, thanks for the points. Will be sure to factor these in.
insomniacity 8y ago
I mean, that's also an interesting question to ask, and a reasonable answer. But it's not quite my original point - which is that if I don't know my SBUR rate, that would put me off ever starting to use this service. Though of course your competitors may have similar rates I'm just not aware of.

by sessy 8y ago

massaman_yams 8y ago

Dirty spammer hack: include 50% of recipients as addresses you control, and that won't ever bounce, complain, or unsubscribe. That pushes SBUR down, likely below threshold. These are often addresses created manually by 'click farmers' so they don't have obvious patterns which could enable an email service provider to identify them. (I'm still working on figuring out ways to detect this...) Or, send spam to a new address via another service, then only use SESS to send to the ones who had opened or clicked on the other service. This is known as 'waterfalling'. Using this method, bounce rates can approach zero, and complaints/unsubscribes are likely to stay below 1% each - but make no mistake, ISPs can and will often still detect the email as spam. You will need more complex ways to detect approaches like these, as well as other forms of spam/abuse. I would suggest starting with looking at thresholds for bounces, unsubscribes, and complaints independently - sometimes complaint rates of 0.1% can be a strong indicator of spam. Related - don't limit your contractually-defined recourse to just SBUR rates. I would recommend including terms that allow you to ban or suspend users for any form of spam or abusive activity, "in the sole judgement of SESS.EMAIL" or similar. (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.)

sessy 8y ago
Hey, thanks for the points. Will be sure to factor these in.

insomniacity 8y ago

I mean, that's also an interesting question to ask, and a reasonable answer. But it's not quite my original point - which is that if I don't know my SBUR rate, that would put me off ever starting to use this service. Though of course your competitors may have similar rates I'm just not aware of.