The PoweR To Be heaRd
The Return Path Sender Score™ measures a business’ ability to communicate with its customers. every ISP uses different criteria to determine whether email should be delivered to the inbox, filtered to a spam folder, or blocked altogether. however, The Return Path Sender Score is a universal metric that predicts deliverability across ISPs with a high degree of accuracy. More importantly, by transparently laying out the key factors impacting email deliverability and explaining how they can be optimized, we help businesses increase the chances that their emails will land in customer inboxes. Simply put, the Return Path Sender Score helps businesses and ISPs communicate more effectively.
The 2012 Return Path Sender Score Benchmark Report additionally addresses: • The global email deliverability context.
• The components of the Return Path Sender Score.
• Global trends in key areas including email volume, complaints, unknown users and spam traps.
• Sector and region-specific deliverability trends.
Finally, we’ll review ways that businesses can improve their Sender Scores. as an index of an email sender’s reputation, the Sender Score is a crucial tool that ISPs can use to make deliverability decisions, and that businesses can use to improve their chances of reaching customer inboxes. when emails fail to reach inboxes, businesses fail to communicate—with a direct impact on the bottom line.
The 2012 Return Path
execuTIve SuMMaRy
• Spam levels decreased by 40% from January through april, in part due to the takedown of the Rustock botnet. • Spam levels increased 45% from June through december.
• The average IP address had a Sender Score of 25.96, compared to 90.46 for Return Path clients. Sender reputations across the globe and industry sectors were affected primarily by the following factors:
worldwide, North american senders had the best reputations with an average Sender Score of 67. The eMea (europe, Middle east and africa), aPac (asia-Pacific) and caLa (central and Latin america) regions all fared much worse with average Sender Scores of 22, 20 and 18 respectively. No country in these regions had acceptable reputation rates indicating a need to understand and follow best practices.
Social Networking sites are in need of the most improvement with an average of 20 spam traps per IP address and unknown user rates above 5%. Retailers and banking industries struggle with complaint rates of 2.96% and 3.16%. having a good sending reputation is possible. For senders achieving a Sender Score of 90 or greater, they can achieve an average delivered rate of 95%. For the major webmail providers, a Sender Score above 90 means an 81% inbox placement rate at Gmail, almost 80% at hotmail and 90% at yahoo!.
The chaLLeNGe FoR ISPS
Most Email Is Spam
There are trillions of emails sent every year, and the vast majority of them are spam.
Global Sender Score™ Distribu on
[0,10] [10,20] [20,30] [30,40] [40,50] [50,60] [60,70] [70,80] [80,90] [90,100] 70 % 60 % 50 % 40 % 30 % 20 % 10 % 0 % 90-100: Great 80-89: Good 70-79: Fair 60-69: Bad 50-59: Very Bad 01-49: Blacklist 60.00% 16.40% 2.73% 3.14% 2.62% 2.56% 1.96% 2.15% 5.45% 2.99%
after reviewing 130 million IP addresses sending nearly 20 trillion emails, we found that over 85% of these messages received by ISPs are classified as spam.
• unknown user rates or those email addresses no longer in active use • complaint rates when email recipients mark a message as spam
after a significant drop in the beginning of 2011, spam volume steadily increased after July, as did the total number of messages blocked. emails that were delivered (including emails filtered into spam folders) steadily increased throughout 2011.
It’s important to clarify what we mean by “spam.” we don’t mean emails offering you subscriptions to magazines you already receive, or credit cards you don’t need, or social networks you’re already a part of. Those emails aren’t filtered with quite as much care as they could be, but by and large the offers they’re making are legitimate.
when we talk about “spam,” we’re talking to emails you almost never see: the messages that get routed to your spam filter, or blocked before they ever reach your account. These are emails sent from “illegitimate” and “unknown” accounts as well as millions of computers infested with Trojans and running as “zombies.” These emails should never have been sent; no ISP should accept them, and this spam accounts for over 85% of all emails.
Protecting email recipients from this huge volume of spam is not quite as difficult a challenge for ISPs as it might sound. Three-quarters of illegitimate emails come from IP addresses that are completely egregious: they do not have reverse dNS; they didn’t send a single email in years and then 100,000 in a day; and so on. Their Sender Scores range from 0 to 50; handling them is easy. The challenge comes in deciding what to do with border cases: IPs that score in the 50 to 70 range. a good percentage of these are spammers, but others are legitimate senders who fail to implement deliverability best practices. Inevitably, IPs will mistakenly identify some of the latter as spammers.
Email Volume 40M 35M 30M 25M 20M 15M 10M 5M
Global Average of Total DELIVERED Global Average of Total ATTEMPTED Global Average of Total BLOCKED
The chaLLeNGe FoR BuSINeSSeS
Not Becoming Collateral Damage in the War Against Spammers
very few legitimate businesses will find their IPs scored between 0 and 40 for a prolonged period of time. excepting those who have had their IPs hacked by spammers, this range consists almost entirely of senders engaging in practices that are more accurately described as “criminal” than “sloppy.” however, a significant percentage of businesses might find themselves with scores between 60 and 80, with the result that many of their emails will be blocked or filtered as spam. The opportunity costs are significant: without inbox placement, click-through and conversion rates fall to nearly zero—taking revenue and RoI down with them. In fact, businesses with Sender Scores ranging from “Bad” to “very Bad” fail to place nearly 80 percent of their emails in recipient inboxes.
Sender Score Average Delivered
0 - 60 21%
61 - 70 67%
71 - 80 68%
81 - 90 92%
91 - 100 95%
Sender Score Bands and Average Delivered
Inbox Percent
Sender Score Gmail Hotmail Yahoo
ISPs are understandably eager to protect their users. But, in doing so, they may be blocking or filtering emails from legitimate senders. while ISPs continually work to improve their filtering algorithms, the onus is on businesses to improve their deliverability best practices.
In this Return Path report, we’ll review the factors that impact inbox deliverability in detail, as well as global patterns we discovered in 2011. Finally, we’ll review deliverability best practices and how they can improve your Sender Score.
The coMPoNeNTS oF The ReTuRN PaTh SeNdeR ScoRe
The Return Path Sender Score is calculated on the basis of various sending behaviors. In our review of global deliverability trends in 2011, we’ll review three of these components in detail.
Complaints: The volume and percentage of emails from an IP address that recipients mark “Spam.” Unknown Users: The percentage of emails sent from an IP address to non-existent addresses.
Spam Traps: The number of emails sent from an IP address to decoy accounts ISPs use to catch spammers.
Return Path's Impact on Sender Scores™
Return Path Client Average Global Average
90.46
GLoBaL TReNdS
Complaints
“complaints” are registered when email recipients mark a message “spam.” ISP algorithms are crucial, but no metric is more important than user-reported complaints. as a result, this is the single most important indicator affecting email deliverability. Specifically, our data show that email senders need to keep their complaint rates at one-tenth of one percent or below in order to avoid negatively impacting inbox placement.
Total complaint volume spiked at two points in 2011. The first was in late-February and early-March. The second, more predictably, was in mid-November, as businesses ramped up email volume for the holiday season.
complaint rates rose along with complaint volume early in the year. however, while complaint volume spiked during the holiday season, complaint rates were comparable to the highs in late-February and early-March. This is consistent with patterns in previous years. Total email volume rises to such an extent during the holiday season that recipients can’t keep up. Rather than marking this huge volume of holiday messages spam, many recipients simply deleted messages, causing a drop in overall complaint volume. Furthermore, users have no incentive to complain about multiple messages from the same sender. a single IP might send three messages a day during the holiday season, but many recipients will only mark one of them “spam,” driving overall complaint rates further down.
Unknown Users
“unknown users” are email addresses no longer in active use. These include email addresses that have never existed, as well as abandoned email addresses.
Businesses are unlikely to send emails to addresses that have never existed, unless they are automatically generating addresses or engaging in other “black hat” practices. Businesses are more likely to send emails to addresses that are no longer in use. Most often, this is because they have kept addresses on their lists despite a long-term lack of engagement. however, the highest volume of unknown users emails are the result of businesses collecting their users’ address books and sending messages to the entire list. (This accounts for the high percentage of unknown user among social networking sites, described in the Sector analysis below.)
It is inevitable that businesses will have unknown user addresses in their lists. Therefore, ISPs only block senders if their unknown user rate is as high as 5 to 10 percent. however, businesses should still aim to keep their unknown user rate as low as 2 percent.
Average WorldWide Complaint Rates
Spam Traps
while “unknown users” are email accounts that happen to be out of use, ISPs set up spam traps for the express purpose of catching spammers. an unknown user rate of up to 5 percent is acceptable, but sending messages to even a single spam trap can kill a sender’s reputation. In fact, many Blacklist operators use Spam Traps to determine which addresses to block. There are two kinds of spam traps:
1. Email accounts that have never been in use. These account for the majority of spam traps.
2. Recycled email accounts. More rarely, ISPs use abandoned accounts as spam traps. (To exclude legitimate senders,
they first send codes to previous recipients indicating that the account no longer exists.)
as with unknown users, social networking sites send the highest number of messages to spam traps, for reasons explained in the Sector analysis below.
Key ReGIoNaL TReNdS
North american Sender Scores are significantly higher than scores in other regions. Many regions (including china, Brazil, Spain, Italy, and even France) deliver spam almost exclusively.
In all regions, Return Path client averages far outperform regional trends.
Canada 70.22 85
Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 22 85
United Kingdom 50.75 91.5 Spain 26.84 82.4 Italy 22.42 91.1 Germany 33.24 84.6 France 47.43 84.2 Asia-Pacific (APAC) 20 72 China 35.56 75.9 Australia 55.79 94.0
Central and Lan America (CALA) 18 82
Brazil 15.88 83.7
Key Regional Trends by Region
Region Average Sender Score Return Path Client Average
North America (NOAM) 67 90
despite having the highest sending reputations globally, the u.S. and canada have issues with complaints, unknown users and spam traps. The u.S. also has very few restrictions around non-permission acquisition of email addresses, which puts marketers at risk for acquiring spam traps and receiving high subscriber complaints.
The most surprising thing about reputation metrics in europe is that they are so low when they have some of the strictest laws around acquiring email address. For example, in Germany where double opt-in has been seen as the law, their Sender Score was 33 and they had above average complaint rates, unknown users and spam traps. France, having a Sender Score of 47, had one of the highest Sender Scores in europe, but had the biggest problem with unknown users and spam traps, indicating that marketers have issues with list hygiene and keeping their lists up-to-date. Italy and Spain also had slightly above average complaints, unknown users and spam traps with their Sender Scores coming in very low at 22 and 27 respectively. The uK had the highest Sender Score of 51, but is struggling with high unknown user rates of 6% and high average spam trap rates of an average of six per IP address. This indicates that european marketers are at high risk for blocking and filtering.
EMEA
Average Average Average Unknown Average
Sender Score Complaint Rate User Rate Spam Traps
France 47 3% 10% 11.48 Germany 33 6% 7% 3.52 Italy 22 3% 5% 6.58 Spain 27 2% 6% 6.77 United Kingdom 51 1% 6% 6.35 North America
Average Average Average Unknown Average
Sender Score Complaint Rate User Rate Spam Traps
Canada 70 1% 6% 4.90
australia has typically high deliverability rates, which is somewhat reflected in their Sender Score. however, with unknown user rates at 9% and and having nearly six spam traps per IP address, they need to focus on how they acquire and handle new and and old addresses.
CALA
Average Average Average Unknown Average
Sender Score Complaint Rate User Rate Spam Traps
Brazil 16 3% 7% 4.87
APAC
Average Average Average Unknown Average
Sender Score Complaint Rate User Rate Spam Traps
Australia 56 2% 9% 5.71
China 36 1% 7% 1.72
historically, Brazil has struggled with deliverability and their reputation. It’s an emerging market and email marketing is relatively new. additionally, Brazil sends out a lot of email which would be considered spam which is causing an issue with their extremely low Sender Score of 16. with a complaint rate of 3%, unknown user rate of 7% and average spam traps at nearly five, most marketers have a long road ahead in resolving their deliverability and reputation issues.
Key SecToR TReNdS
Most industry sectors performed at or near global averages. But there were significant outliers in a number of categories:
1. High frequency of spam traps among social networking senders. one of the most important tools social networks use
to grow their subscriber base is the address books of their current users. however, this presents a risk: most email recipients do not actively manage their address books, resulting in numerous unused or abandoned emails being present. as a result, social networking sites were hitting an average of 20 spam traps.
2. Social networking and gaming had the highest degree of unknown users. For reasons outlined above, social
networking and gaming sites also have unusually high unknown user rates.
3. The highest complaint rates occurred in social networking, banking, retail, and corporate services. other
indus-tries had complaint rates above two percent, but social networking, banking, retail, and corporate services were the only sectors to approach or breach a three percent average.
Note: all sector data refers to Return Path customers. (while we can categorize IP addresses by region, we cannot use IPs alone to determine industry sector.)
Total Spam Traps by Sector 25 20 15 10 5 0 .1 2.0 .02 .05 .0 .08 20.8 .09 Bank ing Consumer Produ cts Consu mer S ervices Corporate Se rvices Gaming Retail Socia l Netw orking Third-P arty L ist Vendors
coNcLuSIoN
Improving Your Return Path Sender Score
a healthy Return Path Sender Score is no more optional for businesses than a healthy credit score. Neglect your email deliverability reputation and you’ll fail to reach thousands of your customers. and even if your emails are delivered, a poor Sender Score could mean that they aren’t reaching recipient inboxes. Given how infrequently email recipients elevate messages from the spam folder, that’s as good as being blocked.
The first step toward improving your Sender Score is finding out what it is. we offer free access to our Sender Score to any sender, receiver or consumer of email at our reputation portal: http://www.senderscore.org. Senders and receivers can register with senderscore.org for free to gain access to detailed reports on the metrics that drive their sending reputation.
The next step is to reduce your complaint rate:
• Sign up for feedback loops with your ISP(s). This service, provided by nearly every ISP, lets you know every time a recipient marks one of your messages “spam.”
• Periodically analyze your complaints to locate patterns of subscriber discontent. If particular offers or subject lines perform poorly, quickly fix them.
Finally, practice the basics of list hygiene:
• collect good, clean data about your email subscriber base. • Track bounces and remove unknown users.
MeThodoLoGy
aBouT ReTuRN PaTh
Return Path makes email work better by scoring and certifying email senders from around the world. we help marketers, publishers and other large-volume email senders increase their response rates by providing the world’s leading inbox deliverability solution. we help mailbox providers and email administrators at ISPs and enterprises block unwelcome and malicious email by providing near real-time IP reputation scores and other data-driven tools. Taken as a whole, these tools and services improve the consumer experience of email by protecting them from spam, phishing and other abuse. Return Path offers free access to Sender Score, the email reputation measure compiled through our cooperative data network of ISPs and other email receivers, at our reputation portal: http://www.senderscore.org. Information about Return Path can be found at http://www.returnpath.net.
Europe Germany Neuer wall 80 20354 hamburg, Germany Phone : +49 (0)40 822 138-438 North America New York
304 Park avenue South, 7th floor New york, Ny 10010, uSa Phone : +1 212-905-5500 California
100 Mathilda Place, Suite 100 Sunnyvale, ca 94086, uSa Phone : +1 408-328-5000 Colorado
8001 arista Place, Suite 300 Broomfield, co 80021, uSa Phone : +1 303-999-3100 Australia
South America
Contact Us
Return Path conducted this study by monitoring data from its Reputation Network from January to december 2011. This study tracked the reputation rates for more than 130 million IP addresses sending nearly 20 trillion emails to ISPs in Return Path’s Reputation Network. For each IP address, Return Path recorded total messages sent, delivered and blocked. we also reviewed unknown user, complaint, and spam trap rates for each IP address. we assign each IP address its own score, called a Sender Score, based on these data points.
Australia
Level 20, 201 Sussex Street Sydney NSw 2000, australia Phone : +61 2 9006 1591 United Kingdom 12 Melcombe Place London, Nw1 6JJ, uK Phone : +44 (0) 845 002 0006 France
171 avenue charles de Gaulle 92200 Neuilly sur Seine, France Phone : +33 (0)1 82 88 59 75 Brazil
Av. Brig. Faria Lima, n.º 1690 – Cj. 142
São Paulo – SP CEP 01451-001