Another thing you can do to ward off spam complaints is by accepting these complaints yourself. Put your unsubscribe link at the top of your email but change the wording of the link to say “Mark This Email As Spam”. If anyone clicks this link they’ll be brought to the unsubscribe page and you’ll have one less complaint against you. You could also setup a special email address from spam complaints (eg. spam-complaints@your-domain.com) and include it in your emails.
If you do get blacklisted with a particular email provider it’s very seldom permanent unless you’re a repeat offender. Just ask the people at the email provider’s Abuse department (eg. abuse@comcast.net) to remove the block and they usually will. You can improve your case for being de-blacklisted by forwarding them a copy of the confirmation email you received when someone signed up for your mailing list.
A pro-active measure you can take to ensure your emails are reaching inboxes is by applying for an email providers whitelist when they offer it. A whitelist is the opposite of a blacklist: when you’re on an email provider’s whitelist all your emails automatically get delivered to the inbox.
Here is the feedback loop registration info for the most popular US and Canadian email providers. You’ll need to know what your own IP address is when signing up for each feedback loop. You can find that info out at http://www.whatismyip.com/
If you’re not from North America or there are many email providers in your database that aren’t in the below list then contact these email providers at their abuse@ or postmaster@ email address (eg. abuse@comcast.net, postmaster@aol.com). Be sure to include the following information in your email when you register:
- Your Full Name
- Your Company Name
- Your Telephone Number
- The IP address you’re sending email from
Most feedback loop registrations are processed within 24-72 hours. You should get a confirmation email from the provider informing you that you’ve been accepted, rejected or if they require more information from you.
Yahoo
http://feedbackloop.yahoo.net/index.php
USA.NET
http://fbl.usa.net/
AOL
http://www.postmaster.aol.com/Postmaster.FeedbackLoop.html
Whitelist registration: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/whitelist/
United Online (also NetZero & Juno)
http://www.unitedonline.net/postmaster/whitelisted.html
Comcast
http://feedback.comcast.net/
RoadRunner (also Time Warner Cable)
http://feedback.postmaster.rr.com/
Bluetie (also Excite)
http://feedback.bluetie.com/
Earthlink
fblrequest@abuse.earthlink.net
Outblaze (mail.com)
postmaster@outblaze.com
Gmail
N/A – Gmail doesn’t accept white listing requests nor do they provide feedback loops. They use contact lists plus extensive filters to determine what gets delivered to an inbox.
Spamcop
http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=ispsignupform
Mailtrust (Rackspace)
http://fbl.apps.rackspace.com/
Tucows (OpenSRS)
http://fbl.hostedemail.com/
