SUMMER 2024

32 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

32 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Joe Dysart Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Thousand Oaks, California. A journalist for 20 years, his articles have appeared in more than 40 publications, including The New York Times and The Financial Times of London. During the past decade, his work has focused exclusively on ecommerce. Telephone: 631-256-6602; web: www.joedysart.com; email: joe@dysartnewsfeatures.com GOOGLE AND YAHOO!’S CRACKDOWN ON EMAIL: A QUICK TRIP TO THE SPAM FOLDER Many fastener distributors are finding it tougher to reach the inboxes of customers and potential customers -- due to a crackdown on email marketing by Google and Yahoo! Officially launched in February, the stricter rules are beginning to trigger significant pain. “Nearly 25 percent of e-commerce retailers are poised to experience significant drops in deliverability,” due to strict new email marketing rules from Google and Yahoo!, according to Amy Chan, strategic support manager, Open Moves (www.openmoves.com), an email marketing service provider. Specifically, Google and Yahoo! have teamed-up to auto-route marketing emails sent over their mail services directly to spam folders -- if those marketing emails skirt commonly accepted anti-spam practices. Plus, Google and Yahoo! are also penalizing emarketers who send more than .3% of messages they characterize as spam, according to Gautam Rishi, CEO, One Shot (www.oneshot.ai), an email marketing service provider. Says One Shot’s Rishi: “Spray-and-pray is done. The consequences for violating these new requirements are high. Frequent offenders will find it harder and harder to hit the inbox -- and may have their emails blocked entirely. Serious cases can see email accounts suspended.” Adds Rishi: “ What does 0.3% look like? Let’s make it concrete: If your company sends 1,000 emails, only 3 complaints put you at 0.3%. And getting your spam rate back below that level is an uphill battle.” Even worse: Fastener distributors identified as CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE MANY EMAIL MARKETERS ARE FINDING THAT MORE OF THEIR EMAILS ARE HITTING THE SPAM FOLDER -- DUE TO A CRACKDOWN BY GOOGLE AND YAHOO! especially delinquent spammers could see all the email sent from their company -- both promotional and otherwise -- suddenly blocked by Google and Yahoo! That means if your marketing department is using your company domain for marketing emails -- and it’s spotlighted as an especially delinquent spammer -- no one at your fastener distributorship will be able to send email to Google and Yahoo managed email addresses. Period. Dire enough on its face, that prospect is even more dystopian than many businesses may realize. The reason: Google and Yahoo! not only offer free email addresses branded with the Gmail and Yahoo domains. They also offer private label email services -- featuring the domains of their customers -- which many businesses use to handle all their email needs. The result: Any marketing email sent via those private label services is also subject to the same strict, new standards that have been rolled-out by Google and Yahoo! CONTINUED ON PAGE 112