Email open rate problem

[Steve at Smartmailer]

I have had until recently email open rates of 20%+. My list is clean and mainly hotmail domain.
I'm sending via Amazon SES and in recent months the open rate has dropped to 1-2% for no reason. The domain I send from and the links I use are all whitelisted.
Does anyone have any ideas? Has something changed ou there in recent months?

 

[Graybeard]

Interesting you say mostly *hotmail* domain. Those are very old email adys
Hotmail is a 301 too
======

barry@paragon-DS-7:~$ curl -L -I -A "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible;)" 'https://www.hotmail.com/'
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 0
Location: https://outlook.live.com/owa/
Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: F0EAB8B1E51E401B8EA539BBB1B982B2 Ref B: CHGEDGE1417 Ref C: 2018-12-28T21:44:33Z
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2018 21:44:32 GMT

HTTP/1.1 440 Login Timeout
Content-Length: 154
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Set-Cookie: HostSwitchPrg=; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-1988 21:44:33 GMT; path=/; secure
Set-Cookie: OptInPrg=; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-1988 21:44:33 GMT; path=/; secure
request-id: 796b2ef0-b070-460c-9452-3b1a96c3bc82
X-CalculatedFETarget: BL0PR0102CU001.internal.outlook.com
X-BackEndHttpStatus: 440
X-FEProxyInfo: BL0PR0102CA0027.PROD.EXCHANGELABS.COM
X-CalculatedBETarget: BL0PR1701MB2465.namprd17.prod.outlook.com
X-BackEndHttpStatus: 440
X-OWA-DiagnosticsInfo: 1;0;0
X-BackEnd-Begin: 2018-12-28T21:44:33.449
X-BackEnd-End: 2018-12-28T21:44:33.449
X-DiagInfo: BL0PR1701MB2465
X-BEServer: BL0PR1701MB2465
X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-RUM-Validated: 1
X-FEServer: BL0PR0102CA0027
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-FEServer: DM5PR17CA0051
X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: BB9701C3791741A2A30D4293F7A56EB3 Ref B: CHGEDGE1217 Ref C: 2018-12-28T21:44:33Z
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2018 21:44:33 GMT

That's probably the *change*? IDK ....

WELCOME ABOARD ...

_______________________

 

[Steve at Smartmailer]

Interesting you say mostly *hotmail* domain. Those are very old email adys
Hotmail is a 301 too
======

barry@paragon-DS-7:~$ curl -L -I -A "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible;)" 'https://www.hotmail.com/'
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 0
Location: https://outlook.live.com/owa/
Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: F0EAB8B1E51E401B8EA539BBB1B982B2 Ref B: CHGEDGE1417 Ref C: 2018-12-28T21:44:33Z
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2018 21:44:32 GMT

HTTP/1.1 440 Login Timeout
Content-Length: 154
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Set-Cookie: HostSwitchPrg=; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-1988 21:44:33 GMT; path=/; secure
Set-Cookie: OptInPrg=; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-1988 21:44:33 GMT; path=/; secure
request-id: 796b2ef0-b070-460c-9452-3b1a96c3bc82
X-CalculatedFETarget: BL0PR0102CU001.internal.outlook.com
X-BackEndHttpStatus: 440
X-FEProxyInfo: BL0PR0102CA0027.PROD.EXCHANGELABS.COM
X-CalculatedBETarget: BL0PR1701MB2465.namprd17.prod.outlook.com
X-BackEndHttpStatus: 440
X-OWA-DiagnosticsInfo: 1;0;0
X-BackEnd-Begin: 2018-12-28T21:44:33.449
X-BackEnd-End: 2018-12-28T21:44:33.449
X-DiagInfo: BL0PR1701MB2465
X-BEServer: BL0PR1701MB2465
X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-RUM-Validated: 1
X-FEServer: BL0PR0102CA0027
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-FEServer: DM5PR17CA0051
X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: BB9701C3791741A2A30D4293F7A56EB3 Ref B: CHGEDGE1217 Ref C: 2018-12-28T21:44:33Z
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2018 21:44:33 GMT

That's probably the *change*? IDK ....

WELCOME ABOARD ...

_______________________

Interesting you say mostly *hotmail* domain. Those are very old email adys
Hotmail is a 301 too
======

barry@paragon-DS-7:~$ curl -L -I -A "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible;)" 'https://www.hotmail.com/'
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 0
Location: https://outlook.live.com/owa/
Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0
X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: F0EAB8B1E51E401B8EA539BBB1B982B2 Ref B: CHGEDGE1417 Ref C: 2018-12-28T21:44:33Z
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2018 21:44:32 GMT

HTTP/1.1 440 Login Timeout
Content-Length: 154
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Set-Cookie: HostSwitchPrg=; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-1988 21:44:33 GMT; path=/; secure
Set-Cookie: OptInPrg=; expires=Wed, 28-Dec-1988 21:44:33 GMT; path=/; secure
request-id: 796b2ef0-b070-460c-9452-3b1a96c3bc82
X-CalculatedFETarget: BL0PR0102CU001.internal.outlook.com
X-BackEndHttpStatus: 440
X-FEProxyInfo: BL0PR0102CA0027.PROD.EXCHANGELABS.COM
X-CalculatedBETarget: BL0PR1701MB2465.namprd17.prod.outlook.com
X-BackEndHttpStatus: 440
X-OWA-DiagnosticsInfo: 1;0;0
X-BackEnd-Begin: 2018-12-28T21:44:33.449
X-BackEnd-End: 2018-12-28T21:44:33.449
X-DiagInfo: BL0PR1701MB2465
X-BEServer: BL0PR1701MB2465
X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-RUM-Validated: 1
X-FEServer: BL0PR0102CA0027
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-FEServer: DM5PR17CA0051
X-MSEdge-Ref: Ref A: BB9701C3791741A2A30D4293F7A56EB3 Ref B: CHGEDGE1217 Ref C: 2018-12-28T21:44:33Z
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2018 21:44:33 GMT

That's probably the *change*? IDK ....

WELCOME ABOARD ...

_______________________

Interesting but I don't think that is the issue as the hotmail addresses are not old and have been responded to in the last 3 months. They are not bouncing, just not getting to the inbox as in the past.

 

[webDOMinator]

Yeah, sounds like you are getting spamboxed.

What else changed? did you change what words are in your message? What links are in your message? Both words and links will affect whether or not you get stuck in Junk.

What I would try if I were you is this... Send lf the exact message you're sending through SES to an outlook/hotmail account you own (if you've got a hotmail account or an outlook account [or make one real quick for this test]). You will probably see it go into junk. You need to send this message not from SES, but from a normal web mail interface... any of the big guys like gmail, etc. The thing is, you need to find out what is now being filtered out. It could be the domain that is in your links in the message triggering spam filters or it could be the words your using. So if you end up in junk when you're sending the same message from a different source, you know it's in the message for sure. Change your message up a couple of times and see if you can get through to the inbox. Try sending the same exact message but don't include the link. If that gets to the inbox you know it's the domain in the link. If it still goes to junk, it's probably some of the words you're using.

As for what Steve said. It's true, hotmail is no longer around, they've been cannibalized by Microsoft, but that was years ago. The existing hotmail accounts still work but they all use Outlook to check their mail. When I go to hotmail.com it redirects me to outlook anyway.

 

[Steve at Smartmailer]

Yeah, sounds like you are getting spamboxed.

What else changed? did you change what words are in your message? What links are in your message? Both words and links will affect whether or not you get stuck in Junk.

What I would try if I were you is this... Send lf the exact message you're sending through SES to an outlook/hotmail account you own (if you've got a hotmail account or an outlook account [or make one real quick for this test]). You will probably see it go into junk. You need to send this message not from SES, but from a normal web mail interface... any of the big guys like gmail, etc. The thing is, you need to find out what is now being filtered out. It could be the domain that is in your links in the message triggering spam filters or it could be the words your using. So if you end up in junk when you're sending the same message from a different source, you know it's in the message for sure. Change your message up a couple of times and see if you can get through to the inbox. Try sending the same exact message but don't include the link. If that gets to the inbox you know it's the domain in the link. If it still goes to junk, it's probably some of the words you're using.

As for what Steve said. It's true, hotmail is no longer around, they've been cannibalized by Microsoft, but that was years ago. The existing hotmail accounts still work but they all use Outlook to check their mail. When I go to hotmail.com it redirects me to outlook anyway.

I've tried sending to my own outlook/Hotmail accounts and get a mixed bag of success. I was wondering if there has been any change in policy towards mail sent by SES so I'll try sending 500 from Gmass and from Outlook mass mail as you suggest. I've played around with the link by changing the domain and using short links but there was no difference.

 

[Steve at Smartmailer]

Without full headers you may never know -- that's one reason I have mail sent to my own email client *thunderbird*
Web mail may be convenient but it is not secure by a long shot. I do use runbox for some domains and they do full headers in IMAP. Do you use IMAP with outlook (or can you?)

I'm not totally sure if I understand what you mean here. My Outlook email accounts are set up with IMAP using a manual set up. I am using Mailwhizz as an interface and send via Amazon SES. The domain is hosted on a virtual server such as OVH.
What does Runbox offer that I haven't got? I'm only moderately tech savvy and defer to a more techy guy I use to help me.

 

[Graybeard]

Without full headers you may never know -- that's one reason I have mail sent to my own email client *thunderbird*
Web mail may be convenient but it is not secure by a long shot. I do use runbox for some domains and they do full headers in IMAP. Do you use IMAP with outlook (or can you?)

 

[Steve at Smartmailer]

Do you use an IMAP client for Your Outlook account?
Another thing; both web mail and email use *machine learning* to set filters -- like white listing a sender as an example -- so any results you get may not be global --thus irrelevant for reason of your client's (or webmail) personal settings.

Headers matter ALWAYS
Headers may show reasons to filter and sometimes actual filtering results. This depends on the MTA software that Outlook is using what may be in the headers.

SES should be compliant DKIM and other -- just make sure that your domain is authenticating properly.
It's only Hotmail and not other Microsoft email domains -- right? That's a clue right there ...

You need data to find answers. How long is a string? No idea?

Ohh LOL 'The domain is hosted on a virtual server such as OVH.' Try another host <<< that may be it.

To be honest I have tried a mixed list too containing aol. yahoo. gmail, Hotmail and that fails also.
I have also changed the virtual server to no avail.

 

[Steve at Smartmailer]

Your webmail addresses are ending up in the spambox unless the subscriber saw it and put you on his white list (most likely).

Your mail may have been identified as spam by it's content -- that is also likely.

You can try using a professional mail server service -- a better inboxing even at a higher price per email may be to your advantage. It's a lot less work (if it works out)

But my point is that until just recently the emails with the same content via SES were getting to the inbox. Something must have changed with the way email from SES is treated. I have tried professional mail services in the past and whilst the results were good they weren't as good as SES. It's a mystery.

 

[Graybeard]

Do you use an IMAP client for Your Outlook account?
Another thing; both web mail and email use *machine learning* to set filters -- like white listing a sender as an example -- so any results you get may not be global --thus irrelevant for reason of your client's (or webmail) personal settings.

Headers matter ALWAYS
Headers may show reasons to filter and sometimes actual filtering results. This depends on the MTA software that Outlook is using what may be in the headers.

SES should be compliant DKIM and other -- just make sure that your domain is authenticating properly.
It's only Hotmail and not other Microsoft email domains -- right? That's a clue right there ...

You need data to find answers. How long is a string? No idea?

Ohh LOL 'The domain is hosted on a virtual server such as OVH.' Try another host <<< that may be it.

 

[webDOMinator]

Your content type may be on the new *shit list* have you considered that?
There are algorithmic changes in spam labeling all the time
Or; Your subject line needs changing if it is not a spam-box issue. Have you changed that?

That's exactly what I was referring to. It's why I mentioned web mail. Its a matter of troubleshooting the problem. When I say webmail I mean going to gmail.com or outlook.com and check to see if you receive a message from one of those places. I do not mean a webmail interface on a server owned by you, nor do I mean a throw away mail account. The idea is that you're sending from a completely trusted source in a completely trusted way. Outlook has to trust it's own web mail interface and so does google. It is actually pretty easy to figure out from one of these spots what is going on. In my experience sending from a gmail or outlook/hotmail account directly from the official web interface of the service usually gets through to a person's inbox even if you haven't sent-received from them before as long as the contents of your message is not marked as spam. I've built custom mailing solutions off of this fact and it has worked all year. That being said, the main obstacle is message content as I mentioned and graybeard reiterated above.

Note: It's very unlikely that your SES servers are the ones being blocked because it is usually a trusted service. If you get through this troubleshooting and everything points to that eventuality then do what GB said and grab a different service for your sending needs.

Second Note: It's also important that you are not sending from SES when trying this troubleshooting. I don't think I was clear in my first response about this. You need to send these test mails from another email address through an official web interface of one of the large providers. The reason for this is that you can validate your theory that something is blocking SES now, or invalidate it and figure out how to keep sending from there. There are only a couple of other possibilities, and this process will tell you which of the possibilities points to the real problem.

Troubleshooting

So here is the troubleshooting method that will guarantee to tell you what the problem is:

1. Send a "hello" Message from a gmail/outlook account through gmail.com or outlook.com to another email address that you own at outlook or hotmail. The message should read title: Hello, body: Hey man, how's it been? It's been awhile.
2. IF you got to Inbox
   1. This means that your address itself is not being blocked, continue...
   2. Now, send a new message from the same sender to the same receiver and this time just include your link and some simple, non-marketing type text like the one before "hey, how's your mom doing? {link}".
      1. IF you got to Inbox
         1. You can be sure that it's not your link being caught by spam filters, but some of the content of your message. In this case, you need to re-work your message and try sending the variants a couple of times. Try also sending just the message itself without the link, change up some words that may sound spammy like "offer" "free" ... there's a whole list of words to avoid here eventually changing the words enough, you will get to a final message content solution that will get into the inbox again when running on SES.
      2. IF you did NOT get to Inbox
         1. You can be sure that your link is being caught by spam filters and it most likely has nothing to do with filtering of your keywords in your message content. In this case a solution would be to change up your link: forward it through a couple of forward-blind places (most link shorteners will not work because the redirect can be followed by the receiving mail service), so that the mail servers cannot follow the new link through. Try sending another harmless message with the new link and see if it gets through.
3. IF you did not get to Inbox
   1. One of graybeard's likelihoods "Your webmail addresses are ending up in spambox" is correct, and the only thing to do is try this process all over again from a different mail account using one of the big trusted services.

Again to re-iterate: Do not send through SES on this process, the purpose of this is to figure out if it's SES or your message content which are causing your messages to go to spam. This why it's important that you use a sender which is not SES, (the best most trusted way to send is not through SMTP or any of that stuff, but directly through a web interface on a service like gmail or outlook)

If you get through this entire process you should know if it is SES that is the problem, or your message content since those are the only two possibilities of why your message is not getting to inbox.

 

[Steve at Smartmailer]

Ok this is what happened.
I sent the test message from an Outlook address I own to a hotmail address I own, it went to spam.
I sent the same message from the Outlook address to Gmail address I own and it goes to inbox.
I then send the template from SES to both of the above and they both end up in spam.

I am thinking that Outlook/hotmail have changed their policy and this is the problem.

 

[Graybeard]

Your webmail addresses are ending up in the spambox unless the subscriber saw it and put you on his white list (most likely).

Your mail may have been identified as spam by it's content -- that is also likely.

You can try using a professional mail server service -- a better inboxing even at a higher price per email may be to your advantage. It's a lot less work (if it works out)

 

[webDOMinator]

Ok this is what happened.
I sent the test message from an Outlook address I own to a hotmail address I own, it went to spam.
I sent the same message from the Outlook address to Gmail address I own and it goes to inbox.
I then send the template from SES to both of the above and they both end up in spam.

I am thinking that Outlook/hotmail have changed their policy and this is the problem.

When you say you sent the template from SES do you mean you sent just the template without any links in it or content? or did you mean test message... or, not sure. Is it possible to send a normal message from SES like just a hello, how's it going? If you can do that and you send a non-marketing message like this from SES to your recipient boxes on gmail and outlook, do they show up in spam? If they do then you're correct. If they get inbox on at least gmail, then you're talking message content issues.

 

[Graybeard]

Your content type may be on the new *shit list* have you considered that?
There are algorithmic changes in spam labeling all the time
Or; Your subject line needs changing if it is not a spam-box issue. Have you changed that?