DMA, Return Path Launch Reputation Registry

The Direct Marketing Association has teamed up with e-mail deliverability firm Return Path to launch a so-called reputation registry that will allow members to check whether or not their outbound e-mail is properly authenticated and how their e-mail reputations stack up to industry best-practices benchmarks.

The DMA made implementing at least one of the existing authentication schemes a condition for membership in 2006 but, publicly at least, has not enforced it.

Authentication allows receiving computers to verify that incoming e-mail has been sent by the company it purports itself to be from. Authentication’s aim is to, among other things, help prevent phishing, where scammers send e-mail claiming to be from financial institutions or sites such as eBay in an attempt to get people to divulge their account information.

A marketer’s e-mail reputation consists of various metrics, such as the number of spam complaints a mailer gets and how many undeliverable e-mail addresses and spam traps to which the marketer attempts to send messages.

Inbox providers use these metrics to determine whether or not to block incoming e-mail or divert it to recipients’ spam folders.

According to Return Path CEO Matt Blumberg, the DMA’s new Email Reputation Registry will allow marketers to check their reputation metrics without any technical know-how.

He added he hopes the registry will make maintaining good e-mail reputations more of a priority at many firms than would otherwise be the case.

“The DMA has a huge reach in terms of member companies, but it also has a lot of member companies for whom the Internet is not their primary business,” he said. “Giving companies like that a free and easy utility to use to see if their servers are doing what they’re supposed to be doing—not just so they can get their mail delivered, but also so they can make sure they can’t be hijacked by spammers or made part of a zombie network—I think is going to be very helpful for those companies.”

Blumberg added the registry also aims to give e-mail marketing managers the credibility they need internally to get the firms that need to do so to clean up their e-mail marketing practices.

“Hopefully by using the combined brands of the DMA and Return Path, this registry will provide e-mail marketers with the ammunition they need to make this stuff happen,” he said.

According to Blumberg, marketers using the registry can supply their IP addresses or domains, or they can send an e-mail to an address supplied to them when they log in.

The service will then generate a free report assessing whether or not their outbound messages are properly authenticated and the mailer’s reputation metrics.

Though the service is primarily an authentication monitor, its reports “will also provide intelligence about whether their numbers are such that they have a meaningful risk of blocking and filtering problems,” Blumberg said.

When asked to assess the DMA’s members’ adherence to the organization’s requirement for authentication, Blumberg said he could not do so.

“Twelve to 18 months ago, when we did an analysis of the DMA’s membership, their authentication rate was well below average, but that was 12 to 18 months ago,” he said. “I’m sure that it’s better now than it was, but I don’t know if it’s above or below average.”

Added Senny Boone, the DMA’s senior vice president of corporate and social responsibility: “Here is an opportunity for marketers to look at the scale and scope of their reputations and make sure that their messages are actually getting out there. Our goal is also to build consumer trust. E-mail is flourishing and we don’t want that to stop.”