As if list growth, subsequent fatigue, SPAM compliance and utilizing the proper testing procedures did not present enough challenges for email marketers, enter graymail. These are messages that are routed to the SPAM box despite the fact that senders received explicit permission from consumers and recipients. Hotmail made news last month with this declaration of war against graymail and their attempts to clean up inboxes without Hotmail users having to reduce clutter on their own.
What is graymail?
Graymail can be defined as messages that drop out of the inbox due to lack of activity from individual recipients. They can also be classified as once welcome email messages that have since fallen out of favor with their intended targets. Hotmail accounts for over 12% of the email client market share and they are of course owned by Microsoft, the developers of Outlook which sits atop the email client mountain.
However, this graymail phenomena is not unique to Microsoft email clients. For instance, I use Gmail for several of my own accounts. Here is a screenshot of my SPAM box. Please note that these are all messages that I agreed to receive. Due to my lack of response (opens and clicks), Gmail has automatically routed them to SPAM. No offense to any of the companies referenced below – I’ve just been a little busy.
Why is graymail making email marketers sweat?
There are two primary reasons email marketers have cause for concern.
1. Graymail is difficult to discern from a marketer’s perspective. To my knowledge email service providers don’t really have a means of tracking what percentage of emails sent turn gray. They should appear as a successful delivery and most likely as a “did not open”. Thus, we really don’t know how many of our messages fall under this category, but open rate can be somewhat helpful.
2. Point of no return? Once something becomes classified as graymail, it can be very difficult to reverse that status in all likelihood. To use my Gmail example above, it has been months since emails from some of those senders referenced has made it to my personal inbox. To make it out again, the individual must denote that the message is not SPAM. This is not a very likely scenario and these kinds of relationships can be difficult to rekindle.
How can you combat graymail?
Unfortunately, there is no Just for Men email marketing solution to help you “keep your edge”. What this really requires is preemptive planning combined with guarded message scheduling of content-rich messages. As noted earlier, the jury is out on whether graymail can be fixed. You can only hope to avert it. Here are a few ideas to help you avoid the effects of graymail on your email marketing campaigns:
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