Due to the continuing challenges presented by spam filters and the many requests for information on this topic, we are reprinting this article, as it appeared in the March 2005 Informed Marketer News, on why graphic images are suppressed, how this affects open rates, and what you can do about it.

The Ever Changing Email Landscape

We have been watching the email marketing space evolve since the early 1990's.  In that time, many great advances have been made that have catapulted email into the forefront of efficient business communications.  Innovations have been both good and bad.  HTML email took email out of the dark ages and opened the doors to high-impact communications.  At the same time, the security vulnerabilities in email have made it ripe for abuse by spammers and the like – causing grave threats to the medium as a whole.

The fight against spam offers our industry hope, but at the same time, it presents some interesting challenges that need to be overcome.  In particular, one result of the spam fight that we have touched on in previous editions of our newsletter is the changes being made to email programs, such as those offered by AOL and Microsoft, that will suppress the display of all pictures within an HTML email message unless the sender of the message is known to the recipient (i.e., their email address is in the recipient's address book).

Here is an example of what this looks like in Microsoft Outlook:

Note how the pictures are not showing and are replaced with an X.  The recipient must then right click on an image and select Download Pictures (or better yet, using Outlook 2003, they can select Add Sender to Safe Senders List) to see the HTML with the pictures as intended.

In addition to reducing the initial impact of using pictures within HTML email, the problem with this change is that the tools used by email marketing systems to detect whether or not an email is opened rely on the ability of the email program to display a special invisible picture within the email called a Web Beacon.  This is the technique used by all email service providers to obtain the Open Rate statistic.  When picture display is suppressed, so is the ability to measure that the email has been opened.  Thus, the side effect of these changes is a drop in the measured Open Rate.

Now that some time has passed, the deployment of these new programs has started to reach critical mass.  As a result, across all of our customers we are starting to see a notable drop in the Open Rate, yet no similar changes to the click-through-rate (which have remained fairly steady).

Here are three examples:

Our monthly newsletter: Informed Marketer News

The November 2002 edition of our newsletter yielded a 43% open rate.  In September of the following year, this dropped to 37%.  One year ago, the March 2004 issue had a 30% open rate; six months ago, the open rate dropped again to 23%.  Our last newsletter yielded a 20% open rate – a 33% decrease from the prior year.  Over this same time period, the click-through-rate was sustained at about 5% on average.

A Daily Customer Newsletter

This newsletter has been sent on a daily basis over the last few years to well over 10,000 subscribers.  In September 2004, this newsletter was averaging around a 35% open rate.  Today, the open rate is averaging around 21% -- a 40% decrease.

Another Monthly Customer Newsletter

The April 2004 issue of this monthly newsletter to service professionals yielded a 21% open rate.  One year later, this same newsletter had a 14% open rate -- a 33% decrease.  Over this period, the click-through-rate continued to average 4%.

What Can You Do About This?  Get Your Email into the Address Book

Since there is little that can be done technically to get around the suppression of email pictures at this point, our best practice recommendation is that you begin to adopt an active strategy for getting the FROM address you use for your newsletter or other types of email campaigns into the address books of your subscribers.  This will prevent the suppression of pictures in your emails and it will help ensure your emails do not end up in the Junk Email folder.

How Do You Do It?  Solicit Subscribers at the Top of the Email Message

One practice, which is becoming increasingly common, is the placement of a statement at the top of every outgoing email that simply asks the subscriber to place your email address into their address book.  Here are a few example statements you might use based upon actual mailings we have received from other marketers.  In these examples, you would replace newsletter@imninc.com with the FROM address you use for your emails:

Example 1:
Make sure you don't miss out on our emails, add newsletter@imninc.com to your address book now.

Example 2:
To ensure you receive our newsletter, please add newsletter@imninc.com to your address book. Need help? Click Here

Example 3:
To help make sure the Spam controls used by your ISP or IT department do not interrupt the delivery of this free newsletter, please add newsletter@imninc.com to your address book or click here and send an empty email to this address.

Example 3 takes advantage of the fact that many email systems (including AOL) add the people to whom you have sent an email automatically to your Safe Senders List under the assumption that email coming from the people you already know is not spam.  So having subscribers send a blank email to your newsletter's FROM address is often a simple way to get around the problem without requiring any additional steps.

Add a statement like the ones shown above to all the places that touch subscribers.  Add this text to the Thank You page after a new subscription is collected, add it to a Confirmation Message and the Welcome Message (if you use them), and add it to the top of the HTML and Plain Text versions of the email.

Provide Instruction

It is also helpful to provide subscribers a link to a page where they can find further instructions on how to add your email address to their address book.  These instructions vary from one email provider to another.  Here are instructions for the top providers:

AOL Version 9.0

·          Open the email.

·          Click the Add Address button on the right side of the screen. 

·          Click OK.

·          In the upper right corner of the message window, click "Show images & enable links."

AOL Version 8.0 

·          Open the email. 

·          Click the Add to Address button on the right side of the screen. 

·          Click Save.

 AOL Netmail 

·          Open the email. 

·          Click the Add to Address button on the right side of the screen. 

·          Click Save.

Earthlink

·          Open the email. 

·          Click Add Sender.

·          The "Add to Address Book" pop-up appears with sender's name and email address.

·          Click Yes

Hotmail

·          Open the email. 

·          Click Save Address.

·          Click OK.

·          In the upper right corner of the message window, click "Show images & enable links."

MSN

·          Open the email. 

·          Click Save Addresses.

·          Click Save. 

Outlook

·          Open or Preview the email. 

·          Right-click the From address. 

·          Click Add to Outlook Contacts.

·          Click OK.

Outlook 2003

·          Open or Preview the email. 

·          Right-click the From address. 

·          Click Add to Outlook Contacts.

·          Click Save and Close.

OR: If no pictures are showing, right-click on red X and select Add to Safe Senders List

Yahoo!

·          Open the email. 

·          Click Add to Address Book.

·          Click Add to Address Book again. 

·          In the bottom of the message window, click "Show HTML graphics."

General instructions for other providers:

·          Open your email address book. 

·          Add the FROM address shown on the email message as a new contact.

·          For more detailed instructions, contact your service provider. 

Dealing with Open Rates and Missing Pictures

In the end, there are two conclusions that should be drawn from the data points and strategies presented here:  

• Missing pictures will continue to be a common issue for your subscribers.  Use proactive methods to educate your subscribers and ask them regularly to put your email address into their address book.

If you have any more questions on this topic, write to Peter in the box below.