• Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbbonline.org/Business/
  
  
• TRUSTe: http://www.truste.org/
  
  
• WebTrust: http://www.webtrust.org/

Consider moving to a Confirmed Opt-In policy.
A confirmed opt-in requires the registrant to confirm they've opted-in to the email, typically by replying to an email that is sent to them after they have registered. There are several benefits to implementing a confirmed opt-in policy

• it validates your registrants are genuinely interested in receiving information from your company
  
  
• it avoids the problem of people signing up with other people's email addresses,
  
  
• you will save mailing cost by ensuring your list is pre-qualified,
  
  
• and, if it ever becomes law, you'll be one step ahead of the competition.

Guilty by Association? If you are outsourcing your Email Server or Email Delivery, choose your provider very carefully.
If you are outsourcing your email delivery services or having an ISP host your email server, choose these vendors wisely as they can have a tremendous impact on the deliverability of your email campaigns. If either the hosting email server or delivery server support spammers, there is a higher probability that all email coming from that server will be blocked. When choosing an outsource email delivery vendor or mail server, fully qualify who else they deliver mail for and the policies they enforce. These assertions should be included in any contract you sign. You want assurances that they will not risk the viability of your communications by mailing emails for spammers from the same servers. The bottom line, is that you can be "guilty by association" since the receiving ISP will simply block all mail coming from the full range of IP addresses controlled by the sender. If your mail is part of that stream, you would also be blocked.

PV Note: A number of our team members have worked many years at the leading outsourced email provider companies. If you need help evaluating a vendor or with the questions you should ask, please contact us. We are happy to help. Additionally, our solution eDelivery Tracker allows you to monitor actual delivery rates regardless of whether you mail from in-house or outsource your delivery. Please see solution overview for eDelivery Tracker for more information.
 
Whitelist your IP with the ISPs & cultiave a direct relationship.
Building a relationship with the ISPs can improve your deliverability. In many cases, an email delivery company will form these relationships on behalf of their clients and work directly with ISPs to prove legitimate mail is being sent from their servers. If mail is being sent from an in-house server, the marketer should make every effort to build these relationships and to provide the ISP with whatever information they require to prove legitimacy. Many large ISPs now offer a formal white-listing program that allows you to whitelist your IP address. This dramatically improves the chances your emails will be placed in the inbox versus blocked or redirected to spam folders. In some cases (e.g. AOL) it also impacts whether your images will be rendered. In order to become white-listed you must meet the ISPs requirements as well as complete an application. Pivotal Veracity provides ISP whitelisting services for its clients. Additionally, if you utilize an external deployment vendor they also may handle the ISP white-listing for you.
 
Stagger your Mailing to Avoid Triggering Volume Based Filters.
Some ISPs use volume-based filters as a proxy for identifying spammers and to control and protect their server bandwidth. If the sending server exceeds certain volume thresholds, the emails may be blocked. Volume thresholds vary by ISP and are associated with bandwidth, messages per seconds, or the number of simultaneous connections from a given sender. The simple way to avoid overwhelming the receiving ISP and triggering a volume-based filter is to throttle your emails.

Do not invest in "Accreditation" programs unless all other efforts have failed.
There are a number of for-profit organizations in the "accreditation" space (e.g. Habeas). These are companies who will review your email policies and then add you to a list of mailers who are "accredited" (by them); which generally means, they believe you are one of the "good guys" instead of a spammer. Some accreditation companies also have relationships with ISPs and spam filtering companies to use their listing of "good mailers" as a criteria for whether your mail will be blocked or placed in the inbox. While these types of services may gain momentum in the future, right now most experts do not believe that accreditation provides enough incremental value to justify the cost. These companies typically charge between $5,000 to $20,000 annually. However, they only have a handful of the major ISPs who recognize their accreditation and many of these ISPs already offer direct whitelisting. Another challenge for these types of programs is the conflict of interest imposed by the fact they are for-profit organizations whose source of revenue is derived from the companies whose policies they are supposed to be critically examining. Finally, many believe accredidation is not an effective vetting of a mailer as it relies primarily on what the mailer "says they do" versus that which they actually do. Even so, if you are unable to achieve direct white-listing at the ISP and all other reasons for low delivery have been examined and ruled-out, it may be worthwhile to explore the accreditation companies for the specific ISPs for which you are having problems. The accreditation company with the most recognition is currently Bonded Sender (www.bondedsender.com).

Pre-qualify All List Rentals.
It is essential that mailers verify the opt-in nature of the email lists they rent. All recipients on the rental list should have opted-in to receive 3rd party offers (the renter is the 3rd party). Mailers should verify their list rental source is providing a true opt-in email address list. Some questions mailers can ask of their list brokers are: how was the list generated, what steps were required of the individual to subscribe to the list, and when was the list compiled. The answers to these questions will help the marketer assess the quality of the names as well as the possible risk associated with mailing them. All these questions will help a Marketer ascertain the quality of the mailing list and form some opinion to its potential success or value.

For more information on verifying the quality of your rental lists, please see use-case examples for e-Delivery Tracker.

Communicate with your customers!
Since one of the most damaging results of false positives is your frustrated customer who did not receive the statement or order confirmation or newsletter they were expecting, its critically important you communicate with them. Share that there is a possibility the communications they have signed up to receive will not reach them. You can convey this message at the point they opt-in and in subsequent communications – via email and, importantly, any other touch-points you have since your emails may not reach them. It is also a good idea to encourage your customers to complain to their IT departments and ISPs if they are not receiving your email. This goes a long way to helping you get on the ISP or Corporations white list. Finally, your customers should also be encouraged to complain to you. If you are not utilizing a service such as Pivotal Veracity's, your customers' complaints to you may be the only way you learn that your mail is not reaching the customers' inboxes.
 
Our best advice?
Treat your customers as you would have them treat you if the situation was reversed. Too many marketers are tip-toeing in the gray area. If your customer did not clearly request that you send them emails, you are risking their ire. If they complain about you to their ISP, their corporate IT department, on chat boards, or to the hundreds of Black List compilers, the potential damage to your brand and your ability to get any email through is many times greater. In the long-term, it is 100% permission-based companies who send their customers information their customers not only want to receive - but miss when they don't, who will win.