One of the best-known mottos from Montessori pedagogy is “Help me to do it myself”. The idea is that, with some support, children can accomplish tasks on their own, rather than having everything done for them. But what does this have to do with email marketing and our work at CSA?

When legitimate emails end up in spam

All senders want their (hopefully) relevant emails to arrive in the recipient’s inbox and be noticed. So far, so good. If we stick with legitimate emails, these face strong competition from unwanted or spam emails. And this is where mailbox providers come into play. They actually want their customers to receive relevant emails and ensure that only actual spam is filtered out. With this understanding, it’s possible to maintain a cooperative partnership, even during challenging times.

If your traffic is being incorrectly filtered by mailbox providers, we at the CSA are happy to support you if you are unable to resolve the issue yourself. However, in order to do this quickly and efficiently, we need the senders’ cooperation. Because we can only escalate issues to mailbox providers when we have all the necessary information.

What information we need for escalation

In order for us to help, we need the following information:

• Ticket ID with the provider:
  We are only the escalation level and do not handle the initial contact. Therefore, we need the original ticket that we can reference.

• Possible communication with the provider:
  Has there already been any feedback? Sometimes we can “translate” here.

• Affected IPs/Domains:
  Is it affecting all traffic or only part of the messages?

• Sample emails:
  What traffic is being sent via the infrastructure?

• Bounce messages:
  Very often, all of the important information is already contained here. However, false positives can sometimes occur in the provider’s filters. It’s very important to once again carefully check the exact bounce messages. In fact, there are sometimes links to forms & explanations from the respective mailbox provider.

• Time period:
  How long has the problem been occurring? Was there a trigger?

• Measures already taken:
  Have any steps been taken to improve the situation?

What you can expect from us and what you should bear in mind

In the event of delivery problems, certified senders benefit from a direct line to the responsible contact persons at the mailbox providers. However, we are not in contact with general support, but directly with the person responsible at the technical level.

Important points:

• We do not provide contact with general support and cannot forward any contact details. We are in contact with those responsible and can act as an interface here if needed.
• There is therefore also no SLA that mailbox providers are required to comply with in relation to us. However, as we work in partnership, we usually receive timely responses.
• For our certified senders, there is a Slack channel where an exchange between senders can take place. Especially when it comes to more global problems, useful information can often be found there more quickly than by contacting us directly.
• Ideally, we receive all information via email at support@certified-senders.org

In the spirit of “Help me to do it myself”, we at CSA want to contribute our part to support senders in delivering legitimate emails – especially when, despite all due care, problems arise with filtering by mailbox providers. In order for us to help efficiently, we rely on good cooperation and complete information. Because only together can we ensure that relevant emails reach their rightful destination: the recipients’ inbox.