We occasionally get calls from law firms complaining that their email alerts and newsletters are not getting delivered because either the domain or IP address from which they are sending their email has been blacklisted. In the most serious cases, the blacklisting has affected delivery of the firm's day-to-day email (usually because the firm has committed the cardinal sin of using the same domain for mass marketing emails as the firm's day-to-day email).
What's a blacklist? Technically referred to as DNS Blacklists, or DNSBL's, blacklists are essentially lists of IP addresses or domains that the list maintainer has either received spam from, or suspects may be operated by spammers. Mail server administrators can query DNSBL's to block emails emanating from listed IP addresses or domains from being delivered to email addresses at their organizations.
DNSBLs can also be used used as part of a spam scoring system, such as SpamAssassin. If your domain or IP address is listed on a DNSBL that is referenced in a spam scoring system, your spam score could be increased by some amount. If that increase, coupled with points assigned by other scoring tests performed, makes an email's score rise above a certain level, it will be blocked.
There are dozens of DNSBL's available, all compiled with different criteria. The problem with blacklists is that not all of them are accurate. Inaccuracy takes two forms.
First, a blacklist may not successfully block all spam. Second, a blacklist may result in "false positives", which means legitimate email is getting blocked as spam. Al Iverson at the DNSBL Resource blog has undertaken a major statistical study that rates several blacklists on their accuracy in blocking true spam and their percentage of false positives. He found, for instance, that Spamhaus (a UK-based DNSBL) blocked nearly 80% of spam while blocking very little legitimate email (while legal marketers need not immerse themselves in such technical details, you may want to direct your firm's email administrators to Al's blog as a resource).
Why might your firm's domain or IP address end up on a blacklist? When we've investigated such incidents in the past, we've typically found a scenario that runs something like this: an attorney (let's call him Bob) at the firm (hereinafter, "Smith & Johnson") met someone ("Joe") at an environmental law conference, exchanged business cards with Joe, and then arranged for Joe's email address to be added to Smith & Johnson's CRM system. Lo and behold, one month later Joe gets an email alert from Smith & Johnson on the latest Environmental Protection Agency regulation. The problem is that while Joe might vaguely remember Bob, he doesn't know Smith & Johnson from Adam. Worse, Joe is a passionate anti-spam activist who reports the "spam" to his favorite DNSBL. Now Smith & Johnson's domain name, IP address, or both, are blacklisted. If any of Smith & Johnson's clients use the relevant DNSBL to filter email, none of S&J's emails will get delivered to those clients.
Thankfully, the "doomsday" scenario above rarely occurs. If you are working with an email service provider who can be contacted via a link in your email footer, more typically the subscriber will first contact the provider who can then work with you to provide an explanation (i.e., "Hey Joe, we're really sorry about what happened, and we won't do it again, but don't you remember that you met Bob at that conference a month ago?").
More importantly, while the risk of blacklisting cannot be eliminated entirely, you can minimize the risk substantially, and maximize the deliverability of your law firm emails by following deliverability best practices - which is the subject of our next post coming later today. Check back soon....
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