How are email receivers pressured to allow more mail?

Summary

Email receivers are pressured to allow more mail due to a confluence of internal and external factors. Internally, pressure stems from 'asshole bosses', marketing teams pushing for targets, sales teams demanding leads, and upper management's focus on higher sending volumes. Externally, pressure arises from the fear of blocking legitimate senders and causing user complaints, the need to adapt to evolving email standards and mass mailings, the influence of paid reputation services, and customer demands for allow listing. Senders are incentivized by revenue goals and the fear of falling behind competitors. The overall system requires a delicate balance between blocking spam and ensuring legitimate mail delivery, which is constantly shifting.

Key findings

  • Internal Team Pressure: Marketing, sales, and upper management within organizations exert pressure to increase email sending.
  • User Complaint Avoidance: Receivers are wary of blocking legitimate emails, as this generates user complaints.
  • Reputation Service Influence: Paid reputation services can sway receivers to accept more mail from their clients.
  • Revenue and Competition: Pressure to meet revenue targets and compete with others incentivizes higher sending volumes.
  • Technical Standards: Adapting to changing email standards and mass mailing techniques complicates blocking strategies.
  • Customer Demands: Customer requests for allow listing directly pressure receivers to allow specific senders.
  • Sender reputation scores: Sender reputation scores puts pressure to ensure mail from reputable companies is able to be delivered.
  • Acceptable unsubscribe rates: Maintaining acceptable unsubscribe rates also makes receiver systems accept mails with lower scoring

Key considerations

  • Cross-Department Alignment: Organizations should ensure marketing, sales, and management are aligned on reasonable email practices.
  • Clear User Communication: Clear communication with users can manage expectations and reduce complaints about blocked mail.
  • Service Transparency: Increased transparency and accountability from reputation services are necessary.
  • Realistic Revenue Goals: Businesses should set realistic revenue targets that don't rely solely on increased email volume.
  • Adaptable Strategies: Receivers need adaptable strategies for evaluating reputation and engagement in a changing landscape.
  • Dynamic Allow Listing: Offer dynamic allow listing options that adjust based on engagement and sender behavior.
  • Sender Perspective: It would be good for senders to go to sessions that are not about sending, for perspective on how receivers work.

What email marketers say
8Marketer opinions

Email receivers face pressure to allow more mail due to various factors originating from senders. Internal marketing teams, driven by targets, revenue goals, and fear of competition, push for higher sending volumes. Sales teams demand more emails for lead generation. Upper management, lacking email marketing expertise, also contributes to this pressure. Maintaining acceptable unsubscribe rates also makes receiver systems accept mails with lower scoring, and they have to strike a balance between blocking spam and keeping end users on-side.

Key opinions

  • Internal Pressure: Marketing, sales, and management teams internally pressure organizations to increase email volume.
  • Revenue Focus: The drive to meet revenue targets leads to more aggressive email campaigns.
  • Competitive Fear: Companies fear being left behind by competitors sending more emails.
  • Balancing Act: Email receivers must balance blocking spam with maintaining user satisfaction and not upsetting users.
  • Acceptable unsubscribe rates: Maintaining acceptable unsubscribe rates also makes receiver systems accept mails with lower scoring

Key considerations

  • Internal Alignment: Organizations should align marketing, sales, and management strategies to avoid excessive email sending.
  • Realistic Targets: Set realistic revenue targets that don't rely solely on increased email volume.
  • Quality over Quantity: Focus on email quality and engagement rather than simply sending more emails.
  • Receiver Perspective: Consider the impact of sending practices on email receivers and user experience.
  • Email Infrastructure: Email providers have to balance spam blocking with valid emails from users. There needs to be an infrastructure to deal with this.
Marketer view

Email marketer from MarketingForum.com explains that upper management, with little understanding of email marketing, often pushes for higher sending volumes, leading to pressure on receivers.

January 2024 - MarketingForum.com
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit shares that sales teams often demand more emails be sent to generate leads, overriding deliverability concerns.

December 2022 - Reddit
Marketer view

Email marketer from Quora explains that internal marketing teams push to send more emails to meet targets, even if it impacts deliverability.

February 2023 - Quora
Marketer view

Email marketer from MarketingAgencySite.com shares that pressure to generate more leads drives marketing teams to acquire larger email lists and send more promotional emails, indirectly pressuring receivers.

December 2024 - MarketingAgencySite.com
Marketer view

Email marketer from StackExchange explains that pressure to maintain acceptable unsubscribe rates makes receiver systems accept mails with lower scoring. To not block everything and upset users. If they don't unsubscribe, it may be seen as good, thus allowing more.

January 2025 - StackExchange
Marketer view

Email marketer from Blogspot explains that email systems have to strike the balance between the needs of senders and receivers. Receivers are pressured as they have to keep the end user on-side, whilst blocking spam. The line is constantly moving, so the receivers are pressured to adapt.

October 2023 - Blogger
Marketer view

Email marketer from LinkedIn explains that fear of being left behind by competitors who are sending more emails pressures marketing teams to increase their sending volume, thus pressuring receivers.

July 2022 - LinkedIn
Marketer view

Email marketer from EmailVendorBlog.com shares that pressure to meet revenue targets leads companies to push for more aggressive email marketing campaigns, potentially pressuring receivers by sending more volume.

August 2023 - EmailVendorBlog.com

What the experts say
5Expert opinions

Email receivers face pressure from multiple angles to allow more mail. Internal pressures include demands from superiors and marketing teams within the receiving organization. External pressures include user complaints when legitimate email is blocked and the influence of reputation services, which senders often pay for. The need to meet business targets and revenue goals also drives senders to increase email volume, ultimately pressuring receivers.

Key opinions

  • Internal Demands: Receivers are pressured by internal stakeholders like bosses and marketing teams to allow more mail.
  • User Complaints: Blocking legitimate email leads to user complaints, forcing receivers to be more lenient.
  • Reputation Services: Senders paying for reputation services can influence receivers to accept more of their mail.
  • Business Targets: The pressure to meet revenue and business targets drives increased email sending, pressuring receivers.

Key considerations

  • Internal Communication: Organizations should foster better communication between senders and receivers to reduce internal pressures.
  • User Feedback: Receivers should actively solicit and respond to user feedback to minimize false positives.
  • Reputation Service Transparency: The email community should encourage transparency and accountability from reputation services.
  • Sustainable Sending Practices: Businesses should adopt sustainable sending practices that prioritize quality and relevance over sheer volume.
  • Sender Perspective: It would be good for senders to go to sessions that are not about sending, for perspective on how receivers work.
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that blocking too much email from legitimate senders results in user complaints to the receiver, applying pressure to allow more email through.

March 2023 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise shares that businesses push for more email sending to meet internal targets and revenue goals, leading to pressure on receivers to accept that volume.

July 2021 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks thinks it would be good for senders to go to sessions that are not about sending, for perspective.

October 2023 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks shares that receivers do get pressured by asshole bosses and their own internal marketing teams to allow more mail.

March 2022 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that systems are pressured to allow more mail as they look at reputation, and the senders are paying the reputation services, so systems feel compelled to accept them. They want to be seen to be on the senders side.

August 2024 - Word to the Wise

What the documentation says
6Technical articles

Email receivers face pressure to allow more mail due to several factors related to sender reputation, user expectations, and evolving standards. Senders with improving or borderline reputations are difficult to block due to potential user complaints. The fear of false positives leads systems to err on the side of caution. User engagement, like opens and clicks, signals legitimacy, while allow-listing requests from customers directly pressure systems. Adapting to changing standards and mass mailings also makes blanket blocking difficult, requiring more nuanced policies. Sender reputation scoring puts pressure to ensure mail from reputable companies is able to be delivered.

Key findings

  • Reputation Sensitivity: Receivers are pressured to accept mail from senders with borderline or improving reputations to avoid blocking legitimate communications.
  • False Positive Risk: The fear of blocking legitimate mail (false positives) leads receivers to be more lenient.
  • User Engagement: User interactions (opens, clicks, marking as important) signal legitimacy and influence receivers to allow more mail from those senders.
  • Evolving Standards: Adapting to changing email standards and mass mailing practices complicates blocking strategies.
  • Customer Allow Listing: Customer requests for allow listing directly pressure receivers to accept more mail from specific senders.
  • Sender Reputation scores: Sender reputation scores puts pressure to ensure mail from reputable companies is able to be delivered.

Key considerations

  • Granular Filtering: Implement more granular filtering techniques to differentiate between legitimate and unwanted mail.
  • Feedback Loops: Improve feedback loops with users to reduce false positives and refine filtering accuracy.
  • Dynamic Reputation: Utilize dynamic reputation systems that adapt to changing sending behavior and user engagement.
  • Sender Authentication: Encourage senders to implement robust authentication protocols to establish trust and improve deliverability.
  • User Education: Educate users about identifying and reporting spam to improve the overall filtering process.
Technical article

Documentation from Signal Spam explains that, due to sender reputation scores, systems are pressured to not block everything, but allow mail from legitimate senders. These reputable sender emails need to get through the system, and thus the system cannot block all spam as it may harm the end user.

November 2022 - SignalSpam.fr
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft answers explains that email systems are pressured not to block mail in case of false positives which leads to customer complaints, so they err on the side of caution.

September 2021 - Microsoft.com
Technical article

Documentation from RFC explains that email receiver policies have to adapt to changing standards and legitimate mass mailings, making it difficult to block all unwanted mail without blocking legitimate communications which is a pressure in itself.

May 2021 - RFC-Editor.org
Technical article

Documentation from Google explains that user engagement (opens, clicks) pressures receivers to allow more mail from certain senders because users are actively interacting with it. If users mark emails as important, systems will be pressured to deliver more of those emails.

January 2024 - Google.com
Technical article

Documentation from AWS explains that allow listing is often requested by customers. Mail systems are pressured by customers wanting allow listing, and therefore more mail.

April 2022 - AWS
Technical article

Documentation from Spamhaus explains that receivers are pressured to allow more mail from senders with borderline or improving reputations because blocking them outright could lead to complaints from users expecting those emails.

December 2021 - Spamhaus.org