advice IP Address Got Blacklisted By Doing Outbound Marketing - Help!

[howudoin8]

Hello Community,

I have about 25 domains registered for outbound marketing & all Outbound emails are sent through their webservers. All my server email addresses are added as "Alias" in my Gmail account, so I have to log into Gmail to send these emails.

Now I'm using Boomerang for Tracking & sent just 50 mails to prospective clients. Within 4 to 5 days my IP (Provided by my Internet Service Provider) got on the Blacklist (I checked at https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx)

There were No clickable links in sent mails but to be fair, I did not write something to the tune of "If you don't want to get another email from me, then simply respond with 'Unsubscribe'"

Also, I changed only the Client's Name & site url in each outbound email but the rest of the email content was same (For all 50 emails). All 50 emails were sent at different times & not in one go (I used "Send Later" Feature of Boomerang)

So why did I ended up on the Blacklist? What am I doing Wrong?

Do I have to try multiple email templates even for a single campaign of just 50 outbound emails?

Do I need to get multiple IP's & then do outbound marketing (by using those)?

Your inputs would be appreciated.

Regards
Bhupinder

 

[xynames]

I spend a few minutes each day reporting every unsolicited email to
SpamCop.net
I don’t care if there is an UnSubscribe link because many of these links are merely used by the spammer to confirm the validity of your email address. I still report. Takes but a few seconds per email to open all headers + content (“source”) copy/paste into SpamCop and report. SpamCop parses the genuine (not forged or camouflaged) origins of the email instantly and sends out the reports to not just the sender’s ISP but to the backbone - administrator - of the ISP / email.

I actually did click one of these unsubscribe links a couple weeks ago on spam received at one of my email addresses and afterwards identically created similarly crappy spam started to flow in even more via a different ISP.

Some ISPs take these spam reports seriously and shut the offender down after just one report and some seem to do nothing anytime soon and allow the spam to continue for a long while.

Would I take the time to report every unsolicited offer I receive to purchase some crappy domain? Well, if received at one of my yahoo or gmail emails probably not - yahoo and gmail seem to do a good job of either deferring such emails (not even allowing their receipt) or at least directing them to the junk folder. But with my business emails (emails at my own domains - I run dozens of websites and businesses) I’ll report if not every spam no matter what it is at least one of each type, every day.

///

By the way, long before your isp or server is blacklisted your emails might already be being deferred especially by outfits like yahoo which is actually in many cases overly sensitive with blocking incoming emails.

 

[Paul]

First Off, I'm not spamming!

According to the US government, yes, you are, and it's illegal:

CAN-SPAM, a direct response of the growing number of complaints over spam e-mails,[6] defines a "commercial electronic mail message" as "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service (including content on an Internet website operated for a commercial purpose)." It exempts "transactional or relationship messages." The FTC issued final rules[7] (16 C.F.R. 316) clarifying the phrase "primary purpose" on December 16, 2004. Previous state laws had used bulk (a number threshold), content (commercial), or unsolicited to define spam.

Note that:

• Emails need not be sent in bulk to be considered spam.
• Even if sending in bulk were a prerequisite, bulk indicates quantity, not how the emails are sent.
• Your emails are not transactional.
• Your emails are unsolicited.
• Your emails are commercial in nature.

Furthermore, CAN-SPAM only defines spam in the eyes of the US government; spammer blacklists are free to use their own definitions and are often stricter.

If you send unsolicited commercial email, you're going to get blacklisted. That's just the way it is. You could invest resources in evading these blacklists, but doing so may not be legal.

Edit/Note: Even if you don't reside in the US, if recipients are within the US, there is still a risk of the US government attempting to enforce it, in much the same way that the EU attempts to enforce privacy laws like GDPR on entities outside the EU:

On April 1, 2006, Mounir Balarbi, of Tangier, Morocco, was the first person outside the United States to have an arrest warrant validated under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Mounir's trial was held in absentia, and he was sentenced in a closed session.[27][30]

Furthermore, you're almost certainly in violation of Gmail's Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy/whatever they have, and these reports do make their way back to Google. The most likely outcome from this, should you choose to continue, is that your Google account will be suspended. Anytime anyone reports an email as spam--that is, when you click that Mark as Spam button in your inbox--a slew of reports are sent out. That's how you wound up blacklisted, and Google is keeping track of reports against your account. If you have anything important attached to that account, now's a good time to make backups.

Adding an unsubscribe link won't help. You'll still be in violation of CAN-SPAM, you'll still receive reports against you, and you'll still get blacklisted.

 

[CJ6]

If i didn't request an email from you or if I am not using your service, you are spamming. Don't do it.

 

[johnnie018]

Stop spams!

 

[xynames]

I’m not making any assumptions. I’ve seen your emails! You perhaps forget that you spam me with your domains too. I’ve received at least a dozen unsolicited messages or emails from you offering your domains. I haven’t reported them because you and I have a prior (from a long time ago) business relationship and your emails don’t bother me really.

But the domains you’ve offered me are let’s face it extremely low end and offered within your spam pitch as comparable to this vast set of domains you list that sold for large sums when in reality your domains aren’t in the same league whatsoever. To me, the comparisons you make are not bothersome. To others, evidently it has moved them to such annoyance that you’d dare waste their time by claiming that your domains compare to the long lists of quality ones you mention that they’ve reported your spam.

You’re not going to change anything so why waste all of our time asking. You’re really no different from the emperor with no clothes searching for subjects who will tell him that he’s clothed.

If there’s a problem here it’s with you not us - you’re wasting our time with a thread that seeks advice then ignores it. We’d ask that you move along - and stop spamming.

Or if you’re not going to stop at least spare us the bit about how you’re not spamming. Save that losing argument for your ISP. You may tell us - hey this is what I must do but don’t insult our intelligence by claiming that it’s not spam.

Unsolicited email is technically spam. End of story. It takes just one - only one - report to shut you down. Arguing as you’re doing doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been tagged for spamming so obviously both recipient and your ISP believe that you have spammed.

Your argument is illogical. You’ve been tagged for spamming with a sustained spam report and yet you doggedly repeat that you don’t spam.

 

[Lord Antares]

I've done it before but at least I have the decency to admit that it's undeniably spam.

I am sending messages to people who mostly do not want to receive them. They have the right to feel annoyed by me. I respect that.

Saying that it's outbound marketing and decidedly not spam is like when a thief says ''but at least I don't kill people''.

 

[joro001]

I am sick and tired of domainers spamming me I am not a lawyer but as far as i'm concerned anyone I have not had a business relationship with who send me unsolicited emails to buy their domain is spamming me. That was always my understanding on what spam is and I don't care if it isn't. I must get 30+ emails every day spamming the living daylights out of me and i'm sick of it already. It has gotten much worse lately and many of these somehow end up in my inbox and bypass gmail spam filters.

Thank you @xynames for your advice on spamcop.net I think I should make this part of my regular routine to report when i'm spammed every time, maybe just maybe the spam will lighten a bit if I do this and these idiots from certain locations which I won't mention publicly will be taken down till they realise it isn't worth their time and effort.

 

[Lord Antares]

If definition of spam is made too broad, then not all spam is bad.

Not bad for you because it doesn't hurt you. If you send 100 emails and one of the recipients is interested, 99 others are still hassled and you're being a dick in their eyes.

Now, I agree that there are various degrees of spam ''badness''.
You absolutely cannot compare a scammer/phisher with someone selling domains. Nevertheless, they are both technically spam; one is mildly bad and one is very bad.

You just have to learn to live with the fact that you're doing a mildly bad thing and be okay with it. Don't blame others for not liking your methods.

 

[karmaco]

outbound marketing is not the same as spamming if done correctly.

Apparently to somebody it was spam. This is long debated but I find it interesting that you got hit while others outbound all the time and never mention this happening,

Best to only outbound on exact match domains and honestly if they want those they will find you. There is a reason most do not outbound. It’s generally not lucrative and it’s risky. What happened to you is an example of the risk.

 

[TestCase]

Are you on a shared IP? If so, maybe someone else on it triggered the blacklisting.

 

[branding]

@joro001 is right about CAN-SPAM act. It's actually stricter than most blacklists are.

Usually blacklists concider something spam if it meets both requirements:
A) it's unsolicited.
B) it's sent in bulk.

Here's the tricky part. You think you are not sending in bulk. Different mails, non automated. Now let's take alook at what spamhaus (not their biggest fan but that's worth a whole different thread) defines as bulk: "Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content."

So... In your scenario:
A) check
B) check

 

[Paul]

@joro001 is right about CAN-SPAM act. It's actually stricter than most blacklists are.

That’s not true. Blacklists act on reports, and people report emails they don’t want. Unwanted emails may be perfectly legal under CAN-SPAM. It doesn’t take a lot of reports to end up on a blacklist.

In reality, it’s a little more complex than that; many of the reports are automated and come from honeypots. But the same premise applies: you’re sending a message to an address you harvested, perhaps from an outdated list, leads you purchased, or historic addresses/contact info for a domain. Harvesting addresses is going to result in honeypots, which are going to result in reports, which are going to result in blacklisting.

The concept of detecting and dropping bulk spam is actually relatively new and has really been pioneered by Google. Your average blacklist isn’t focusing on that; they’ll act on a single report.

 

[branding]

check this, i get a spam email from TalentDomains.com offer me a list of domain for sale. from where hi get that information ?.. well, I assume that from here in NP

This is the whois of one of his domain

and assume is this NP user :: https://www.namepros.com/members/sukhvir.72076/

Loving the FAQ: https://talentdomains.com/faq/

 

[karmaco]

I am sick and tired of domainers spamming me I am not a lawyer but as far as i'm concerned anyone I have not had a business relationship with who send me unsolicited emails to buy their domain is spamming me. That was always my understanding on what spam is and I don't care if it isn't. I must get 30+ emails every day spamming the living daylights out of me and i'm sick of it already. It has gotten much worse lately and many of these somehow end up in my inbox and bypass gmail spam filters.

Thank you @xynames for your advice on spamcop.net I think I should make this part of my regular routine to report when i'm spammed every time, maybe just maybe the spam will lighten a bit if I do this and these idiots from certain locations which I won't mention publicly will be taken down till they realise it isn't worth their time and effort.

Well said. Some are obstinate and can’t understand that chasing someone down to buy something they didn’t ask for is spammy. The person who receives it decides if it’s spam or not. If somebody wants to buy your crap domains or web services they will come calling.

I don’t care what the legal definition is, if you have happen to you what happened to the OP you will have to be very selective with your purchases and your outbound targets. I suspect the names were super irrelevant to the business sent to and that’s partly why marked as spam.

I have never seen anyone else here who outbounds complain of this publicly so OP did something above and beyond to get this reaction.

 

[johnnie018]

First Off, I'm not spamming!

Here is how


I'm not using any software to send emails & all emails are sent manually. Further, they are not sent in Bulk by buying some list from somewhere but rather each email is sent individually after making sure that my domain will add value to their business.

Email is only sent to those who are targeted to the domain that I'm selling. To give you an example, there is this Big Time Advertising Agency (Creating ads for the like of Adidas, Nike etc) who are currently using the .co version & I own the .com

They have shown interest & hopefully something will come out of it.

Funny man, you convince yourself of this?...shame. You send bulk email and now your IP is blocked! OK not spammer! Definitely not spammer! Inncoent! Big mistake make by spamhaus!

 

[johnnie018]

If you can't differentiate between outbound marketing & Spamming, then this thread is not for you so move along!

No spammer thinks they are spam, they call something else, you call "outbound marketing" other spammer call "erection disfunction consult". Just don't say spam! Even if IP shut down still don't think they spam! Even when cops knock on door they say not spam!

 

[BrandChimp]

STOP SPAMMING

 

[Paul]

I wouldn't say that the concept of reporting and dropping spam is relatively new though. I've been running honeypots for ages to contribute to the cause and there have been blacklists available eversince I can remember to help filtering out spam.

I do agree Google is (probably) the first (and the most effective) that got to the point where they produced a highly efficient algorithm to filter email. You gotta give it to them, they do tend to keep your inbox nice and clean.

I meant that the concept of detecting and dropping bulk spam is new, not spam in general. Honeypots are an old concept, but Google was the first to effectively look for correlations without relying on reports.

 

[xynames]

They just mean that it's a template website where every FAQ answer is the same, and meaningless. Just like his copy/paste spam.

 

[DomainRecap]

Nothing wrong with reporting Spam, but outbound marketing is not the same as spamming if done correctly.

Agreed, and some people are going way overboard in terms of what they categorize as SPAM.

I get lots of unsolicited email from newspapers, radio, TV, etc. asking to advertise businesses on their platforms, and I view these as business offers, but I guess a lot of people would just hammer the SpamCop servers with each and every email?

People gotta make a buck, within reason, as long as they don't break the law.

 

[DomainRecap]

"Spam is an issue about consent, not content. Whether the message is an advert, a scam, porn, a begging letter or an offer of a free lunch, the content is irrelevant - if the message was sent unsolicited and in bulk then the message is spam."

Exactly, and I am referring to email that is unsolicited and only sent to an individual email address. Like virtually any email you receive from friends, relatives, contacts, etc. that isn't a reply.

That's how businesses do business and I get that stuff all day long.

According to the OP (whose other actions I am not trying to condone) that's what he stated he did (1 email, 1 recipient, no bulk), which was what my previous reply was in reference to.

 

[Paul]

I'm not a lawyer but CAN-SPAM's definition of spam certainly sounds more stricter than that of SpamHaus.org

It may be stricter than what Spamhaus states on their site, but, in practice, Spamhaus it pretty aggressive. That's partly why they're so well-respected.

As far as gmail is concerned, till today (this campaign was done about a month ago) I haven't received any Communication/Warning for this, so I guess there's not an issue from their side.

You won't receive a warning. Your account will be suspended and you'll lose all access to all Google services from that account. There is no recourse, no ability to appeal, no human you can contact who can even see why your account was suspended. Google is less "evil" about this than some of their competitors, but they're still quite aggressive and won't give you any warning.

If your domains are not relevant to their Existing business than that definitely can be classed as spamming. Usually in such cases people take no time in clicking the "Mark as Spam" button.

However, in my case the domains were relevant to their business & even received inquiries about price after the initial email. Not going to disclose the name here but I offered the .com version to a US Advertising Agency which currently is using the .co version.

That's not how it works. You have to have their explicit permission to email them, or you must have done business with them in the past 180 days, or something like that. (Maybe it's the past year? I don't really remember. It's longer than I'd like it to be.) The relevance of your domain to their business doesn't matter--if it's a commercial solicitation, it's illegal under CAN-SPAM.

I got blacklisted by SpamHaus & as per their definition, the messages must not have "substantively identical content" or else they would be categorized as spam.

Keep in mind that while you may be able to avoid getting blacklisted by Spamhaus, if people continue to mark your messages as spam, you're still going to end up in other blacklists. This will happen regardless of the legality of your emails, though I think we've established at this point that they're illegal in the US anyway. If a high enough percentage of people dislike your emails, private blacklists--such as those maintained internally by large email providers--will start dropping your emails, and they won't give you an option to appeal, unlike Spamhaus. Google gets notified anytime someone marks your messages as spam, and they will eventually take action against your account--without warning.

Legal definitions don't matter. I am not a court and I don't have to follow your laws or my laws or Antarctican laws. If I get unsolicited emails from you, especially if they are for sh*tty domains, I am hitting the Spam button.

While it may sound rude, ultimately, this is what's going to get you, @howudoin8. If enough of your recipients have that attitude, you're going to lose your Google account long before you end up in a courtroom or stuck on blacklists permanently.

 

[joro001]

I've now got spamcop.net up in my regular tabs, it is now part of my routine as much as I can I am reporting domainers spamming me via email (as well as seo/design spam etc.). Truly great to know I can now do something about this instead of being at the mercy of relentless spam daily (I receive huge volumes of spam emails, maybe as much as 30 or more a day).

For those that think i'm making too big a deal about it, it isn't just the emails and whether they are technically spam which it seems they are, I often seem to get a barrage of these emails when i'm trying to make important business decisions and it throws me and need to get focused and back on track. It's an irritating nuisance which I don't want to have. I am sure most end users feel the same way, we are all busy.

Thanks @xynames now spammers have something to lose, as I wouldn't have sued etc.
Will be interesting to see if my spam slows down at all.

 

[xynames]

First of all, the only domains I accept brokerage on are high end ones, more unique, and more specified. If I don't have a preexisting client that would be interested, someone I have in mind for the domain, I don't take it on.

I'm not going to waste a domainer's time taking on a domain to try to sell it when all I would be doing is the same spammy route that he might have undertaken himself.

 

[offthehandle]

someone I have in mind for the domain, I don't take it on.

I'm not going to waste a domainer's time taking on a domain to try to sell it when all I would be doing is the same spammy route that he might have undertaken himself.

Logical, pragmatic approach. Can't argue with that. "The No's don't hurt" in business, as an 85 year old mentor once told me when I was young and new in sales. It's the most powerful word in the dictionary for time management and peace of mind.