Return Path tackles European email deliverability with 4 more providers

European email marketers may increase deliverability rates for email marketing campaigns in the New Year. That is because four more email providers have joined Return Path's "Sender Score Receiver Alliance".

by Kristina Knight

Splio Développement, The Communicator Corp, IPT and Responsys were added to the Alliance in November.

The Alliance educates local email service providers (ESPs) and opens the lines of communication between email , ISPs and ESPs so that the ESP is better able to determine which messages are legitimate marketing messages and which messages are SPAM.

"The deliverability landscape is far more complicated in Europe than it is in North America," said Ken Takahashi, Return Path's Vice President of Corporate and International Development. "In the US, the top 10 to 15 domains typically represent 95% of a consumer marketer or publisher's email list - and all of those ISPs speak the same language. To provide comparable ISP mediation services in Europe, a mailer or ESP needs to have relationships with about 150 local ISPs who speak a number of different languages."

According to a recent Return Path study nearly 80% of consumers admit using the "spam" or "junk" buttons in their email programs to get rid of what they perceive as unwanted emails. Some of these email messages are likely to be messages that the consumer signed up for at some point in the past.

The Sender Score program is already in use across America. The program gives email marketers a score and ESPs can tell by that score how compliant the company is with unsubscription policies, identity stability and security practices.