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Email Deliverability Quarterly: Return Path Acquired, CCPA Update, Yahoo-AOL Merged, and More
Email deliverability is constantly changing, as inbox providers adjust their filtering algorithms, blacklists tweak their listing criteria, and consumers evolve their definition of spam. That’s why even the best email marketing programs suffer deliverability problems sometimes.
To help you avoid trouble, the Deliverability Services team at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting (OMCC) shares the latest news and tips for what to watch out for. Here’s what’s going on at key inbox providers and what it means for email marketers:
Validity Acquires Return Path
At the beginning of May, Validity announced that it was acquiring Return Path, a pioneer and leader in the email deliverability space. At the end of the month, the sale was completed. Since then, Validity, which also owns email validation service BriteVerifty, has started to make big changes, laying off 170 Return Path employees during June alone.
What this means for marketers:
“It will be interesting to see how things shift in the deliverability space now that Return Path has been acquired,” says Clea Moore, Director of Deliverability Strategy at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting. “Their massive layoffs lead me to believe there is a pivot coming for the company.”
“The uncertainty around the future of the Return Path offerings could lead their customers to search for alternatives,” she says. “This opens the door for competitive tool-suites that came onto the market following Return Path, like eDataSource (white labled as Oracle’s Deliverability Plus), 250ok, and the latest to join the space, SparkPost Signals. As mailbox provider filtering continues to evolve, the ability to accurately track inbox placement will become more challenging. Having the right tools and expertise to evaluate and respond to these trends should remain a top focus for marketers.”
CCPA Likely Won’t Be Replaced by Stronger PAA
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) likely won’t be replaced by the Privacy for All Act (PAA), which would have closed some loopholes in the CCPA, moved to an opt-in consent for sharing personal information, and made the act look much more like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of Europe. The bill is being held in committee and under submission, which means the bill has been blocked and is likely dead, according to DataProtectionReport.com.
What this means for marketers:
“It’s a real moving target which way the CCPA will go,” says Heather Goff, Strategic Director of Deliverability Services at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting. “In some ways, it’s been weakened and slowed down. In others, it is looking and sounding more like GDPR, which would frankly be helpful for marketers to have one global standard to work toward.”
With the CCPA still set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020 and considering that it’s still being heavily amended, we wouldn’t be surprised if enforcement was delayed.
More State Consumer Privacy Bills Brewing
Two Texas State Representatives recently proposed competing consumer privacy bills: the Texas Consumer Privacy Act and the Texas Privacy Protection Act. These two bills are currently working their way through the legislative process and may or may not become laws. These bills have some similarities with the California Consumer Privacy Act, which was signed into law in June of 2018 and is currently set to go into effect in January 2020.
Meanwhile, a similar bill, the Washington Privacy Act, was recently defeated in the State of Washington.
What this means for marketers:
“As privacy concerns continue to grow across the country, there’s increasing pressure to pass stronger privacy laws, both at the state and federal level,” says Dan Deneweth, Head of Deliverability Services at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting. “One way or another, privacy legislation is changing in the United States. Marketers conducting business here need to stay informed about developing privacy laws and be prepared to adapt to changing legal requirements.”
The California Consumer Privacy Act has already prompted a discussion about creating a national privacy standard. If more state-level privacy laws are passed, that pressure will increase exponentially, as federal legislators will want to avoid a patchwork of state laws that make compliance difficult and expensive for businesses.
Verizon Completes Merger of Yahoo Mail and AOL Infrastructure
Verizon Media Group announced that it has completed merging the backend email infrastructure of Yahoo Mail and AOL Mail. Verizon Media’s new postmaster site is still in beta.
What this means for marketers:
“While there were MX record changes and backend adjustments and a few spikes in bounces on various days, the overall migration was likely not felt by marketers,” says Goff. “Their teams did a remarkable job keeping large volumes of mail flowing seamlessly.
“From a reporting perspective, some of our clients have asked if they should merge Yahoo, AOL, and Verizon data within their reporting or activity targeting business rules,” she says. “We do not recommend it. The reason why is because these three audiences are demographically quite different and therefore will likely perform differently and require unique business rules. So, there is still value in reporting on and targeting each of these groups separately.”
Apple Mail Adds Tabs
At their Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced that they’d helping Apple Mail users better manage their email by adding mail categories for marketing, travel and “read later.”
What this means for marketers:
“With Gmail releasing categories a couple of years ago, marketers should know they don’t need to panic,” says Kent McGovern, Senior Strategic Consultant for Deliverability Services at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting. “I see this as a benefit, as it will allow Apple users to focus on the email that matters most to them at the most appropriate time.
“As with Gmail, just because your emails land in the ‘Marketing’ folder does not mean they’re less likely to be opened,” he stresses. “Consumers check these folders at essentially the same rate that they check the Primary tab. All tabs are the inbox. So, brands should continue to focus on sending relevant emails to their subscribers, and not worry about which tab their emails land in.”
‘Sign In with Apple’ Announced
Apple announced a new ‘Sign In with Apple’ feature to compete with Google and Facebook’s social sign-in functionality, both of which have been around for many years. Speaking at their Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple software chief Craig Federighi said, “It offers fast, easy sign-in without all the tracking.”
What this means for marketers:
It’s unclear whether this will help marketers by increasing data quality or hurt marketers by reducing signups, says Goff.
“Will the new Apple Sign In service reduce the number of viable email addresses that brands collect during account registrations?” she says. “Or will email addresses be validated by Apple and therefore be more valuable as a result? We need more details about how they will be implemented to know for sure.”
Need help with your email deliverability? Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting has more than 500 of the leading marketing minds ready to help you to achieve more with the leading marketing cloud, including a dedicated email deliverability practice within our Strategic Services Group.