Don’t Use Catch-All Addresses, Advice to Businesses
Written by Tim Gary on September 29, 2008 – 12:19 am -I’ve been reminded recently that sometimes what seems like a great idea, can totally backfire. You may have experienced something similar.
My Great Idea was to use different email addresses for everything I sign up for, whether online or off. Each domain can have a “catch-all” email address where all email which doesn’t have a corresponding email account can be sent to. This way I can effectively “key” every email address I give out, and determine if it’s being spread to other sites without permission, etc.. It also allows for very easy sorting in my email software of choice (Thunderbird).
All was well until about 2 years ago when my host at the time disallowed this functionality for all accounts. It seems that their servers were being overrun with spam, partly due to this setting. No problem, I was about ready to explore new hosting anyway, so I moved someplace which still allowed my “great idea”.
Well.. Over the past year, I’ve seen first hand what what the prior host have been talking about with an overload of spam. You see, these automated spam programs will often use a random domain as the “sender” for their email. So, even though an email doesn’t originate from your account, it still has a return/sender’s address from your domain. Worse yet, it makes up new email addresses when doing this.
Why does that matter? Well, every time an email blast gets sent by one of these programs, I end up getting several hundred (or even thousand) bounce messages from the systems of email addresses which don’t exist anymore, etc.. Some months this happens several time, others not at all.
There’s more… but I’m really here to rant a bit about the process of cleaning this up. Since I have literally hundreds of these made up email addresses, it’s an ongoing process of updating everything to use one of a small handful of descriptive, but managable addresses. Should be relatively simple. Every time I get an email, just go to the link at the bottom to change my address in their system (or just unsubscribe).
Yet, almost half the time I either have to jump through hoops to make the change, or am only presented with the option of unsubscribing. That’s insane! Imagine someone moving their Internet provider, and not being able to move their subscriptions over. The result is lost business, and a very sour taste in their mouth.
The worst of these are certain sites “powered by Infusionsoft” which apparently doesn’t have a single link to unsubscribe OR change user options. The business owner must setup two links in the email footer… One for unsubscribe requests, and another for option changes. That would be fine if these business owners would provide both links. often only the unsubscribe option exists. So that’s what I do. If it’s somethng I really want to track, I’ll sometimes resubscribe, but not always.
Other programs will require me to “log in” or otherwise waste a lot of time making the change. I only do this for relatively important sites. All of the rest will simply get bounce notices when I make the switch away from the “catch-all” email addresses.
Sometimes, they allow me to change my name, but not my email address! How whacked is that? While my brother actually legally changed his name, and women often change their name after getting married, I suspect email address changes happen a heck of a lot more often.
The simplest? Everyone who uses Aweber, GetResponseor or 1ShoppingCart. The process is one or two clicks, and entering the new address. Just like it should be.
So before you get your whole autoresponder or broadcast email list going, be sure to consider this simple usability issue. It will reduce frustration from your customers, and possibly keep them for unsubscribing or falling off when their email address changes.
| About the Author Tim Gary's Internet Business and Personal Success delivers easy to use ideas on business and personal prosperity, online and off. Visit his blog at www.timgary.com. |
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Tags: , auto responders, business, customer service, email, email addresses
Posted in Advertising, Internet Business Resources, Online Business |
September 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Tim,
You brought up some excellent points, especially with regard to Infusionsoft. I understand it’s frustrating when you can’t manage your delivery preferences in e-mail. In fact, I agree that this reflects poorly on the marketer and the e-mail sender. That said, we’re growing rapidly and it’s an ongoing effort to keep all new customers updated on how to use the powerful e-mail marketing features within the Infusionsoft application. The e-mail feature allows users to manage whether they use “Opt-Out” or “Update & Opt-Out” links. Unfortunately, the problem with the default link is that it’s a traditional “Opt-Out” link and users don’t get around to changing the default. We encourage our clients to leverage the “Update & Opt-Out” links instead, precisely for the reasons you mentioned. This allows the e-mail recipient to more effectively manage their information (update their email address) or opt-out entirely.
I’d also like to point out that our Opt-Out mechanism is well above industry standard. We provide recipients (consumers) a quick opt-out device from an e-mail within less than two clicks. Further, we collect live feedback from an voluntary “Spam Report” if the consumer believes the sender isn’t acting within ethical and responsible marketing practices. We process all reported violations within 72 hours and we will not hesitate to suspend a customer’s services if they violate our guidelines. (Specifically, those guidelines are located at http://tinyurl.com/44q779 [pdf].)
So, just to recap, Infusionsoft offers the ability to embed an “unsubscribe or change user options” link within all outbound e-mail. We just need to continue to educate our clients and I’ll work on getting the default link changed to an “Update or Opt-Out” link so we address these needs before they cause problems. We feel your pain and I’d like to thank you again for elevating the issue to our attention. We’re always looking for ways to improve our software and increase usability for our clients, affiliates and consumers.
Thanks again for the feedback,
Tyler Garns
Director of Marketing
Infusionsoft
October 1st, 2008 at 7:51 am
Some sites don’t let you change email address because they use that as their primary key. Even so you should be able to change it, that’s just bad design and/or programming.
I also setup unique email each time I sign up for something. You can see very quickly who is selling your email.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:21 am
“Every time I get an email, just go to the link at the bottom to change my address in their system (or just unsubscribe).”
it’s pretty useless, probably they already have sold your address
October 6th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
You must be a very patient person - i’d be totally fried if I had all that happening to me! You make me so glad I only have 3 email addresses - one personal, one business, and one for anything i have to sign up for i don’t want to get mail for
October 7th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Hey, you bring up some good points. I typically create two or three email accounts that I use for any site that I think may have a mailing list I don’t want to see. I also keep one or two that I know will receive spam and when I sign up for some stuff at stores or online, I use the spam account. I have had experience with a catchall account and it does tend to receive a lot of spam.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Damn, how do you keep track of all the Emails you use?
October 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I use 3 e-mail addresses, but only one is for personal use that I actually check. The others are for signing up for stuff. It seems like everybody is selling your info these days.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
While I do agree that separating email addresses out for your business is a must, having a catch-all email address is very important too.
I can’t tell you how many people mis-spell my name or just send email to webmaster@mywebsite “knowing” I’ll get it. Luckily I do, but without a catch all I would be missing out on quite a bit of business.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
so true and well put bogand definetly something i have to do now because i only have 1 email address and will need to put this into play.
http://www.spreadingyourcashflow.com
November 13th, 2008 at 3:45 am
I’ve also done this for quite some time. What transpired is that the type of sites I sign up to for a forum etc almost never send me spam.
In addition I get most spam from addresses only given to individual freinds - presumably because they’re infected with something nasty that raids their address book.
Having 3 or 4 emails for different things is a nobrainer.
The problem of spammers using my domain is a big problem though. Would be nice if there was a simple server side software that allowed you to type a list of emails for the domain, redirect any from that list to a single POP3 box and fail the rest. Perhaps there is, trouble is every one of these small problems takes an age to investigate.
I think the barrier is that it would take a lot of trust and flexibility to make it work so really only viable with someone you know personally. Hence the popularity of all the types of schemes (safe from emotional involvement) here.
December 12th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I have seen similar problems and started creating about a dozen different email accounts that help me track and reduce spam on my main accounts. You can use Google’s email for domains to manage your email accounts and it uses Google’s standard Gmail interface. What I do is set up a handful of addresses as needed and then allow pop access so the main address can pull in the email from these other accounts. It flags emails imported with their address so I can see which account it went to. I can also reply from this address which is nice for legitimate email. Since Google’s tool is free, it is a great solution. Their configuration and DNS settings are easy and they have instructions for some of the bigger domain hosts.