Extreme increase in SPAM

Jeanette Smallwood
Jeanette Smallwood
Sixth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Luminate Online® & Blackbaud TeamRaiser® Discussions
Hello everyone! 


Starting a few months ago, we had an exponential increase in complaints from volunteers and other constituents saying that our emails are going to SPAM.


The number of spam complaints (tracked by Luminate) hasn't gone up, and the SPAM rating for all of our messages in the last year has been below 1. (So they fall into the "exemplary" category.) We also have good engagement on all of our sends, a good image to text ratio, we don't use stationary, include an unsubsribe link and our physical address in the footer, and always create both a HTML and plain text version. 


We haven't changed anything about how we send emails. 


We have tried asking the consituients white list us by adding us to their address books. And updating our DNS. I am currently working on also implimenting an DKIM. But nothing has worked so far. 


Has any one else had these issues? Or know of something I may have missed? 


Thanks so much! 

-Jeanette Smallwood 
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Comments

  • Patti Posey
    Patti Posey
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi Jeanette,


    We were first made aware of this issue back in February when we started getting calls of people not receiving our emails and going to spam.  I would probably guess this has been happening for a long time but we were not made aware of it.  It was mostly gmail and yahoo accounts. I called support back in February and back and forth for five months trying to resolve this.  First we were told to include our domain in the SPF record.  So our IT did that. Of course didn't work.  So then they recommended  a DKIM signature (way over my head) but this whole process going back and forth with Blackbaud and our IT, took about five months.  Well here we are in August and I still have lots of constituents complaining that they are not receiving our emails.  Then they find them in their spam folders.  We don't know what else to do.  VERY frustrating.  I am at a loss.  Maybe we should look at other mass email programs.


    Patti Posey

    Stamford Hospital Foundation
  • Jeanette Smallwood
    Jeanette Smallwood
    Sixth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1

    Patti Posey:

    Hi Jeanette,


    We were first made aware of this issue back in February when we started getting calls of people not receiving our emails and going to spam.  I would probably guess this has been happening for a long time but we were not made aware of it.  It was mostly gmail and yahoo accounts. I called support back in February and back and forth for five months trying to resolve this.  First we were told to include our domain in the SPF record.  So our IT did that. Of course didn't work.  So then they recommended  a DKIM signature (way over my head) but this whole process going back and forth with Blackbaud and our IT, took about five months.  Well here we are in August and I still have lots of constituents complaining that they are not receiving our emails.  Then they find them in their spam folders.  We don't know what else to do.  VERY frustrating.  I am at a loss.  Maybe we should look at other mass email programs.


    Patti Posey

    Stamford Hospital Foundation

    That's super helpful to know! Our issues also started around February. So it sounds like this could be a bigger Luminate issue. I definitely agree with your frustrations about the whole thing. Especially as we get closer to end-of-year giving time. Thanks so much for your reply! 

  • Philip Nawrocki
    Philip Nawrocki
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    Hey Jeanette,


    The Email Complaints percentage you see in LO is not a good metric to use. I had a call asking about it once and support didn't give off great confidence in that number being accurate or relevant.


    Do you guys using Litmus? You can get good engagement info from their tracking code.


    Also, we we going to go with 250ok, now Validity, before the pandemic hit. They can help clean spam traps and help your sendability. They help keep your housefile looking good.


    That is one other thing to look at. Are you using Engagement factors to parse out constituents that are no longer engaged?


    You might have seen this, but it has some good information:
    https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/191712?_ga=2.115286017.702238733.1579628033-1133656492.1568839234


    Thanks,


    Phil
  • Jessica Mavaro
    Jessica Mavaro
    Ninth Anniversary Participant Facilitator 1
    We moved onto Luminate from Acoustic in August and have found that our inbox placement is worse for Gmail (100% of our Everest seeds landed in Spam) and our open rates have decreased by about 10% on average. We're working hard to figure out why this is, and are taking every step we can to rectify (including many of the ones Jeremy mentions below). Very frustrating experience and ultimately not sure which direction we're going to be taking. 
  • Patti Posey
    Patti Posey
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant


    Hi Jessica,

    We had the same issue. Gmail were going to
    spam even after they were receiving our previous
    emails.  This started
    back in February.  Gmail
    must have made changes in security.  I reached out to Blackbaud and the
    long process to resolve the issue began.

     

    You will have to get your IT dept
    involved.  We were first
    told to add our domain to the spf record.  Then we added
    outboundmail.blackbaud.net and outboundmail.convio.net to our dns
    record.  The final and I
    think the most important was adding a custom dkim
    signature.   Thanks
    to Illan Perez, who I can’t say enough about and my great IT guy,
    they worked together over several months to resolve this issue.

     

    You should reach to Illan Perez from
    support.  He will know
    just what to do.  Good
    luck.

     

     


    Patti Posey


    Stamford Hospital Foundation


    203.276.5975 - direct


    203.276.5900 - main


    203.276.2051 - fax


    pposey@stamhealth.org


     


    https://www.stamfordhospitalfoundation.org


     


     


     

     




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  • Erik Leaver
    Erik Leaver Blackbaud Employee
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper
    Hi Jessica,

    I’m sorry to hear about your challenges. Often changing services can result in different results, especially at the onset as the email service providers adjust to your new service provider. Did you have a "warming up" period as you moved to Luminate? This can be helpful to let the email service providers know you are switching. And are you still sending from your old provider? Often times spammers will use different services at the same time so this type of activity can negatively affect your inbox placement.


    Additionally, each service provider likely has slightly different reporting infrastructure.

    It sounds like you are taking the right actions to suppress your disengaged audiences but I’d recommend connecting with support and your Customer Success Manager to better understand the root causes of your deliverability issues and help guide you through this transition period.


     

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