Hello again, after reading a slew of articles that keep pouring into my inbox about Email Marketing projections for 2009, I’ve noticed there is quite a lot of talk of Spam traps and blacklists. ReturnPath’s Stephanie Miller wrote an excellent post in particular about kicking off the new year in the right direction that is definitely worth a mention: 3 Stats To Kick Off The New Year Right . In it she not only talks about how important Email marketing is in today’s economy, but also the affect just one trap hit can have on your deliverability.
I’ve had several people ask me in the past “What is a Spam trap?” and “How did it get on my list??” so it’s clear this continues to be a very grey area for Email Marketers and today I’d like to fix that.
What is a Spam trap or ‘planted’ address? Very simply, it’s an address you don’t want on your list!
The term “trap” is very appropriate, in that these addresses are put out there to catch people either not using proper list building practices, people harvesting emails, purchasing lists from a 3rd party, or marketers who have very poor list hygiene (whether knowingly or not*). These trap addresses are kept secret to protect their identity and are released to no one. Why? Well making them public would render them rather useless if you think about it.
Bye for now,
Kevin Huxham, Director of Deliverability
If you have any questions, Kevin can be reached by contacting support or feel free to use our Help Center Knowledgebase.
Next time: Spam Traps 101 – part 2: 2 basic kinds of trap addresses
