About a week ago, Mathieu Girol announced on Linkedin that Telecom Italia Group joined the "Validity Data Network" and that a feedback loop was now available (managed by Validity). This is a good time to talk to you about feedback loops, how to set them up and which ISPs/Webmails are using the Validity service.
Telecom Italia offers a feedback loop via Validity!
As I mentioned in the introduction, a new feedback loop is born at Validity (and one more!). The Telecom Italia group becomes a Validity partner and joins the "VDN" (or Validity Data Network).
This Italian group manages mainly 3 areas:
- tim.it
- tin.it
- alice.it
Of course, it is not a French ISP or Webmail but it is always interesting to know - especially if you travel internationally - that foreign ISPs / Webmails have this type of mechanism in place!
If you, advertiser(s), are routing emails to Italy, this new feedback loop is to be set up as soon as possible 🙂 Especially when you look at Validity's partners, it starts to have quite a few Italian operators!
Reminder : The Feedback Loop ... What is it ?
We could define the Feedback Loop (or FBL) as a well-oiled mechanism that will allow an advertiser to recover the addresses that have clicked on the spam button of their email.
This mechanism only works with ISPs/Webmails that have an FBL in place. Otherwise, you won't know who complained about your mailings!
There are also "fake" FBLs (although they should not be categorized as fake) since they return different information than a classic FBL:
- Signal-Spam : You will get the number of complaints generated per IP and per day at Orange, SFR, La Poste and Signal-Spam.
- Gmail You will get the complaint rates by campaign thanks to their identifier.
How does a Feedback Loop work?
The process remains rather simple (in its operation) and takes place in 4 steps:
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- The advertiser sends a campaign via its router to a list of e-mails.
- A user will click on the "spam" button in his email.
- An e-mail will be sent to the router with a copy of the complainant's e-mail (the complainant's e-mail address is included in this copy).
- If you use a professional router, it will retrieve the address and place it in a push list.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of an FBL?
BENEFITS
- The advertiser will be able to remove the complaining addresses from its database.
- The router will have an accurate view of the complaints generated by its customers.
- The user will have a way to show his dissatisfaction and unsubscribe from an unsolicited email.
- The ISP will "logically" reduce the number of unsolicited emails from its complaining users.
DISADVANTAGES
- FBLs related to domains generally require to have DKIM set up (which is not yet the case in all areas... Personal observation)
- If you don't use a professional router, you will have to generate them manually and therefore remember to process them very quickly.
GROS WARNING
Remember that generating too many complaints severely damages your reputation as a sender!
Validity's Universal Feedback Loops
Validity offers a free feedback loop service that can be accessed at this address: https://fbl.validity.com/
The goal, announced by Validity, is to "provide a universal feedback loop" and especially to "create and update all feedback loops in just a few clicks".
And for this Validity has a large number of partnerships:
We find there in particular La Poste, Swiss, Dutch, Spanish, Brazilian, Italian, Russian, American, Norwegian ISPs/Webmails, ... In short, a very large range! If you route through the world, we strongly advise you to set up all the proposed loops... Especially since it is rather simple to set up... But see you in a next article (where I will talk about their configuration)!
Don't hesitate to ask your router (or your CIO if you use your own IP) if all the Validity FBLs are set up correctly! (he will be happy to answer you :p)
PS: since the writing of this article, other feedback loops have appeared at Validity !
