Deliverability Comparison - Update #2
In our Deliverability comparison in February 2014 We reported incomplete and sometimes even complete missing implementations of DKIM mail header signatures (DomainKeys Identified Mail) at a total of nine out of 20 CSA-certified email delivery platforms (ESP). We had identified this through sample tests.
Three months later, the Certified Senders Alliance announced that from June 10, 2014, only those IP mailing addresses that send promotional emails with DKIM signatures would retain CSA whitelisting status — without exception. This tightening of execution practice can be read in the blogs and on the websites of CSA-listed ESPs such as Optivo, Promio and Agnitas.
We were curious and wanted to find out to what extent, following our blog post and under pressure from the practical tightening of CSA regulations starting June 10, the DKIM implementation gaps diagnosed at the time of our settlement were closed by the affected ESPs.
We compared this with a randomly selected set of five promotional emails from different customers from each ESP that we received in the second half of 2014. Compared to our deliverability comparison, we have expanded the circle of compared CSA-certified senders by two companies, as we were able to identify enough customers for their respective shipping platform through our 2015 eCommerce study to obtain a total sample set of 5 emails. The newcomers are empaction and Newsletter2Go.
The result of our comparison shows an all-round positive development:
- For three ESPs, for which we did not find a DKIM header entry in any of the sample emails in February 2014, we were able to identify a DKIM entry for all 5 customer emails in the current random sample.
- Two other providers, who did not have a DKIM header entry in any of the sample emails in February 2014, have now largely implemented the DKIM.
- Two ESPs whose DKIM implementation practice appeared incomplete in our 2014 comparison were able to close the gaps according to our new audit.
- With just one of the shipping platforms compared last year, we were still unable to find a DKIM entry in any sample email.
- Of the providers for whom all sample emails contained a DKIM signature in February 2014, we “caught” two newsletters without a DKIM signature from just one provider — here, too, the remaining three sample emails each contained a DKIM signature.
If you are interested in the detailed results of our update, we would be happy to provide them to you. Please contact us via the contact form.
Empirical starting point
For this settlement, Publicare signed up for a variety of newsletters and for commercial communication from various companies. From the volume of all promotional email communication that we received in this context, we created sample sets of five emails per sending platform for evaluation. Each set of 5 contains emails from five different companies, which act as senders in the email header. The sets of 5 were randomly selected by us. No shipping service provider was given preferential treatment or discrimination when selecting and evaluating the data.
note: We are a permanent service partner of emarsys, but we also provide services on the platforms of other providers examined here. We made sure to make the comparison on other systems regardless of our cooperation with emarsys and our services. The email sample sets, on the basis of which we checked the listed deliverability criteria, did not receive any emails from companies that we handle in email marketing ourselves.
