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Microsoft continues to improve deliverability for legitimate senders by improving IP and volume based reputation data. At Hotmail, the Sender ID verdict result is combined with pre-existing reputation data to determine an enhanced e-mail “trustworthy score”. Offering a safe and secure unsubscribe option has helped reduce the number of user complaints, providing senders enhanced data for list management, while not adversely impacting their overall reputation.

Looking ahead, Microsoft will continue to research and invest in reputation and authentication technologies. Conceptually servers, services and clients will share central reputation data. Multiple levels of reputation will be tracked including IP, URL, domain and use. The Sender ID Framework and the Outlook Postmark will help authenticate users and create identities. Finally, user personalization elements will be integrated as we continue to learn from user to better distinguish good e-mail from bad e-mail.

Summary of Deliverability Best Practices

Specific to Windows Live Hotmail, we highly recommending following these steps to ensure the highest deliverability rates: Step 1 - Ensure Compliance -With Windows Live Policies and Technical Requirements
• http://postmaster.live.com/Guidelines.aspx
Step 2 - Follow best practices and FAQ’s
• http://postmaster.live.com/Troubleshooting.aspx
• http://www.microsoft.com/postmaster
Step 3 - Adopt Sender ID and Keep Your Record Current
• http://www.microsoft.com/safety
• http://www.microsoft.com/SenderID
Step 4 – Join the Junk e-Mail Reporting Program
• http://support.msn.com/default.aspx?productkey=edfsJMRp&mkt=en-us
Step 5 – Leverage Smart Network Data Services (SNDS)
• https://postmaster.live.com/snds/index.aspx
Step 6 – Contact Deliverability Support - If you‟re still having issues: http://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsmsbl&page=support_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts

Consistent and reliable e-mail deliverability generally comes down being consistent, monitoring your reputation proactively and following best practices. The following tenets and their impact to deliverability should be considered by all senders and online marketers:

1. Complaints - This occurs automatically when a user clicks “block and delete”, “report spam” or similar reporting options including escalations and user complaints. This might be the complaint rate or just the total number of complaints depending on the receiver.

2. High unknown user rates - How clean is your list? Are you sending mail to users that have moved on and changed address? Do you have a lot of dead addresses on your list? This is an indicator by many receivers that you may be a spammer and indicator of harvested address lists.

3. Spam trap addresses - These are addresses (in some cases a domain) that have never been signed up to receive any kind of message or have been deactivated after prolonged inactivity by the ISP. Typically ISPs and law enforcement agencies create these and post them on web sites to be “harvested”.

4. Sending infrastructure - Spammers steal resources and have difficulty setting up “industrial strength” infrastructure. Many receivers look for well set up infrastructure as another indicator.

5. Sending “permanence” (Consistency) – Sending from the same IP address with consistent volumes and frequencies month over month is ideal. Spammers tend to “pop up” on an IP and disappear. Infrequent senders who send large volumes once a month or quarterly can be an indicator of a spammer or a compromised server.

6. Content – Senders be focused on e-mail content, as well as the URLs and HTML elements embedded in their e-mail. Anti-spam systems and heuristics continue to incorporate content filtering with authentication and reputation for a combined “trustworthy” score. Reputation scoring can compensate for content which may appear “spammy”, resulting in improved deliverability and a reduction in false positives.

The following sender best practices may help increase your chances for successful deliverability:
Complaints
• Add “list unsubscribe” header to e-mails offering subscribers a clean way to opt out
• Honor unsubscribes requests. Opting out should be just as simple as opting in
• Add text reminding subscribers where they opted-in to receive your e-mail
• Monitor your complaint rates. Most major services or e-mail service providers offer monitoring tools for free or as part of their service.
• Validate you are adhering to applicable anti-spam and privacy laws and policies
• Ensure your marketing communications are timely, relevant, have been requested and that you have permission to send them to the user.
• Consider the frequency of your mailings. What are the user‟s expectations?
High unknown user rates
• Maintain your mailing lists. This includes purging old, bad or inactive addresses from your mailing lists. Also, this means acquiring names responsibly and sending mail only to users that “opt-in” to receiving your e-mail.
Spam trap addresses
• Monitor and manage both hard and soft bounces. Bounce notices can provide invaluable information regarding the ISP‟s treatment of your e-mail.
Sending infrastructure
• Choose content wisely and verify URLs look normal and point to valid domains
• Format a reply header to ensure subscribers see your “friendly” e-mail address
• Use a reputable e-mail service provider who has relationships with ISPs, such as AOL, Yahoo and Windows Live Hotmail
• Implement outbound e-mail authentication using the Sender ID Framework, with a valid “-all” record. This helps protect from spoofing and ensure your MTA is authorized to send mail, while protecting the brand and domain from threats to their brand and misrepresentation.
• Segment or separate traffic by brand or type of mail. Corporate e-mail, customer acquisition, customer retention and transactional e-mails should be segmented. Senders who wish to maintain separate reputations for each should consider segment mail streams by IP address and publishing separate SPF records.
• Set up, monitor and proactively manage your user feedback data. Feedback loops contain valuable spam complaint information
Sending “permanence”
• Be consistent – Send e-mail from the same IP‟s
• Less is more. Send less mail more often vs. lots of mail for short periods of time
The bottom line to remember is: if as little as 1% of your customers complain, the inability to communicate with your entire customer base may be the end result.

Finally, before launching any campaign, thorough testing is recommended. This means frequent testing with recipient accounts using various clients and major e-mail service providers to ensure that communications are being received in a desired fashion.