UK Organisations Failing to Follow Email Marketing Best Practice

Have you ever tried to subscribe to a mailing list or newsletter online and found that it took forever to sign up? Or that you needed to create an account first, or you couldn’t even find the box to put your email address in? Well, you aren’t the only one.New research from the email deliverability services company Return Path has found that two out of every five UK companies make it difficult for customers to subscribe to their email marketing programmes. As Return Path's Vice President for European Operations, Guy Shelton says: ‘Giving subscribers a great email experience isn't just “nice to do”; it is, of course, an essential marketing best practice.’ This great experience doesn’t just cover the sign up process but the content of the emails too.However, even when customers manage to sign up, out of the companies that successfully delivered a welcome message to the inbox only 45 per cent included a special offer for the new customer. By including a special offer, companies are able to show their thanks and start the relationship well with the customer, meaning they are more likely to read their emails and use the company in the future.Furthermore, by failing to follow email marketing best practice, many UK organisations risk generating spam complaints. According to Return Path, if a welcome message does not arrive within 24 hours it increases the chance of the subscriber marking the subsequent email as spam. This harms the company’s “sender reputation”, which reflects the likelihood of their emails being delivered successfully.But is it just too difficult and time-consuming to follow best practice? Not according to Return Path. Guy Shelton explains that ‘The steps that organisations need to improve their sender reputation are quick and simple to take’ and the easy steps can help organisations ‘build strong subscriber relationships, experience better deliverability, increase conversions and improve return on investment (ROI).’Return Path’s research has pointed out some major problems with email marketing in the UK, and it will be interesting to see how companies react. Return Path believe that it is easy to get right, and with their advice, companies can greatly improve their email reputation and therefore make more money.

The lady's for turning

We've taken the odd swipe at Jacqui Smith over the last few months, so it only seems fair to applaud her decision to scrap the Home Office's planned über-database of communications data.The database would have collected data on all electronic correspondence, such as the time, date and length of communication (and, of course, who contacted whom).Humble Jacqui said that she recognised the public's concerns that a giant database would be a further step toward a surveillance society. And, in a nice little turn of phrase, she said, "To be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single store."No longer any plans, Jacqui, no longer.Of course the cynics will say that Labour couldn't possibly get away with ploughing hundreds of millions of pounds into a deeply un-popular government IT project in light of last week's austerity budget.We couldn't possibly comment.Anyway, the upshot of all this is that ISPs are now responsible for intercepting and storing the data that crosses their networks. To this end, the Home Office have earmarked £2 billion to help ISPs to expand their storage capabilities.Mobile and fixed line operators will be required to process and link the data together to build complete profiles of every UK internet user's online activity. Police and the intelligence services would then access the profiles, which will be stored for 12 months, on a case-by-case basis.Don't be surprised if even this plan is quietly dropped by the Conservatives after the 2010 election.A final point - John Reid, the frankly terrifying former Home Secretary, argues in an opinion piece today that communications data is vital to identifying serious criminals. In his short but predictably manipulative piece, he kicks off with a tear-jerker about a murdered 17 year old whose killers were brought to justice by communications data. This, he says, happened in 2007.So you see, Reid shoots himself in the foot before he's reached the end of his first paragraph, by showing that police then already had adequate access to communications data.He then comes up with a classic piece of patronising lip service: "Used in the right way, and subject to important safeguards, communications data can play a critical role in keeping us safe."Presumably, these would be the safeguards that ensured only 36,989,300 pieces of personal information were lost by the government in 2008. As for using it in the right way, it's as if he hadn't heard of the scandal of local authorities using the RIPA legislation to spy on dog fouling and catchment areas.If we really do need a giant central database, they'll need to do a lot better than this to convince the public.

Pirate Bay No Longer A Safe Haven for Internet Buccaneers

Last week a Swedish Court found four founders of file-sharing site, The Pirate Bay, guilty of “assisting making available copyrighted content” but what should ISPs make of this ruling and is it somewhat of a poisoned chalice?Similar to UK ISPs, The Pirate Bay had previously cited “mere-conduit” status but, unlike UK ISPs, had used it as a means of evading the long arm of the law. A quick look at their ‘About Us’ reveals:-“Only torrent files are saved at the server. That means no copyrighted and/or illegal material are stored by us. It is therefore not possible to hold the people behind The Pirate Bay responsible for the material that is being spread using the tracker. Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site.”This latest ruling is set to be fought and will not sink the site but it’s definitely a sign of stormy waters ahead.Some commentators have also speculated that search engines such as Google or Ask may be in the firing line because they can return results that link to copyright infringed material. Outlaw’s Struan Robertson argues these search engines have nothing to worry about because links to copyright infringed material are not central to their business model.“A crucial part of the case against The Pirate Bay was that the vast majority of content that people sought through the site was infringing copyright. Google returns some links to infringing content and eBay hosts some auctions for pirated goods but that does not make their operations illegal.”On the other hand this does not bode well for ISPs. If a website can be found guilty of assisting in making copyrighted material available then it logically follows that ISPs who, through no intent of their own, are directly involved in the distribution of copyright infringed material could suffer.

Facebook moves the goalposts

This week we've heard more rumblings of discontent from Facebook users - they're unhappy that the social networking site has moved the goalposts over the much-hyped "user vote" on changing Facebook's Terms and Conditions.The story first emerged last February, when Facebook casually mentioned that it had granted itself a licence to all its users' content in perpetuity, even if they deleted their account. Cue a predictable collective wailing and gnashing of teeth from millions of users who, almost by definition, are pretty clued up on the web.The backlash prompted a partial backdown from Facebook, who attempted to mollify its members by saying that it would agree to drop the proposal if 25 per cent of users voted against.This week, that threshold has quietly been raised to 30 per cent. What's more, a significant number of Facebook users have been disenfranchised by the decision to allow votes only from those who've used their accounts in the last thirty days.Simon Davies of Privacy International is so confident that the 30 per cent threshold won't be achieved that he's promised to eat his shorts if he's wrong. (As if there wasn't already a good enough reason to get voting - Ed.)At the time of writing, 73.11% of respondents have voted against Mark's Terms of Use, but unfortunately "only" 284,473 have voted in total - barely a tenth of one per cent of Facebook's 200 million regular users.So Zuckerberg is really expecting 60 million users to vote? And isn't he concerned that the respondents, while still so "few", should be so overwhelmingly opposed to his plan?Here at Data Grub, we're rather disappointed with the preternaturally young Facebook CEO. Changing the rules like this is pretty childish, after all, and we reckon he could do much better.Zuckerberg really needs to take lessons from a master manipulator, such as the late Saddam Hussein or even the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il himself. We'd love to see the People's Democratic Republic of Facebook announce that 99.8% of members had voted in favour of the rule change, on a 100% turnout. Read Zuckerberg's plans for Facebook here.

Speed: Know Your Limits

It seems that this week everyone's jumping on the 'Speed issue' bandwagon and has something to say about all that data whizzing (or not) around the 'net.The week started with the Broadband Stakeholder Group(BSG),"the industry-government forum tackling strategic issues across the converging broadband value chain.", releasing some interesting info about how telephone line lengths affect broadband speeds. This is certainly nothing new to those in the industry but it is important information for consumers who need to be aware of the limitations of the broadband service provided by their ISP.On the very same day T-Mobile announced that it's topped a YouGov mobile broadband survey of 1,958 coming first in 9 out of 13 categories, including upload and download speeds. Although speed isn't everything and there's no point in having a super fast connection if it's not reliable, T-mobile managed to secure second spot for staying connected. As the number of users choosing flexible mobile broadband over fixed line access increases, it'll be interesting to see if T-Mobile can keep it up or if a traditional fixed line ISP can catch them up.On Wednesday, Virgin Media questioned the reliability of online speedtesters which Virgin Media's Director of Broadband, Jon James, claimed, "Consumers rely on these sites for clear advice and honest results. The fact that many of them cannot accurately measure speeds of 20Mb, and some cannot even accurately measure speeds of 10Mb, demonstrates there is a clear need for more transparency."Further announcements included Manx Telecom boasting an average broadband speed of 5.5Mbps for their customers; Point Topic, partnering with Gavurin, giving free access to a website containing the results of the speed and uptake of ISP broadband services by region; and the independent watchdog, Consumer Focus, criticising Lord Carter's interim Digital Britain Report for its lack of vision, neglecting consumer interests and risk of leaving the UK in the Internet "slow lane".

Construction firms to mount the scaffold?

The information commissioner Richard Thomas has come down like a ton of bricks on a group of British builders who allegedly bought secret personal data about potential employees.Construction companies Balfour Beatty, Sir Robert MacAlpine, Laing O'Rourke and Costain are among those alleged to have bought data about workers' trade union activities from one Kerr, Ian, operator of the shadowy-named "Consultancy Association".Kerr has apparently spent 15 years amassing an "extensive intelligence database" of thousands of construction workers with details of union activities stretching back to the 1980s. Samples of comments on these workers include: "Poor timekeeper, will cause trouble, strong TU [trade union]"; "Sleeper, should be watched"; and, simply, "Do not touch!".Workers could not challenge inaccurate information because the information was held without their knowledge or consent.Richard Thomas says that more than 40 construction companies paid Kerr a retainer of £3,000 a year for his "consultancy services", with a further fixed fee for each worker they wanted checked.The good news is that officials from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) raided Kerr's office and removed the entire contents of the database, as well as invoices - up to a value of £7,500 - from companies in the construction business. Steve Acheson, an electrician from somewhere north of Watford, believes he was one of the workers on the database, and that this was behind the fact that he's only had 36 weeks' employment in the past nine years. "It affects your character and demeanour," he said. "I'm hoping that because of this brilliant success I'll be able to get my family life back and it will open the doors for me and others to get back to work."Of course, this is all still sub judice, but the commissioner will be bringing a prosecution against Kerr. We'll keep you posted. Data Grub is sure that Mr Kerr will be found innocent, because we cannot believe that anyone would be capable of such repugnantly unethical behaviour as robbing people of their livelihoods for personal profit.(We should point out that some of the construction firms, including Laing O'Rourke and Morgan Est, say that they "inherited" payments to Kerr after they had bought up other constuction companies, and have since ceased paying him. Data Grub.)

IAB's Guide To Good Behaviour

We're pleased to see that the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the trade body for online advertisers, has finally launched its Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising.Drawn up in collaboration with companies like Google, Phorm and NebuAd, the IAB's best practice guide is, remarkably, the first set of self-regulatory guidelines to set good practice for companies that use users' online browsing behaviour to target ads that are relevant to individual users' interests.An accompanying website, http://www.youronlinechoices.co.uk/, will help consumers to understand what online behavioural advertising does and (crucially) doesn't do.The core of the Principles is formed by three commitments: Notice, where companies that collect online data must inform users that data is being collected; Choice, which says that companies must provide an opt-out; and Education, whereby they must let consumers know exactly how the information is being used and how they can opt out.And not before time, think we. The debate surrounding online behavioural advertising has for too long been dominated by single-issue campaigners relying on hearsay, misrepresentation and misinformation to argue that behavioural targeting infringes individuals' online privacy.That's not to say that some developments (not least BT's secret and most-probably illegal trials of Phorm's Webwise technology without users' knowledge or consent) haven't done real damage to the industry in the eyes of the general public.That's why we welcome the IAB's Good Practice Principles which, as well as advising on best practice approaches to online behavioural targeting, provide consumers with the information they need to make an informed decision about whether they want to take part in any new service.The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) have voiced their support, saying that 'a joined-up approach to promoting transparency, choice and education makes good sense.'Getting the thumbs up from the ICO, who know their stuff, is one thing; changing the public's perception of online behavioural targeting is quite another, especially given the bad press that it's garnered over the last couple of years. Whether or not it succeeds in its aim of educating the public about behavioural targeting, the code of conduct is certainly a step in the right direction for the industry.Taken along with another piece of recent news, we could be seeing something of a fightback from the targeted ad industry. Last week, Phorm unleashed its lawyers on Which?, which had published a press release highlighting opposition to their service. Nothing very surprising there, except that following the legal intervention, Which? immediately pulled the offending release from its website (though not before the story had been covered in several publications). It seems that some of the information in the release was inaccurate enough to be defamatory; Which? is now "working with Phorm" to correct the release.If consumer champions and all-round experts Which? can't get its facts right, what hope for your average Internet user? That's one reason, at least, to welcome the IAB's new code of practice.