Help Sending Newsletters to Yahoo customers

dworsky

Valued Member
Hi Raymond...

I am pulling my hair out, and hope you can help.

I run ConsumerWorld.org, a public service consumer education site. We have a 100% opt-in newsletter that is sent once a week (early Monday am) to about 35,000 subscribers, many of whom are Yahoo! customers.

For about the last two months, Yahoo! has been delaying or in most cases not delivering the newsletter at all to those with Yahoo email addresses.

I have gone through the process using your postmaster forms to try to resolve the issue to no avail. I even resorted to asking readers to write to Yahoo! to urge them to stop blocking the newsletter.

I use Domain Keys and SPF records for my email newsletter. I send 20 identical emails (using BCC's) per thread, with four threads running simultaneously. I do not recycle the connection in any thread. (This meets Yahoo's, 20 limit should 20 Yahoo users be in any of these groups of 20.) I even tried sending each email individually to no avail, using 10 threads. I remove legitimate bouncing emails after two soft bounces or one hard bounce. I am on a shared email server, and the newsletter is sent from 208.43.114.50 .

Despite this, I get delay messages from Yahoo (it has been delayed 144 hours type stuff), for example. But for most newsletters addressed to Yahoo users, no error message is received. Today I got a number of TS01 error messages, as I did maybe two months ago.

I believe I have done everything reasonable to be within Yahoo's mail guidelines, but something is blocking delivery of the newsletter that never existed before. (I have been sending the newsletter for about 10 years!)

I am hoping that having reached a real human being in the postmaster office at Yahoo!, you may be able to help me resolve this issue.

Thanks in advance,
Edgar Dworsky
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Edgar,

What error do you get from the Yahoo Mail servers?

Does the email contain an easy to use unsubscribe link?

Are you on the Yahoo feedback loop? Complaint Feedback Loop - Yahoo! Mail

Which of the forms have you used to contact Yahoo? The Yahoo Mail Bulk Sender form is the correct contact form for your situation : Yahoo! Mail Bulk Sender Form | Yahoo! Postmaster Help

Your IP address is not on any major blacklists (good) : Network Tools: DNS,IP,Email

Try sending the newsletter to the actual recipients. 1 recipient per email, make them the To: address, and don't include any BCC:s.

Further reduce the number of simultaneous open smtp connections to the Yahoo mail servers.

I believe reducing the number of connections and not including BCC's will help improve the situation for you until you are able to make contact using the bulk sender form.

-Raymond
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Raymond,

I will answer/comment on each of your points:

--> What error do you get from the Yahoo Mail servers?

I got 2 kinds of error emails from Yahoo:

============
A message that you sent has not yet been delivered to one or more of its
recipients after more than 168 hours on the queue on neptune.arandomserver.com.
The message identifier is: 1OLZNO-00024w-PG
The subject of the message is: Consumer World Newsletter - June 7
The date of the message is: 07 Jun 2010 06:16:13 -0400
The addresses to which the message has not yet been delivered are:
xxx@yahoo.com
yyy@yahoo.com
zzz@yahoo.com
No action is required on your part. Delivery attempts will continue for
some time, and this warning may be repeated at intervals if the message
remains undelivered. Eventually the mail delivery software will give up,
and when that happens, the message will be returned to you.

====================

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
xxx@yahoo.com
SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection:
host c.mx.mail.yahoo.com [206.190.54.127]: 421 4.7.0 [TS01] Messages from 208.43.114.50 temporarily deferred due to user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see http://postmaster.yahoo.com/421-ts01.html:
retry timeout exceeded
===============

And for the majority, I get no error message at all.



--> Does the email contain an easy to use unsubscribe link?

Yes.

--> Are you on the Yahoo feedback loop? Complaint Feedback Loop - Yahoo! Mail

As I understand it from AOL's feedback loop, the actual email address of the person is NOT provided. My software is not sophisticated enough to figure out which email address to delete without that.

--> Which of the forms have you used to contact Yahoo? The Yahoo Mail Bulk Sender form is the correct contact form for your situation : Yahoo! Mail Bulk Sender Form | Yahoo! Postmaster Help

Yes, I have done that in May, case number: 71417541 ... "we cannot
systematically deliver your email to the Inbox at this time"

I wrote back, and was told I had to wait 6 months to write again, case number 71608788.

--> Try sending the newsletter to the actual recipients. 1 recipient per email, make them the To: address, and don't include any BCC:s.

I did this for one or two weeks, it took hours and hours, and there was no better result. (This used 10 simultaneous connections, and no recycling of connections.) Your own FAQs say that you will accept up to 20 BCCs to Yahoo customers per email.

--> Further reduce the number of simultaneous open smtp connections to the Yahoo mail servers.

I am sure you have a defined number that should not be exceeded. Kindly give me a hint!
=================

Something has changed on Yahoo's end since mid-April, and I feel I am just going in circles sending in review requests and guessing at settings that will work.

You do work at Yahoo, right, in the Postmaster department? Can you get some more specific insight into my particular case by looking at Yahoo's records, and provide some more specific guidance or get the postmaster at Yahoo to fix the problem? I have done about all I can do on my end, without just playing a guessing game weekly as to what will work.

Thanks in advance,
Edgar
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Edgar,

I do not work for Yahoo. Email Questions is an email discussion and support site. We help members with a variety of email related problems.

Have you tried contacting your current email newsletter service provider? Can they check their logs and see if there are low quality senders also sending out your IP address? Can they move you to your own dedicated IP address for only your outgoing email? If they are unwilling to work with you and give you a dedicated outgoing IP address you'll likely need to find a new host for sending your newsletters if you want to resolve the problem.

The first set of errors above from yyy@ and zzz@ are standard notifications from some MTA's that are generated when the sending mail server is has been having problems reaching the destination mail servers for more than a few hours. In this case they're likely receiving 4xx temporary errors and dropped connections from the Yahoo mail servers. If you are staying with this email provider I still recommend only opening one email connection and sending 1 email at a time to Yahoo. It may take longer to send the newsletters but it should help to improve your email reputation over time.

The second error is important. You need to get to the bottom of the user complaints coming from your IP 208.43.114.50. Get in contact with Yahoo again and ask if they are from your newsletter or from someone else on your IP. The fact that you are on a shared IP is likely why Yahoo isn't working more with you to resolve the problem. But it should clue you into if it's even possible for you to solve the problem or you should move on to a new host.

Until recently I would have said to try Goodmail for sending your newsletters but Yahoo stopped giving email from them preferred treatment a few months ago. Two other popular alternatives are Constant Contact and iContact. (disclaimer: the last two are affiliate links, I'll make a couple bucks if you do happen to choose and stay with one of them)

The rest of your email practice seems good. Quickly removing bad email addresses from your lists, including unsubscribe links, etc. "Something changed at Yahoo" isn't a surprise since anti-spam and IP reputation systems are constantly updating and changing. It's also possible your current host picked up a new customer who sends low quality email and stuck them on your shared IP address.

The problem boils down to needing to get your own dedicated outgoing IP address and working hard to maintain a good reputation on the email being sent from that IP address. Maybe that's with your current provider, maybe you'll need to find a new service to host your outgoing email.

If you do change hosts and find success please let us know who the new newsletter service provider is.

:thanks: -Raymond
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Raymond,

Thanks for the advice (and pardon my mistaking you for working for Yahoo! In one other post I saw, you said "we", making me think that you were part of Yahoo!).

They give little help to people on a shared server. I have a dedicated IP, but it is for the website, rather than the shared server. I use a program called Gammadyne Mailer running on my home computer, and it mails out the newsletter directly through my hosted smtp server. I get back standard bounces, but do not have access to any logs that are maintained by the host for the shared smtp server.

I can't go to a place like Constant Contact because of cost (for 35,000 newsletters). My current method is free.

I am just hoping to find a real human being at Yahoo who can try to right this.

Edgar
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
You seem to be trying to do the right thing with sending limits, removing bad addresses from newsletters, unsubscribe links, etc.

I sent a quick note to my contact at Yahoo w/ your case number.

No promises, but it's possible they might have some suggestions for you.

-Raymond
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Edgar,

Before I forward the info on I think there are a couple of good faith improvements you can make to show you are trying to be a responsible mailer.

If you have not already drop your concurrent connections to Yahoo down to one open connection at a time. I realize you tried it before, but leaving it this way will help your IP reputation over the long run.

Make it easier to unsubscribe. Requiring the confirmation email and passing the captcha to get on the list is great. Don't require the captcha to get unsubscribed. Are there any other ways to get on the list?

To help avoid the problem of lazy users marking the email as spam instead of using your unsubscribe link put at the top of the newsletter how/why they got on the list and the unsubscribe info. The people who want the email will read past it, the people that don't will be more likely to use your unsubscribe link instead of marking the email as spam.

Do you manually remove addresses that received a permanent rejection (5xx) code or are they automatically removed?

Say yes to marketing when you are filling out the support forms.

If we can add those improvements I'd hope to receive a more positive response to your request for help from Yahoo.

-Raymond
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Hi Edgar,

If you have not already drop your concurrent connections to Yahoo down to one open connection at a time. I realize you tried it before, but leaving it this way will help your IP reputation over the long run.

--> Raymond... If I try to mail single individualized emails with only one thread, it potentially could take over 24 yours to do the mailing. (10 threads of individual emails too over 3 hours.) I simply cannot see this as a viable alternative.

Make it easier to unsubscribe. Requiring the confirmation email and passing the captcha to get on the list is great. Don't require the captcha to get unsubscribed. Are there any other ways to get on the list?

--> I am not a code writer, and someone did me a favor to write that code. I was bombarded with junk emails without the captcha. I worry that leaving the captcha off the unsubscribe will result in some BOTS sending a bunch of junk to me again.

To help avoid the problem of lazy users marking the email as spam instead of using your unsubscribe link put at the top of the newsletter how/why they got on the list and the unsubscribe info. The people who want the email will read past it, the people that don't will be more likely to use your unsubscribe link instead of marking the email as spam.

--> It is certainly not common practice to do this. As a text only newsletter, I honestly think it would look terrible. And I frankly think this is an extraordinary step to take for one troublesome email provider.

Do you manually remove addresses that received a permanent rejection (5xx) code or are they automatically removed?

--> My mailing program automatically removes hard bounces.

Say yes to marketing when you are filling out the support forms.

--> I can't resubmit anything to Yahoo because one I did in June (since the problem was not resolved) was rejected saying that I had to wait 6 months.


I do not mean to be resistant to these suggestions, but most are just not reasonable for me to do because of Yahoo alone. Again, keep in mind I have been sending this newsletter for close to 10 years, without much trouble from Yahoo. If Yahoo made a tweak to their settings, number of incoming threads, number of emails per hour, whatever... if I can know the specifics, I can try to make my mailing program stay within their limits. I can't keep playing this guessing game of trying every possible alternative mailing scheme.

I appreciate your help and understanding.

Edgar
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Edgar,

What it boils down to is that the existing newsletter is generating a lot of complaints. Take an honest look at the way your newsletter is setup now and try to figure out a way to reduce the number of complaints. If there is a still a problem I'll be more to happy to forward along the old tickets again and have my contact take a look. I should have asked for them before asking them to take a look the first time. I hope you understand I have to be careful and not abuse the relationship that's why I like to be able to show there has been some effort made to correct a problem first.

-Raymond
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Thanks, Raymond.

If people click "spam" rather than unsubscribe, I can't help that. I will try a link at the top of the newsletter, but most people just look at the subject when clicking the spam button, is my guess. So this step is not likely to do anything.

Incidentally, every single address on the list was put their by a consumer. I won't even add friends or reporters without them going through the process.

There is nothing more I can do.

Edgar
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Raymond,

I had one additional thought since you mentioned complaints...

In bounces that have this message, is the named person the one who complained or is this person just someone to whom the newsletter was addressed?

nameofcustomer@yahoo.com
Delay reason: SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
host g.mx.mail.yahoo.com [98.137.54.238]: 421 4.7.0 [TS01] Messages from 208.43.114.50 temporarily deferred - 4.16.55.2; see 421 4.16.55 [TS01] Messages from x.x.x.x temporarily deferred due to excessive user complaints | Yahoo! Postmaster Help

If there was a way to get a list of those who click "spam", I could remove them. My understanding is that feedback loop does not list emails, tho.

Edgar
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
That's more likely to be someone you are trying to send the email to after people who received the email earlier in the day marked it as spam.

They're not likely to be good targets to remove from your list.
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Try signing up for the feedback loop. It doesn't need to go to your newsletter email address. You can have it go to a dedicated address (make a Gmail account or something...) and you can manually remove all of the complainers over the next couple of newsletters. It will be a little work but worth it if you want to get a better rep with Yahoo.
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Raymond.... my understanding with AOL's feedback loop is that for "privacy reasons" the email address of each person is NOT shown. Is it shown for Yahoo?

Edgar
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
That's true. This is when something like VERP becomes handy. It will allow you to identify and remove the addresses from your list regardless of if AOL/Yahoo/xISP removes/conceals the To: information from their abuse reports. You could fake it by adding a unique identifier to each email that is sent as part of the newsletters and use the identifier to remove users who have reported emails.

-Raymond
 

dworsky

Valued Member
Raymond,

I just did my mailing of the newsletter, and changed several things:

-- I added an unsubscribe link at the top of the email.
-- I reduced the mailing from 10 to 4 simultaneous threads.
-- I sent individual emails instead of bcc's.
-- I included a line indicating under which specific email address the person signed up under (sometimes they forget, and have an old address forwarded to their current address), and maybe this will show up in the feedback loop reports so I know what email to remove.
-- I signed up for the feedback loop.

I also noticed something interesting. Just after doing the mailing, Yahoo sent out a bunch of bounce messages (TS01 -- too many complaints), NOT for today's mailing but for LAST MONDAY's mailing! [Not many of these.] They also sent out a bunch of your email is being delayed 168 hours, etc... again, based on LAST WEEK's newletter, but also for the one from June 7!!!

So now I wonder on the TS01 bounces, whether in fact these are people who complained, rather than just folks who were sent the newsletter after Yahoo's receipt limit was reached. (If so, I would remove them.)

Here is how you can help me at this point, without mentioning Consumer World. Could you ask your contact some generic questions that will help me conform my emails to their CURRENT requirements:

1. Are the email addresses in the TS01 bounces really people who complained previously?

2. Are the email addresses in the "your message is delayed 168 hours, we will keep making attempts to deliver" really complainers or non-existent addresses or something else?

3. Most importantly: can you find out what their sending limits currently are:

-- how many simultaneous threads (connections) to Yahoo can be made?
-- how many emails to Yahoo addresses can be sent through a single connection? (Yahoo's website says no more than 20, but says that multiple threads are allowed)
-- how many total emails can be sent to Yahoo addresses over what time period, without a pause, before Yahoo begins blocking them?
-- how long a pause is necessary before more emails are sent to Yahoo addresses after a quantity limit is reached?
-- any other time/quantity/etc restrictions that I might be able to tweak in my mailing program?

Thanks... this will help more than playing guessing games each week.

Edgar
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
-- I added an unsubscribe link at the top of the email.
-- I reduced the mailing from 10 to 4 simultaneous threads.
-- I sent individual emails instead of bcc's.
-- I included a line indicating under which specific email address the person signed up under (sometimes they forget, and have an old address forwarded to their current address), and maybe this will show up in the feedback loop reports so I know what email to remove.
-- I signed up for the feedback loop.

Hopefully over the next mailing or two this will help.
I also noticed something interesting. Just after doing the mailing, Yahoo sent out a bunch of bounce messages (TS01 -- too many complaints), NOT for today's mailing but for LAST MONDAY's mailing! [Not many of these.] They also sent out a bunch of your email is being delayed 168 hours, etc... again, based on LAST WEEK's newletter, but also for the one from June 7!!!

This isn't Yahoo. This is your mail server continuously trying Yahoo all week when it's receiving the 4xx temporary errors from the Yahoo mail servers. It sounds like your host is configured to retry for 7 days when it encounters temporary errors. Try reconfiguring this or contacting your host and having them drop it down to a day or two at most. This will give you several days per week where you are not generating errors with Yahoo and should help stop the errors.

So now I wonder on the TS01 bounces, whether in fact these are people who complained, rather than just folks who were sent the newsletter after Yahoo's receipt limit was reached. (If so, I would remove them.)

Anything with 4xx errors was a temporary condition for example Yahoo was dropping all connections from you because you were opening too many connections too fast. Anything with 5xx errors is a permanent error such as the user no longer exists or does not want email from you.


1. Are the email addresses in the TS01 bounces really people who complained previously?

Possibly. See above too now. Is your IP intermittently sending large bursts of email at Yahoo when it's retrying to send all of the previously deferred emails? I'm 99% sure the answer is going to be yes.

2. Are the email addresses in the "your message is delayed 168 hours, we will keep making attempts to deliver" really complainers or non-existent addresses or something else?

Those are messages from your mail server. See the "possibly" above.


3. Most importantly: can you find out what their sending limits currently are:

-- how many simultaneous threads (connections) to Yahoo can be made?
-- how many emails to Yahoo addresses can be sent through a single connection? (Yahoo's website says no more than 20, but says that multiple threads are allowed)
-- how many total emails can be sent to Yahoo addresses over what time period, without a pause, before Yahoo begins blocking them?
-- how long a pause is necessary before more emails are sent to Yahoo addresses after a quantity limit is reached?
-- any other time/quantity/etc restrictions that I might be able to tweak in my mailing program?

I'll have to ask on this one. They might not give specific answers.
Thanks... this will help more than playing guessing games each week.

No problem. :)

-Raymond
 
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