I’m a security consultant specializing in preventing spam and phishing. Sadly a lot of political messages in email and SMS look just like spam, and automated systems filters block them or put them in the spam folder. Please, if you have anything to do with campaign communications, or know anyone who does, take a look at these tips to make sure your messages go through.
- Only send messages to people who want to receive them. Don’t contact every voter who registered as a Democrat, or ever donated to one. Just don’t. Spam filtering relies on user feedback, so if a bunch of those people mark the message as spam it will get blacklisted.
- Give people a chance to opt out. Make sure there is an unsubscribe link on emails, and end SMS texts with Reply STOP to opt out. Make sure that works even if you have volunteers texting for you.
- Don’t register a bunch of similar domains and rotate through them, in the hope that it will help your messages get delivered. It will have just the opposite effect. It makes you look like a spammer and your messages will get blocked.
- Dont use bit.ly or other URL shorteners in your message. Once again it makes you look like a spammer.
- Don’t use newly registered domains at all if you can avoid it. Register a domain for your candidate as far as possible before the election, use it at first for emails to hard core supporters, and later use the same domain for broader contact lists and SMS messages. That way your domain will build up a good reputation over time.
- If you don’t have a well established domain, link to an actblue page or similar website.
Please, pass this along if you know someone who works in sending out emails or SMS messages for a campaign. That way I won’t have to waste any more time manually safelisting political messages, and I can go back to frustrating Nigerian princes!
Feel free to put any questions in the comments and I will circle back tomorrow and answer them.