Commercial E-mail - Using the right tools | Office 365 | Part 4#17

of 17 | Commercial E-mail - Using the right tools - Office 365 - Part 4#17
Written by Eyal Doron | o365info.com
COMMERCIAL E-MAIL – USING THE
RIGHT TOOLS | OFFICE 365 | PART
4#17
The current article is dedicated to the subject of –”commercial
E-mail”. At first glance, there is no clear relationship between
the subject of internal outbound spam and commercial E-
mail but my arguments are:
1. Most of the time, the main reason for the phenomenon of
internal outbound spam is related to misuse of commercial E-
mail. Lack of knowledge and awareness about the fact that in
case that we use a commercial E-mail, we should plan and
design our commercial E-mail and, pay attention too many
“don’t do” rules etc.

2. Office 365 and Exchange Online are not the optimal platforms
for using and managing commercial E-mail.
What is commercial E-mail?
The “translation” of commercial E-mail could be – E-mail campaign,
Marketing E-mail, Newsletters, large mailing lists, Bulk mail and so
on.
Because the definition of commercial mail is more on the “legal side”,
I prefer to use quotation from the USA government FTC site:
Any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the
commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or
service,” including email that promotes content on commercial
websites. The law makes no exception for business-to-business
email. That means all email – for example, a message to former

customers announcing a new product line – must comply with the
law.
[Source of information: CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business]
Beside of the definition of commercial E-mail, the article relate to the
“rules” and to the thing we should avoid when using commercial E-
mail. The article includes a set of a guideline, that emphases the “do”
and the “don’t” regarding the subject of commercial E-mail.
Here is a partial quotation from the USA government FTC site:
Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,”
“Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating
domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the
person or business who initiated the message.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately
reflect the content of the message.
Identify the message as an ad.
The law gives you a lot of leeway in how doing this, but you must
disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an
advertisement.
Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your
valid physical postal address.
This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve
registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve
registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established
under Postal Service regulations.
[Source of information: CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business]

Commercial E-mail as part of the business
process
Because commercial mail is a business need, we will need to
“respect” this business need, allocate the require resource,
implement the best practice and so on.
To be able to successfully using and managing commercial E-mail, we
will need to use a dedicated platform or a product that will help us to
manage all of the different aspects that relates to commercial E-mail.
There are many providers and platforms, which was created
especially for providing a suitable solution for the specific needs of a
commercial E-mail.
I’m not “pointing out” a specific provider but, my personal opinion is
that: Office 365 and Exchange Online was not created for as a
“solution for commercial E-mail”.

Why do I think that Office 365 Exchange
Online is unsuitable for the purpose of
commercial E-mail?
One of the most common miss conception among Office 365
customers is that – Office 365 and Exchange Online can use as a tool
or infrastructure for commercial E-mail.
The source for this miss conception is that – commercial E-mail (as
the name suggest) is implemented by using mail infrastructure and,
Exchange Online is mail infrastructure.
This assumption is true, but the main issue is that commercial E-mail
needs a very specific mail infrastructure and additional components
that are not included in a “standard mail infrastructure” such as
Exchange Online in our scenario.
Office 365 and Exchange Online was not created for fulfilling the
business requirements for a commercial E-mail.
The next quote, is from a Microsoft article which displays the
Exchange Online boundaries:
Exchange Online customers who need to send legitimate bulk
commercial email (for example, customer newsletters) should use
third-party providers that specialize in these services.
[Source of information: Exchange Online Limits]
In the following diagram, we can see a table which presents that
basic need of a commercial E-mail infrastructure.

It’s very easy to notice that Office 365 and Exchange Online, are not
“equipped” with the right tools and capacities for serving as an
infrastructure for commercial E-mail.
1. Maximum number of mail items per day
One of the most basic requirements of a commercial E-mail
infrastructure is – to be able to provide the ability to send bulk mail
to a large number of mail recipients.
Exchange Online include built-in limitation of maximum 10,000 mail
items per user per day.
In case that you need to send commercial E-mail to a larger number
of recipients, you want to be able to use Exchange Online.

2. Management dashboard – monitor E-mail campaign results
One of the most basic requirements of E-mail campaign is – the
ability to get information about the status and the progression of the
E-mail campaign. For example: how many E-mail was sent, how many
E-mail was “opened”(read) by the destination recipient, did the
recipient click on a link attached to the E-mail, etc.
Exchange Online doesn’t include such abilities.
3. Management dashboard – monitor problems, issues with the
mail distribution
The process of “distributing the E-mail” could be “accompanied’ by
difficulties and problems such as a scenario in which the mail server
IP address or our domain is classified as spam, a classification of our
mail server is “bulk mail server” and so on.
Some of the dedicated commercial E-mail infrastructure, have
systems and tools that could monitor the E-mail campaign, Identify
and pre-alert about the possibility for problems or existing problems,
etc.

4. Check and verify the spam score.
One of the most important procedures that need to be implemented
before starting an E-mail campaign is: to make sure that our E-mail
content will not have any type of charter, which will lead to a
scenario in which our E-mail message could be identified as
spamJunk mail.
The solution to this need, is implemented by tools that enable us to
evaluate the spam score of our E-mail message and enable us to pre-
identified “area of problems” that lead to high spam score.
Most of the commercial E-mail infrastructure has built-in tools for
this task. The bottom line: it’s very important to verify the spam score
of your E-mail campaign before you execute the E-mail campaign.
Note – you can read more information about this procedure of
assess the spam score level in the article: My E-mail appears as
spam | The 7 major reasons | Part 5#17
5. Reports
The ability to display and export the information about E-mail
campaign results or, the ability to implement BI (business
intelligence) from the E-mail campaign results.
For example – the ability to “see” that our E-mail campaign results
were good in a specific geographical location versus other
geographical locations.

6. Verify the E-mail “appearance” in different browsers, OS,
devices.
The need to test our E-mail message “readability” on different
infrastructures and devices.
For example – avoid a scenario in which our E-mail message has
some presentation problem when using a browser such as chrome
or Internet Explorer.
Another example, could be – a scenario in which our E-mail message
has a presentation problem when using a mobile device.
Is there any “logic troubleshooting path” to
implement in an Office 365 environment?
A detailed troubleshooting path in a scenario in which mail that is
sent from our organization is identified as spamjunk mail will be
provided in the articles:
 My E-mail appears as spam – Troubleshooting path | Part 11#17
 My E-mail appears as spam – Troubleshooting path | Part 12#17
In case that you want the “essence of the troubleshooting process” of
internal spam in Office 365 environment, the answer is:
In scenarios in which E-mail that sent from our organization is
identified as spam, most of the time, the major cause is: sending out
commercial E-mail or if we want to be more precise: miss-use of
commercial E-mail.

Many times, the implementation of a commercial E-mail is not
created by following the strict and well-known rules.
This “conclusion” is not a result of depth study about the: specific
causes which lead to a scenario in which our organization E-mail is
identified as spamjunk mail but instead, my personal opinion.
From my experience, in Office 365 and Exchange Online
environment, the main “event” that leads to a scenario in which our
organization (our domain name or the Exchange Online server IP
address) will appear on a blacklist is related to a commercial E-mail.
In simple words: an organization that uses commercial E-mail
(marketing E-mail, newsletter, etc.) and, violate one or more of the
“don’t do” rules of commercial E-mail.
In case that you are sure that the specific scenario is not related to a
commercial E-mail, the next reasonable options are: some kind of
malware that use the “identity” of your organization to send
spamjunk mail or “other” reasons.
The “other reasons” section can include any “other” reasons that can
cause to the “spamjunk mail” problem.

Note – you can read more information about the optional causes
for Internal outbound spam in the articles
 My E-mail appears as spam | The 7 major reasons | Part 5#17
 My E-mail appears as spam | The 7 major reasons | Part 6#17
My point: when we deal with a problem in which our organization is
classified as “element” to send spamjunk mail, don’t start the
troubleshooting process by looking for the “guilty” outside of your
house (Microsoft, conspiracy theory, extraterrestrial, etc.) but
instead, thoroughly examined your organization E-mail “behavior”,
the type of the E-mail message that your users send, problematic
patterns and so on.

Internal outbound spam in Office 365
environment | Article series index
A quick reference for the article series
My E-mail appears as a spam | Article
series index | Part 0#17
The article index of the complete
article series
Introduction to the concept of internal outbound spam in general
and in Office 365 and Exchange Online environment
My E-mail appears as a spam –
Introduction | Office 365 | Part 1#17
The psychological profile of the
phenomenon: “My E-mail appears as
a spam!”, possible factors for causing
our E-mail to appear a “spam mail”,
the definition of internal outbound
spam.
Internal spam in Office 365 –
Introduction | Part 2#17
Review in general the term: “internal
outbound spam”, miss conceptions
that relate to this term, the risks that
are involved in this scenario,

outbound spam E-mail policy and
more.
Internal spam in Office 365 –
Introduction | Part 3#17
What are the possible reasons that
could cause to our mail to appear as
spamjunk mail, who or what are this
“elements”, that can decide that our
mail is a spam mail?, what are the
possible “reactions” of the destination
mail infrastructure that identify our E-
mail as spamjunk mail?.
Commercial E-mail – Using the right
tools | Office 365 | Part 4#17
What is commercial E-mail?
Commercial E-mail as part of the
business process. Why do I think that
Office 365 Exchange Online is
unsuitable for the purpose of
commercial E-mail?
Introduction if the major causes for a scenario in which your
organization E-mail appears as spam
My E-mail appears as spam | The 7
major reasons | Part 5#17
Review three major reasons, that
could lead to a scenario, in which E-
mail that is sent from our
organization identified as spam mail:

1. E-mail content, 2. Violation of the
SMTP standards, 3. BulkMass mail
My E-mail appears as spam | The 7
major reasons | Part 6#17
Review three major reasons, that
could lead to a scenario, in which E-
mail that is sent from our
organization identified as spam mail:
4. False positive, 5. User Desktop
malware, 6. “Problematic” Website
Introduction if the subject of SPF record in general and in Office
365 environment
What is SPF record good for? | Part
7#17
The purpose of the SPF record and the
relation to for our mail infrastructure.
How does the SPF record enable us to
prevent a scenario in which hostile
elements could send E-mail on our
behalf.
Implementing SPF record | Part 8#17
The “technical side” of the SPF record:
the structure of SPF record, the way
that we create SPF record, what is the
required syntax for the SPF record in
an Office 365 environment + mix mail
environment, how to verify the
existence of SPF record and so on.

Introduction if the subject of Exchange Online - High Risk Delivery
Pool
High Risk Delivery Pool and Exchange
Online | Part 9#17
How Office 365 (Exchange Online) is
handling a scenario of internal
outbound spam by using the help of
the Exchange Online- High Risk
Delivery Pool.
High Risk Delivery Pool and Exchange
Online | Part 10#17
The second article about the subject
of Exchange Online- High Risk
Delivery Pool.
The troubleshooting path of internal outbound spam scenario
My E-mail appears as spam –
Troubleshooting path | Part 11#17
Troubleshooting scenario of internal
outbound spam in Office 365 and
Exchange Online environment.
Verifying if our domain name is
blacklisted, verifying if the problem is
related to E-mail content, verifying if
the problem is related to specific
organization user E-mail address,
moving the troubleshooting process
to the “other side.

My E-mail appears as spam |
Troubleshooting – Domain name and
E-mail content | Part 12#17 Verify if
our domain name appears as
blacklisted, verify if the problem
relates to a specific E-mail message
content, registering blacklist
monitoring services, activating the
option of Exchange Online outbound
spam.
Troubleshooting – Mail server | Part
13#17
What is the meaning of: “our mail
server”?, Mail server IP, host name
and Exchange Online. One of our
users got an NDR which informs him,
that his mail server is blacklisted!,
How do we know that my mail server
is blacklisted?
14#17
The troubleshooting path logic. Get
the information from the E-mail
message that was identified as
spamNDR. Forwarding a copy of the
NDR message or the message that
saved to the junk mail

15#17
Step B – Get information about your
Exchange Online infrastructure, Step
C – fetch the information about the
Exchange Online IP address, Step D –
verify if the “formal “Exchange Online
IP address a
De-list your organization from a
blacklist | My E-mail appears as spam
| Part 16#17
Review the charters of a scenario in
which your organization appears as
blacklisted. The steps and the
operations that need to be
implemented for de-list your
organization from a blacklist.
Summery and recap of the troubleshooting and best practices in a
scenario of internal outbound spam
Dealing and avoiding internal spam |
Best practices | Part 17#17
Provide a short checklist for all the
steps and the operation that relates
to a scenario of – internal outbound
spam.

Commercial E-mail - Using the right tools | Office 365 | Part 4#17

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Mehr von Eyal Doron

Mehr von Eyal Doron (20)

Commercial E-mail - Using the right tools | Office 365 | Part 4#17