Date: 31-10-2024
Introduction
In today’s digital landscape, ensuring email deliverability is essential as spam filters and security protocols continue to advance, helping to protect people from unsolicited messages. To maintain high standards of communication and safeguard our services, Survalyzer clients need to follow this Email Sending Policy. This policy aims to prevent you from sending mails to spam traps, lower hard-bounce and complaint rate, ensure brand alignment, preserve a good reputation, and ensure the smooth delivery of survey invitations.
This pertains to inviting clients, stakeholders and consumers.
Email address handling
This chapter explains how email addresses used for survey invitations should be acquired, validated and regularly maintained. Additionally it outlines key KPI for Email deliverability
Deliverability KPI
The existing guidelines for hard bounces and complaint continue to apply. Deliverability of Emails
Opt-in
Use confirmed opt-in (double opt-in) to ensure valid, interested respondents for your surveys. When a respondent provides an email, send a verification email requiring them to confirm participation. This process ensures that only verified addresses are added, reducing the chance of complaints or bounces. By focusing on verified respondents, you optimize resources and ensure surveys reach genuinely engaged participants.
Opt-out
Ensure that it is easy for respondents to unsubscribe from receiving survey invitations. Survalyzer does not allow messages without opt-out options and enforces these in survey invitations.
Additionally, Survalyzer automatically adds email addresses to the opt-out list in case of a hard bounce or spam complaint. These addresses are automatically excluded from future invitations.
Remove inactive respondents
Please ensure that you are in regular contact with the email addresses you write to. If a respondent has not interacted within 12 months, assume they are no longer interested and stop emailing them. This complements double opt-in and helps prevent inactive addresses from turning into spam traps, which silently harm sender reputation and lead to blacklisting of the sending domain. This means that you can not send out survey invitations at all. Regularly removing non-engagers ensures your emails reach engaged participants and protect sender reputation.
Neverbounce
Survalyzer offers an integrated sample cleaning service: NeverBounce. By using Neverbounce you maintain a clean email list by identifying invalid, inactive, or risky addresses, which reduces the chances of spam traps and hard bounces. By verifying email addresses before sending, you can avoid common causes of blacklisting or blocked emails.
Email Configuration
Below the policy for email configuration is described to establish brand alignment, domain alignment and supported setups. This alignment reinforces brand recognition, improves deliverability by avoiding spam filters, and builds recipient confidence that the email is legitimate. Consistent branding signals that the message is authentic, increasing open rates and engagement while reducing the risk of emails being marked as spam.
In all cases you must clearly state why the recipient is receiving the message. Remind the recipients how and when they opted in to receive the message.
Understanding Brand-consistency
In the screenshot below the requirements of our Email Service Provider AWS SES in terms of alignment of sender domain, sender name and branding are followed.
- The logo represents the brand Survalyzer, which is part of sender domain and sender name.
- In the message content, only the brand Survalyzer is mentioned.
- The direct link to the survey is hosted on the same domain (survey.survalyzer.eu) as the sender domain.
- The contact details (feedback@survey.survalyzer.eu) are aligned with the sender domain.
- The unsubscribe (opt-out) link refers to the survey.survalyzer.eu domain.
Both for recipients and for spam filters it is clear which brand is the sender of the message, because there is no misalignment.
1. Your Domain Setup: You use your domain to send email
If you use your email sending domain the following chapter is applicable.
If you have a Corporate Package you need to setup your own custom survey AND email domain. It is a violation of the sending policy if only a custom email domain is configured and a Survalyzer survey link is used.
If you are a research agency conducting surveys on behalf of other brands and companies you need to use your own survey domain to prevent co-co-co branding (survalyzer brand, your brand, your clients brand logo) issues.
To see which sending domain you are using please go to distribute tab of your survey –> Survey links.
Compliant your domain setup
The following figure illustrates a compliant domain setup
This would result in the following setup:
- The logo represent Your Brand, which is part of the sender domain and sender name.
- In the message content, only Your Brand is mentioned.
- The survey link is hosted on the same domain (feedback.yourbrand.com) as the sender domain (see next paragraph “how to recognise if you use your domain”).
- The contact details (feedback@yourbrand.com) are aligned with the sender domain.
- The unsubscribe (opt-out) link refers to the feedback.yourbrand.com domain.
How to recognise if you use your domain?
In order to understand if you use a Survalyzer or your own domain link, please go to distribute tab of your survey. The following figure illustrates a survey link of your domain.
The screenshot is no reference to Survalyzer and solely your brand is represented. It is important that the Email sender domain and your survey domain are aligned and do not represent different brand names. To achieve this you can use the following pages for reference:
2. Survalyzer Domain Setup: You use Survalyzer domain to send email
If you use Survalyzer domain to send emails you need to make sure a Survalyzer logo a long with your logo / your client logo is present.
It is a violation of the sending policy if use a Survalyzer domain and do not use a Survalyzer logo.
If you are a research agency conducting surveys on behalf of other brands you need to use you own survey domain to prevent co-co-co branding (survalyzer logo, your logo, client logo) issues.
To see which sending domain you are using please go to distribute tab of your survey –> Survey links.
If you do not use your own domain (for instance yourbrand.com), two scenarios are supported:
A. With your logo
- The logo represents the Your Brand & Survalyzer, which is part of sender domain and sender name.
- In the message content, only Your Brand is mentioned.
- The link to the survey is hosted on the same domain (yourbrand.survalyzer.eu) as the sender domain.
- The contact details (feedback@yourbrand.survalyzer.eu) are aligned with the sender domain.
- The unsubscribe (opt-out) link refers to the yourbrand.survalyzer.eu domain.
B. Without your logo
- In the message content, only Your Brand is mentioned.
- The link to the survey is hosted on the same domain (yourbrand.survalyzer.eu) as the sender domain.
- The contact details (feedback@yourbrand.survalyzer.eu) are aligned with the sender domain.
- The unsubscribe (opt-out) link refers to the yourbrand.survalyzer.eu domain.
- It is possible to add a reply-to email address and name, as long as they refer to Your Brand.
