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Sender reputation is still an important metric for email marketers to monitor even as ISPs shift to a domain-based reputation system. Whitelisting is a key tactic in maintaining a positive sender reputation - and as a recent test by Origins Natural Resources Inc., discovered, it can also lead to higher transaction and click through rates.

Whitelisting instructions suggest the recipient add the sender's "from" address to their list of accepted email senders. Email marketers will whitelist their own domain names, in order to avoid 'false positives' - that is, genuine email being treated as spam.

Curious about the impact whitelisting might have on its email campaigns, the multi-channel retailer of natural cosmetic, beauty and wellness products, enlisted Experian CheetahMail's Strategic Services [pdf] to design a plausible test.

Designing a Test

The test consisted of a controlled test group of new subscribers randomly split in half. One group was flagged to receive emails containing "add to address book" text in the header of the email. The other half did not. At the end of the five-month test, recipients in the "add to address book" group registered a 4.51% higher transaction rate and 3.24% unique click through rate.

Missed Opportunities

Not all campaigns go as smoothly. Newegg recently sent out an email asking subscribers to add its new address to their address book, which was "not a bad move," according to the Retail Email Blog, but made two missteps: It sent this email from their new non-whitelisted address. "They should have sent this from their previous address, notifying subscribers that they’d be changing their address soon and asking them to whitelist that new address."

Perhaps more important, it didn’t explain any of the upgrades being made to their email program.