Sending email campaigns in France can be very profitable. But one indicator can quickly spin out of control: deliverability. One of the main players impacting email deliverability in France is Orange.
Understanding and applying its requirements based on subscriber feedback can sometimes be complicated.
Here’s a quick guide to:
– optimize your email campaigns
– improve your deliverability
– use Orange requirements to your benefit
Spam and deliverability: it’s not that complicated
Your email campaign’s desirability
A spam email is an unwanted email. Online users are quick to subscribe to emails from companies and their partners: contests, promotions, access to online platforms…
Consent and emailing: how to avoid being marked as spam?
Consent, that little box you tick to share your email address, is a prerequisite for sending emails to your database. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Orange have established guidelines for defining whether (or not) an email is wanted. If an email is flagged as spam, there’s no chance of it reaching your inbox.
They use filters to determine whether it’s spam or not.
Vade, the French anti-spam filter
Orange’s spam filter is Vade, formerly Vade Secure.
A few years ago, they implemented dynamic filtering based on the volume of complaints generated. If the complaint rate exceeds 1%, the IPs sending the campaign are blacklisted.
PS: IP stands for “Internet Protocol”. It’s simply the identification number assigned to each connected device.
Don’t forget that Orange considers its users to be paying customers, not just subscribers.
The email router: a valuable ally
An email router who knows what the ISPs recommend is a real asset. The emailing solution is then adapted to the requirements to increase your deliverability rate.
A solution like Mindbaz also includes extensive support from an emailing deliverability specialist team.
With a more generalist platform, you risk seeing your campaign impacted.
What are the consequences for your email campaign?
Generally speaking, professional routers think in terms of proportions in relation to the number of emails sent.
But Orange thinks in terms of dissatisfied customers. That’s why it reacts immediately and with sanctions. In some cases, it can block databases that don’t comply with authorized rates for several weeks.
Stay up-to-date with their advice on how to reach the holy grail: the inbox.
But Vade is not the only obstacle your emails will encounter before they reach the inbox.
SpamHaus: the service you need to convince
In addition to analyzing complaints, Orange also carries out filtering based on sender reputation. This system protects its own infrastructure.
That’s why Orange uses SpamHaus.
Thanks to this tool, Orange can identify a campaign or a sender generating complaints from its customers.
If your audience reports your campaign, you’ll be blocked.
Engaging your recipients: the right indicators
Let’s cut to the chase.
Engagement is a performance indicator that American webmails are very fond of.
In France, it’s important to keep an eye on it. Orange and French ISPs use it when deciding whether or not to block a sender.
We’ve compiled a list of indicators to measure the engagement of your email campaigns, from the most positive to the most negative.
- Move email from spam folder to inbox
- Reply to an email
- Open an email
- Move email from inbox to folder
- Add email sender to address book
- Delete an email without opening it
- Move email from inbox to spam folder
What about clicks?
No, clicks don’t count as engagement!
Most carriers consider this data to be part of the user’s private information. The law in France currently prohibits the use of this data, which is considered personal.
5 golden rules to boost deliverability
Do you have the right indicators in mind for your next campaign?
Here are the 5 golden rules to follow in any successful emailing strategy, whether in France or abroad.
We’ve made a nice infographic to make it easy to read, but here are the details for our visually impaired readers:
- Acquisition: respectfully collect data from your databases
- Engagement: segment your audiences and send campaigns only if they are interested
- Tracking: define and track your KPIs, then adjust your campaigns
- Traffic: maintain a constant rate of active users to send the right indicators to ISPs
- Unsubscribing: make it easy to unsubscribe, to avoid your subscribers reporting you as spam.
French ISPs: flexible and user-friendly
Orange and other French Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t have the same Machine Learning capabilities as their American counterparts. However, they can measure senders’ reputations in detail. They take strong action when there are too many campaign complaints.
Strict but open
The difference may lie in the more open dialogue than with American webmails. When choosing your routing partner, ensure that a clear communication line is open with Orange and Vade Secure.
Guess who’s in constant communication with webmails, ISPs and filtering tools? ✋
Would you like to contact Orange yourself? It’s very complicated, and the response rate is very low! Go through your email router. He may have the answer (we probably will!).
Orange has chosen not to use a Feed Back Loop (FBL).
The Feed Back Loop is the possibility of recovering the email addresses that have classified the message as undesirable. It enables us to understand the reasons and adapt our email campaigns accordingly.
Orange has chosen to use Signal Spam. This system is helpful for getting feedback on the health of your routing partner’s IPs. Basically, it’s the ratio between the rate of complaints and the number of IPs. Signal Spam also looks at the spamtraps affected. A handy tool.
To improve your campaign’s deliverability rate, you need to:
- promote opt-in
- prioritize upstream consent
- know how to adjust targets
- monitor marketing pressure
Mindbaz’s Deliverability team will be happy to help you with your emailing strategy.
Visit our Contact page!
Discover our detailed articles on optimizing your deliverability