When Competitors Stretch the Truth

We got word from a customer that reps from another email marketing company have been saying a few things while selling against VerticalResponse that were, well, just not true.  The company will remain nameless, but let's just say their company shares the same initials as a certain big-headed alien with a sweet tooth for Reese's Pieces.  So, we thought we'd shine a light on some of the misinformation they are sharing with their prospects and customers.

We get it, it's a competitive world, and we like these guys a lot, but if they're going to share information about us, we'd just like them to get the facts right. So here are a few things they mentioned and our response...

*Disclaimer: Although we're posting the exact quotes, we've changed the company's name to Reese's Pieces.

"Reese's Pieces trusts you, the marketer, with all bounces and unsubscribes.  VerticalResponse quarantines this data and does not allow access to it.  Therefore, there is no way to then run reports off of these key metrics."

I can think of 3 ways to get this data within the VR app, but here's the quick and dirty way:

1) Go into the Reports tab

2) Scroll down to the pre-built VR Email History reports

3) Click on "Contacts: Bounced", "Contacts: Unsubscribed", "Leads: Bounced" and "Leads: Unsubscribed"

Et voila!  You have a complete list of all your Bounces and Unsubscribes.

"You have one "from" address with VerticalResponse. So when you want your reps to maintain that one-to-one relationship with their prospects, forget about it. Your from address would be creative@mail.vresp.com, so your prospect might not know who that is. With a reply address of vresp.com and a domain of YourCompanyName, the ISP’s may think that you are phishing and blacklist you or send you to the spam filter."

Each email sent through VerticalResponse can have a different "reply-to" email address, and the user simply specifies the "reply-to" prior to launching the email campaign. So, if your org is sending out multiple email campaigns, you can specify a different "reply-to" email for each of the emails.

VerticalResponse emails are sent through the domain mail.vresp.com but there are actually a few reasons for it. VR authenticates all emails using SPF, Sender-ID and DomainKeys. If we allowed users to "spoof" the domain, we wouldn't be able to send fully authenticated emails for those users. Authenticating emails is a general practice and not doing so can greatly compromise email deliverability. We've chosen "vresp.com" since it doesn't include any branding and recipients will not recognize that domain and associate it with our long domain of verticalresponse.com. So, if your "From" label is "Widgets", the recipients of your email would see the sender as "Widgets <widgets@mail.vresp.com>".

We do have a few users who use their own domain. This requires some work on both our end and the user's end (mainly, registering the IPs we use with your domain's name). We do this the right way and the emails remain fully authenticated.

"Lastly, you have to send your list to VerticalResponse prior to every send to get their approval and this process can take up to 24 hours."

We are currently the only Email Service Provider who manually screens emails (not lists) before they are mailed. We screen to make sure our clients' emails are CAN-SPAM compliant (the "From" label reflects the sender of the email, the subject line isn't misleading, the email contains the sender's postal address, etc...), We also screen to ensure that graphical emails render correctly, and most importantly, to stop unsolicited emails (such as phishing scams) from going out the door (letting these types of emails go through is the fastest way to get blacklisted, and nobody wants that).

That said, this process generally takes merely minutes, but at the very most, 2 hours, which is far from the 24 hours mentioned above.

And there you have it. Hopefully any confusing issues are settled.

Reese's Pieces, make note of this stuff and give us a shout if you need any more information.

- Chris Carpio, Product Manager

Comments

[Jeff Rance, II]

Cute intro, cracked me up. "Reese's Pieces" with an E.T. poster... that's great.

[Sigurd Hadland]

We have been very happy with VR over the past many years. At VR, we feel like we are dealing with real people who care unlike some e-mailing shoppes we have considered. Too often these e-mail marketing operations are too heavy on sales teams and too light on customer service and technical support. I have recommended VR as a high quality provider to other online retailers as an efficient and reliable business partner. Highest Rating.

[Sal Daoud]

VerticalResponse's answers are all right, I have evaluated many similar services before choosing vertical response and I do not regret my choice.

Good job guys, keep it up.