ISP Feedback Loops (FBL) Guide

Prévia do material em texto

ISP Feedback Loops Guide 
Updated by Al Iverson, November 29, 2018 
Overview 
ISP (Internet Service Provider) Feedback Loops (FBLs) are mechanisms that allow ISP users (end 
subscribers) to click on the “report spam” or “this is spam” button in their email client, which tells their ISP that 
they find a given email message to be unwanted. 
 
After an end subscriber clicks on the “report spam” or “this is spam” button in the user interface of a given 
email client, an “FBL complaint” is sent back to Salesforce Marketing Cloud for processing. Upon receipt of this 
FBL complaint, the recipient who lodged the complaint will be unsubscribed from mailings from that client. The 
complaint is logged and the recipient will show up in send stats as a complaint and as an unsubscribe. 
Feedback Loop Participation for Marketing Cloud Clients 
All Marketing Cloud clients are signed up for these ISP feedback loops automatically: 
AOL, Bluetie (Excite), Comcast, Cox, Fastmail, Microsoft Hotmail, Italia Online, La Poste, Locaweb, 
Mail.ru, OpenSRS (Tucows), Rackspace (Mailtrust), Synacor, Telenor, Telstra, Terra, UOL (Brazil), 
USA.net, XS4ALL and Yandex. 
No action is required on the client’s part to participate in the above-listed feedback loops. Salesforce Marketing 
Cloud bulk-registers all of our sending IP address ranges with these ISP feedback loops. 
Yahoo! Mail and QQ.com Feedback Loops: ​Note that clients are not enrolled in these feedback loops by 
default. See the “Special Feedback Loops” section below for more information. 
Note: The Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) ISP Feedback Loop has ceased operating as of October 19, 
2017. This feedback loop no longer exists. 
Note: The AOL ISP Feedback Loop is winding down and is expected to be fully shut off in early 2019. All AOL 
users are being migrated to Yahoo’s infrastructure, so the Yahoo FBL will cover AOL, Yahoo and Verizon 
domains. 
 
 
 
 
 
Special Feedback Loops 
Yahoo! Mail: FBL registration included with Sender Authentication Package. 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud clients must have “Private Domain” or “Sender Authentication Package” 
functionality to participate in the Yahoo! Mail feedback loop. This is necessary to sign all mail with DKIM 
(DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication. Yahoo! Mail’s feedback loop requires that all mail be signed with 
DKIM. 
If​ ​​a client has Sender Authentication Package, the client’s domain was registered with the Yahoo! Mail FBL 
automatically. As part of the domain configuration process, Marketing Cloud will register the client’s domain 
with Yahoo! Mail for participation in this Feedback Loop. 
For any mail that Yahoo receives that lacks a DKIM signature, no complaint will ever be returned to Salesforce 
Marketing Cloud. Thus it is vitally important to use the correct domain name when sending mail from the 
Marketing Cloud platform. If you use any domain name other than your Private Domain or Sender 
Authentication Package domain name, mail will not be signed with DKIM authentication, and FBL complaints 
will not be sent back to Marketing Cloud for processing. 
Client domains with custom DNS configurations: ​​If a client’s domain DNS is configured in a manner that 
results in the MX (mail exchange) DNS record of the domain not being pointed at a Salesforce server, then ​we 
are unable to submit your domain​​ to the Yahoo FBL. Please ask for a copy of the instructions on how you 
may submit the domain to the Yahoo FBL yourself. We recommend that you sign the domain up for the Yahoo 
FBL yourself, as it will boost deliverability success to Yahoo. 
QQ.com (China): Marketing Cloud will register upon request. 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud will register clients for the QQ.com ISP Feedback Loop upon request. Clients must 
have Sender Authentication Package (SAP) as a prerequisite for participation in the QQ.com FBL. 
Please submit a case via support to request that a client be added to the QQ.com FBL. 
The Marketing Cloud Deliverability team will submit the client’s IP address and domain name to the QQ.com 
Whitelist at the same time we register the client with the QQ.com FBL. It is believed that the QQ.com Whitelist 
has little to no effect on improving deliverability, but it is free and easy to register, so we will register it “just in 
case it might help.” 
Netease (China): Client may choose to self-register 
Netease, Inc. (163.com) manages inbound mail for many popular domain names popular in China. These 
include the domain names 126.com, 163.com, 188.com, and yeah.net. Clients who send to subscribers in this 
region are encouraged to register for the Netease FBL. Please visit the Netease FBL website at 
http://chengxin.mail.163.com/​ for more information. 
Netease FBL registration requires submission of copies of a Chinese business license and other 
documentation relating to the client’s business operations in China. This is why Salesforce Marketing Cloud 
representatives are unable to register for this FBL on a client’s behalf. 
 
 
 
 
 
Seznam (Czech Republic): Marketing Cloud will register upon request. 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud will register clients for the Seznam.cz ISP Feedback Loop upon request. Clients 
must have Sender Authentication Package (SAP) as a prerequisite for participation in the this ISP FBL. 
Please submit a case via support to request that a client be added to the Seznam.cz FBL. 
Seznam appears to be the largest local ISP in the Czech Republic, hosting mail for the domains seznam.cz, 
email.cz, post.cz, spoluzaci.cz and others. This ISP feedback loop is domain-based, and keys off of DKIM 
signature, similar to how the Yahoo FBL works. 
Unavailable and Limited Feedback Loops 
Gmail: Not a Feedback Loop 
Google has a mechanism that they call the “Gmail Feedback Loop.” However, it does not work in same 
manner as other ISP feedback loops. It provides aggregate, high-level reputation-related statistics 
relating to a given registered domain name. It provides no mechanism for unsubscribing subscribers 
who complain, nor does it allow a sender to identify specific sends that may be most problematic. 
Clients may choose to register their domain with Gmail Postmaster Tools (the “Gmail Feedback Loop”) 
to see what reputation-related data is available. All marketing emails sent from the Marketing Cloud 
platform to subscribers at gmail.com always automatically include Gmail’s “Feedback-ID” header. The 
header looks like this: 
Feedback-ID: 12345:7890:13.111.0.0:sfmktgcld 
In this example, the first field (12345) is the Marketing Cloud account ID (MID or MemberID) of the 
account the mail was sent from. The second field (7890) is the JobID for this mail. The third field 
(13.111.0.0) is the IP address this mail was sent from. The last field never changes; it will always 
contain “sfmktgcld” to identify that this mail was sent by Salesforce Marketing Cloud. 
This header will show only on messages sent to subscribers whose email address is in the domain 
“gmail.com.” It will not show up for any other recipients for any other domains, even if that domain’s 
email services are hosted by Google. 
Note that Marketing Cloud does not register domains with Gmail Postmaster Tools on a client’s behalf, 
nor do we provide assistance in interpreting reputational data provided by Google. 
Gmail’s Feedback Loop and Gmail Postmaster Tools are out of scope for this documentation. 
United Online (aka Juno / Netzero) (United States) 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is unable to submit domain and IP address information for inclusion into 
this whitelist, because of restrictions regarding mappings between domain names and IP addresses. 
Clients are free to contact the Deliverability Consultant team for information on how to submit their 
sendingIP addresses and domains to this FBL as desired. A client must have Sender Authentication 
Package as a prerequisite. 
 
 
 
 
Earthlink.net and Zoho 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud does not participate in these feedback loops, due to unspecified technical 
issues on the ISP’s end or lack of response from the feedback loop provider or ISP. 
Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) 
Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) ISP Feedback Loop has ceased operating as of October 19, 2017. 
This feedback loop no longer exists. 
Microsoft Junk Mail Reporting Program (JMRP): Covers Consumer (B2C) Mail Only 
Microsoft’s Junk Mail Reporting Program (JMRP) covers Microsoft’s “OLC” (Outlook Consumer) 
domains such as hotmail.com, live.com, msn.com, webtv.net, outlook.com, hotmail.co.uk, live.co.uk, 
hotmail.ca, live.ca and other common global “Hotmail” and “Outlook” domains. It does NOT cover 
corporate email domains hosted by Microsoft’s Office365 or Exchange Online. 
Because of this, spam reports (“this is spam” clicks) from corporate users in domains where their 
mailboxes are hosted by Microsoft will NOT result in a spam report back to Marketing Cloud and we are 
NOT able to automatically unsubscribe complainers via this mechanism. 
Feedback Loop Monitoring using FBL Detective 
Internet service providers do not notify email service providers (ESPs) when removing an IP address, IP 
address range, or domain name from a feedback loop. Thus, it is occasionally possible that a client will “fall off 
of” a given feedback loop without notice. This is rare, but when it happens, it is usually due to a technical issue 
at the ISP. It is not typically due to an issue with the Marketing Cloud platform. 
A client-facing feedback loop monitoring system called FBL Detective is available. There is no charge for this 
monitoring. Clients should request it by submitting a support ticket. The Deliverability Operations Team will set 
up a weekly report that will show the client’s IP addresses and domain names, and provide ISP feedback loop 
counts for those IP addresses and domain names. 
Client should review this monitoring, and if any column shows zero complaints, the client should submit a case 
support to request that Marketing Cloud support investigate and advise. 
Marketing Cloud technical staff also monitor FBLs globally periodically, to identify and fix any sending ranges 
that should be receiving complaints, but do not seem to be receiving complaints. 
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 
How long after the press of “report spam” button does it take for a subscriber’s status to be set to 
“unsubscribed”? 
When a subscriber clicks the “report spam” or “this is spam” button, a notification email (spam complaint) is 
mailed to a special email address managed by the Salesforce Marketing Cloud platform. The Marketing Cloud 
platform processes this complaint and unsubscribes the complaining user. This process typically happens 
within a couple of hours after the report is received, but it can sometimes take up to twenty-four hours to 
ensure that the subscriber’s status is updated. 
 
 
 
 
I thought you said Gmail doesn’t have an FBL, but I see information about one online. Does Google actually 
have an FBL? 
Google has functionality that they call an FBL (feedback loop). Unfortunately, this feedback loop is not like 
other ISP feedback loops. Google does not feed complaints back to us, and thus we are not able to 
unsubscribe Gmail users who complain. 
You may see some unsubscribes of Gmail users that 
have an “unsubscribe reason” of “Unsubscribed by 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud RMM service based on 
subscriber Leave/Reply email.” These are not ISP 
feedback loop complaints. These are unsubscribe 
requests sent by subscribers who have clicked on the 
“Unsubscribe” link in the Gmail user interface. Gmail 
shows this “Unsubscribe” link for senders that include 
a “list unsubscribe” header in messages. The 
Marketing Cloud platform includes the “list 
unsubscribe” header in all messages automatically. 
 
My Yahoo! Mail complaint numbers don’t match. How come? 
If you work with a partner such as Return Path, who may also provide you with ISP complaint statistics, you 
may see Yahoo complaint percentages that are higher than what is being reported via Marketing Cloud. 
Yahoo! Mail does not confirm this, but it is understood by those in the email service provider (ESP) industry 
that Yahoo! Mail’s FBL does not send back 100% of complaints. 
This is not due to a failure or limitation of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud platform. 
Can you confirm which Feedback Loops clients are enrolled in? 
All client sending IP addresses are automatically enrolled in these feedback loops: AOL, Bluetie (Excite), 
Comcast, Cox, Fastmail, Microsoft Hotmail, Italia Online, La Poste, Locaweb, Mail.ru, OpenSRS (Tucows), 
Rackspace (Mailtrust), Synacor, Telenor, Telstra, Terra, UOL (Brazil), USA.net, XS4ALL and Yandex. 
All clients who have Sender Authentication Package (which includes a custom sending domain) are enrolled in 
the Yahoo! Mail Feedback Loop when this functionality is provisioned. 
Clients are submitted to the QQ.com FBL upon request. 
Clients must self-register for the Netease (China) ISP Feedback Loop. 
Clients must self-register for the United Online (Juno / Netzero) Trusted List (feedback loop). 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud does not participate in the Earthlink or Zoho Feedback Loops. 
 
 
 
 
 
Does a client have to request to be submitted to the Mail.ru FBL? 
No. Manual submission of clients to the Mail.ru FBL is no longer required. All clients are now automatically 
signed up for the Mail.ru FBL. 
Return Path requested that we forward all FBL complaints to a special Return Path address. Can we do that? 
No. Our system does not support FBL complaints going anywhere other than back to the Marketing Cloud 
platform for handling. All complaints are logged, and all counts are available in tracking, or via custom 
reporting. Client-facing tracking, or Deliverability Summary reporting (internal) may help identify which sends 
may have had the most elevated complaint rates over a given time period. 
Forwarding of complaints to Return Path is not necessary for troubleshooting ISP deliverability issues, and if 
this is suggested, it perhaps means that the Return Path consultant in question is not very familiar with the 
Marketing Cloud platform. The RP consultant should be encouraged to contact Julia Peavy and/or Matt 
Rausenberger at Return Path, to get a better understanding of what is possible when working with Marketing 
Cloud clients. 
Can ISPs configure a feedback loop feed for a given IP address so that complaints are sent to multiple email 
addresses? 
No. Our personal experience with Microsoft and AOL is that this is not possible. Return Path, who runs many 
other feedback loops, including Comcast, Cox and others, confirmed for us that they have no way to provide 
this specific functionality. 
A client would like to direct copies of all complaints to a specific address. Can we do that? 
No, this is not possible, based on our current system architecture. Clients will have to refer to tracking and 
reporting to denote complaint counts and complainers. 
Sometimes a client will ask if they can “read these complaints” to see if there is any useful commentary 
submitted by the person who complained. ISP feedback loop mechanisms have no way to include 
commentary. Meaning, there is no additional information or personal note that the complainer could have 
included in their complaint. All you can tell from the complaint itself is which email message was complained 
about and that the subscriber clicked on the “this is spam” or “report spam”button. 
How does a client get access to copies of spam complaints? 
Spam complaint data is available in send tracking and reporting inside of the ET Email Studio application in 
Salesforce Marketing Cloud. “Email Performance by Domain” and the “Spam Complaints Over Time” reports 
can help you view spam complaint percentage trends over time. Custom reports may be available. Please 
contact support for assistance. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But we need the actual spam complaints that were sent-- the actual FBL emails. How do we get those? 
Those are not available. Our system receives each complaint, unsubscribes the user and logs the complaint. 
The original email message is not saved. Do note that ISP FBL reports do not contain any personalized note 
from the recipient who reported the message as spam. There is nothing additional to “report” or extract from 
the message body. It contains only the original email message sent to the recipient. 
Sometimes a client will ask if they can “read these complaints” to see if there is any useful commentary 
submitted by the person who complained. ISP feedback loop mechanisms have no way to include 
commentary. Meaning, there is no additional information or personal note that the complainer could have 
included in their complaint. All you can tell from the complaint itself is which email message was complained 
about and that the subscriber clicked on the “this is spam” or “report spam” button. 
Is this document client facing? 
At this time, SFMC Deliverability would request that you don’t post this document to the public internet. 
However, please feel free to provide a PDF copy to any client who has questions regarding ISP feedback 
loops.